A multi-machine adaptive command and control coding terminal and processing method for medium and large unmanned aerial vehicles

Abstract

This invention belongs to the field of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) control, and relates to a multi-aircraft adaptive command and control encoding terminal and processing method for medium and large UAVs. Its hardware includes a chassis, power supply, central processing unit, memory, network interface, etc. Its logical processing includes instruction encoding templates, instruction mapping dictionary, communication channels, framing units, channel scheduling, status detection feedback, and cascading management units. While supporting traditional data encoding, it incorporates adaptive data categories to achieve mutual backup for flight and mission operations, supports fast and convenient off-site control access, realizes multi-aircraft functionality at a single station, provides real-time control data monitoring and feedback, and facilitates communication between encoders.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention belongs to the field of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) control, and relates to a multi-aircraft adaptive command and control coding terminal and processing method for medium and large UAVs. Background Technology

[0002] Ground command and control systems for medium and large-sized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) need to transmit ground information, such as flight control, payload control, voice communication, and link control, to the UAVs in real time. Therefore, this ground information needs to be encoded into a communication format with the UAVs via a ground command and control coding terminal before being transmitted wirelessly. However, with the rapid development of large UAV technology, the traditional one-station-one-UAV command and control mode has gradually evolved into one-station-two-UAV, or even one-station-four-UAV mode. As the number of controlled UAVs increases, the UAV ground command and control station becomes increasingly complex, with a wide variety of control systems. How to coordinate, integrate, and process various types of information, such as flight control and mission control, from different UAVs and different ground stations in a timely manner is an unavoidable problem. Existing UAV ground command coding methods are no longer adequate and urgently need to be changed. Summary of the Invention

[0003] Purpose of the invention

[0004] This invention proposes a command and control coding terminal that supports inter-station cascading of UAVs, addressing the increasingly complex and diverse control systems available for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). This terminal can adapt to data from different operator positions and supports position redundancy to meet flexible control requirements; it supports combined control of airborne equipment, facilitating the integration of other control systems; it supports data frame priority to meet data channel preemption in emergency situations; it supports multiple UAVs from a single station, allowing one ground station to simultaneously control multiple medium-to-large-sized UAVs; it supports fault and conflict detection, real-time monitoring of various data and status feedback; and it supports device cascading.

[0005] Technical solution

[0006] This invention supports traditional data encoding while incorporating adaptive data categories to achieve mutual backup for flight and mission operations, supports fast and convenient off-site control access, enables multi-machine functionality at one station, provides real-time control data monitoring and feedback, and facilitates communication between encoders.

[0007] A multi-aircraft adaptive command and control coding terminal for medium-to-large-sized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) includes hardware such as a chassis, power supply, central processing unit (CPU), memory, and network interface. The power supply, CPU, and memory are installed within the chassis and interact with the outside world through the network interface. Its logical processing includes instruction encoding templates, an instruction mapping dictionary, communication channels, framing units, channel scheduling, status detection feedback, and a cascading management unit. Figure 1 The specific descriptions of each logic processing unit are as follows:

[0008] The command encoding template stores the uplink remote control frame structure information transmitted to the data link, including parameters such as synchronization flags, header information, voice data, mission data, flight control data, link data, and data start bits and data length. It can be defined externally and then imported into the terminal. Upon startup, the terminal loads the command encoding template to form the uplink remote control frame format, preparing for data processing by the framing unit.

[0009] The instruction mapping dictionary stores various task instruction IDs and detailed information, and is also imported into the encoder after being defined externally. With the help of the instruction mapping dictionary, external systems can control devices simply by using the instruction ID, shielding the specific instruction information and ensuring system security. The terminal loads the instruction mapping dictionary file at startup, caches basic instruction information, and forms an instruction hash mapping table for external use, facilitating control access from external control systems.

[0010] A communication channel is a network channel used to communicate with a data link and transmit uplink remote control frames. Different channels transmit different aircraft or link information.

[0011] The framing unit encodes the received flight data, mission data, voice data, link data, etc., into the corresponding uplink remote control frame.

[0012] Channel scheduling is used to set the control aircraft information for the current channel and to perform tasks such as aircraft switching.

[0013] Status detection feedback is a process in which the terminal monitors the status of data frames at the operating position during operation, and combines this with the validity of received control frames and count statistics within a period to determine the status of specific operating positions and data frames, including various situations such as low frequency, over frequency, or abnormality of data frames, and reports them to the relevant systems of the ground station in the form of feedback frames.

[0014] The cascading management unit is used for the coordinated operation of cascading encoding terminals. When a command and control encoding terminal receives an uplink remote control data frame from another ground station terminal, if its priority is higher than that of the current device, it forwards the data from that device; otherwise, it continues to send uplink remote control data. Figure 3 .

[0015] Furthermore, the instruction encoding template and instruction mapping dictionary are stored in the storage medium as files. The communication channel is managed by the channel control unit of the communication link.

[0016] Furthermore, the framing unit receives flight data, mission data, link data, voice data, etc. from the ground station and defines the framing according to the instruction encoding template.

[0017] Furthermore, the status detection feedback is to send feedback to the sender based on the status of various types of received data, thus informing the sender of the data status.

[0018] Furthermore, the command and control encoding terminals are interconnected through a cascading management unit to support the cascading transmission of commands between encoding terminals in different locations.

[0019] Furthermore, a multi-aircraft adaptive command and control coding method for medium-to-large-sized unmanned aerial vehicles includes the following:

[0020] 1) After the terminal powers on, it first locates and loads the instruction encoding template file, which defines the structure information of the uplink remote control frame.

[0021] 2) The terminal generates uplink remote control frames exactly according to the uplink remote control frame format defined in the template file, and sends these uplink remote control frames to the link device at a specific period. Received flight control data, mission data, etc., will be filled into the specified positions in the template. The template file can be defined externally and then imported into the encoding terminal.

[0022] 3) Load the instruction mapping dictionary file, cache basic instruction information, and form an instruction hash mapping table for external use, as shown in Table 1, providing support for external control system access. The instruction mapping dictionary file contains various instruction IDs and detailed information, which are also imported into the encoder after being defined externally. By using the instruction mapping dictionary, external systems can only use the instruction ID, thus shielding them from specific instruction information and ensuring information security.

[0023] 4) When flight data frames, mission data frames, voice data frames, and link data frames from the ground station arrive at the encoding terminal via the network, the terminal first performs a data validity check. If the data fails the check, it is discarded. If the data passes the check, the terminal extracts the flag and determines whether the contained UAV information exists. If the data does not exist, the UAV list is updated.

[0024] 5) While receiving data frames in real time, data frame verification and identification are also performed. The status of the operating position and control frame is monitored. Combined with the validity of the received control frames and the count statistics within the period, the working status of a specific operating position is determined. The status of data frames related to flight and mission is monitored, including various situations such as low frequency, over frequency or abnormality of data frames, as shown in Table 2. The data frames are reported to the relevant systems of the ground station in the form of feedback frames and reported in red, orange, yellow, green and gray.

[0025] The content of the data frame that matches the identifier is extracted and encoded into the specified position in the uplink remote control frame according to the encoding template, so as to realize the data encoding of a specific aircraft.

[0026] 6) When receiving data frames from outside the station, check and determine the flight information they contain. For correct data frames, extract the command ID, look up the command mapping dictionary, obtain the corresponding specific command information, and encode it into the uplink remote control frame. Any external control system that needs to access the ground station system uses the command ID as the external interface for data communication.

[0027] 7) Establish multiple data channels as needed, accept channel manager control and scheduling. The uplink command frames of each aircraft are in the channel. The channel is interconnected with the data link. With the support of high-precision timers, the uplink remote control frames are sent to the corresponding data link in real time, and then sent to the UAV by the data link.

[0028] Furthermore, the structural information in 1) includes synchronization flags, header information, voice data, mission data, flight control data, link data, etc., all of which have data start bit, data length and other parameter information defined in the template.

[0029] Furthermore, in step 4), if adaptive matching of the UAV is completed, the extracted flags include important basic information such as operator position flags, control frame flags, station flags, and control aircraft flags.

[0030] Furthermore, the data frame content in 5) includes voice data, mission data, and aircraft data.

[0031] Furthermore, the encoding terminal also has the following capabilities:

[0032] Furthermore, by incorporating priority flags in flight and mission data frames, the encoder can preempt or take over data in emergencies. When an operator experiences an anomaly that could seriously affect flight safety, the backup flight or mission control system can forcibly take over using a high-priority flag. The corresponding control frame contains the high-priority flag, and the command and control encoding terminal will encode data using the high-priority flag, discarding other similar data, thus achieving preemption or takeover of control in emergencies.

[0033] Furthermore, the cascading management unit is used for the coordinated operation of cascading coding terminals. When a command and control coding terminal receives an uplink remote control data frame from another ground station's command and control coding terminal, if its priority identifier is higher than its own, it forwards the data from that device; if its priority is lower, it continues to send its own uplink remote control data. Figure 3 .

[0034] Technical Effects

[0035] It supports multiple operator seats and real-time mutual backup between seats, supports multiple flight control, mission control, link control and voice data systems, and supports real-time dynamic control system hot standby.

[0036] It supports external security control access, which simplifies the access to external control systems while hiding critical control information and ensuring information security.

[0037] By introducing instruction encoding templates, the encoding logic and device are decoupled, thereby supporting multiple encoding formats more flexibly and quickly, ensuring the proprietary nature of the data format while also enabling rapid customization of the encoding format;

[0038] Introduces data frame priority checking and judgment to support data and channel preemption in emergency situations;

[0039] It supports encoding multiple UAV control data from a single ground station, providing basic support for one station with multiple UAVs;

[0040] Supports fault and conflict detection, real-time monitoring of control data and status feedback. Monitors the operational status of the monitoring station, including flight control, mission control, and link control.

[0041] Supports rapid communication between devices. Integrates encoding requirements from different locations; the encoded data of one command and control encoding terminal can be transmitted over the network to other command and control encoding terminals, which can then frame and forward the data, achieving cascaded data transmission between terminals.

[0042] The encoding terminal has flexible data communication channel expansion capabilities;

[0043] By introducing a command mapping dictionary, external access is achieved by simply using command identifiers, thereby hiding the specific information of the drone control commands. Attached Figure Description

[0044] Figure 1 This is a schematic diagram illustrating the interaction between the control and encoding terminal and external systems.

[0045] Figure 2 This is a schematic diagram of the workflow of the multi-machine adaptive command and control coding method;

[0046] Figure 3 This is a schematic diagram of cascaded communication between command and control coded terminals. Detailed Implementation

[0047] To make the objectives, technical solutions, and advantages of this invention clearer, the technical solutions in the embodiments of this invention will be described in more detail below. In the examples, the same or similar reference numerals denote the same or similar components or elements having the same or similar functions throughout. The described embodiments are some, but not all, of the embodiments of this invention. The embodiments described below with reference to reference are exemplary and intended to explain this invention, and should not be construed as limiting the invention. All other embodiments obtained by those skilled in the art based on the embodiments of this invention without creative effort are within the scope of protection of this invention. The embodiments of this invention will be described in detail below.

[0048] An implementation method for a command and control coding terminal that supports inter-UAV ground station cascading is as follows:

[0049] The instruction encoding template file is loaded, and uplink remote control frames in the corresponding format are generated according to the template definition. These frames are transmitted in the data channel. The instruction encoding template file mainly defines various information of the uplink remote control frames, such as synchronization flags, frame identifiers, flight control data, and mission data. The encoder encodes according to this definition and periodically sends these uplink remote control frames to the link devices. The template file is defined externally and then imported into the encoder.

[0050] The instruction mapping dictionary file is loaded, and basic instruction information is cached to form an instruction hash mapping table for external use, enabling control access from external control systems. The instruction mapping dictionary file contains various task instruction IDs and detailed information, which are also imported into the encoder after being defined externally. By using the instruction mapping dictionary, external systems can only use the instruction IDs, thus shielding them from specific instruction information and ensuring information security.

[0051] The relevant objects are started, including: high-precision timer startup, relevant network communication interface startup, and communication channel startup.

[0052] Based on the data frames received from the flight and mission control systems at the ground station, important basic information such as operator position identifiers, control frame identifiers, station identifiers, and control aircraft identifiers are extracted. The data frame content matching these identifiers, such as voice data, mission data, and aircraft data, is then extracted and integrated into the corresponding positions in the uplink remote control frame to achieve the encoding of control commands for a specific aircraft. For example... Figure 2 As shown.

[0053] Upon receiving external control data frames, the system extracts and checks the corresponding flight information. For correct data frames, it extracts the command ID, looks up the command mapping table, obtains the corresponding specific command information, and encodes it into the uplink remote control frame. Any external control system that needs to access the ground station system uses this command ID as the external interface for data communication.

[0054] Multiple data channels are established as needed, and network control scheduling is accepted by the channel manager. Uplink command frames from each aircraft reside within a channel. The channels are interconnected with data links, which extract channel data in real time and send it to the corresponding UAV. Upon receiving the data, the UAV executes the matching control command frame.

[0055] While receiving control frames from the operator's console in real time, the system also performs data frame verification and identification, maintains monitoring of the operator's console and control frame status, and combines the validity of received control frames and count statistics within the cycle to determine the working status of a specific operator's console. It also monitors the status of data frames related to flight and mission, including various situations such as low frequency, overfrequency, or abnormal data frames, and reports them to the relevant ground station systems in the form of feedback frames, using red, orange, yellow, green, and gray.

[0056] By incorporating priority flags into flight and mission data frames, the encoder can preempt or take over data in emergencies. When an operator experiences an anomaly that could seriously affect flight safety, the backup flight or mission control system can forcibly take over using a high-priority flag. The corresponding control frame contains the high-priority flag, and the command and control encoding terminal will encode data using the high-priority flag, discarding other similar data, thus achieving preemption or takeover of control in emergencies.

[0057] When the command and control coding terminal receives an uplink remote control data frame from another ground station's command and control coding terminal, if its priority identifier is higher than that of this device, it forwards the data from that device; if its priority is lower, it continues to send uplink remote control data for this device.

[0058] This technical solution has the following characteristics:

[0059] It adapts to different operator position data and supports position backup to meet flexible control requirements. It is not limited by the number of positions and supports flexible switching between aircraft and control systems.

[0060] Secure and convenient integration with other control systems. Control integration with other ground station equipment, such as SAR equipment.

[0061] Implement data frame priority support to enable the preemption or takeover of critical control data in emergency situations;

[0062] It supports one-station multi-drone data encoding, enabling a single ground station to simultaneously encode flight and mission control data from multiple medium-to-large-sized UAVs.

[0063] It supports fault and conflict detection, monitors various data in real time and provides status feedback. It monitors the operational status of the monitoring station and makes judgments, monitoring flight and mission control status, including various situations such as low frequency, overfrequency, or abnormal data frames.

[0064] It enables device cascading, allowing multiple devices to exchange data and facilitating communication between ground stations. It also enables data delivery between remote, long-distance control stations via network.

[0065] Considering that communication between the ground station and the UAV requires the assistance of multiple channels, each channel is scheduled by a channel control unit, which assigns flight information to that channel. This allows for the specific allocation of communication channels, aircraft information, and control information between the ground station and the UAV based on the available communication channels. Furthermore, the encoder device also possesses channel expansion capabilities.

[0066] Introducing instruction encoding templates allows for rapid and flexible redefinition of encoding frame formats as needed, enabling support for uplink data formats on different aircraft types while ensuring data format exclusivity and facilitating rapid customization.

[0067] By introducing an instruction mapping dictionary, critical basic information of important instructions is hidden and made available to external systems through mapping, thus ensuring information security.

[0068] It adopts high-precision real-time dynamic encoding, with clock accuracy in the range of + / -1ms.

[0069] Data communication with dual network redundancy.

[0070] It supports the encoding and transmission of control data, text, voice, and image data.

[0071] Table 1. Instruction Mapping Dictionary File Style

[0072] Command ID Command Name equipment Code 1 Code 2 Code 3 Code 4 Remark 10081 SAR power-on 0x11 0x90 0x0C 0x0C 0 10082 SAR power off 0x11 0x91 0x1A 0x1A 0 … 10110 SAR self-test 0x11 0xC1 0x13 0x13 0

[0073] Table 2 Examples of encoder alarm states

[0074]

[0075] Furthermore, unless otherwise defined, the technical or scientific terms used in this application description shall have the ordinary meaning understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this application pertains. The terms "upper," "lower," "left," "right," "center," "vertical," "horizontal," "inner," and "outer," etc., used in this application description to indicate relative direction or positional relationship are used only to indicate relative orientation or positional relationship, and do not imply that the device or component must have a specific orientation, or be constructed and operated in a specific orientation. When the absolute position of the described object changes, its relative positional relationship may also change accordingly, and therefore should not be construed as a limitation on this application. The terms "first," "second," "third," and similar terms used in this application description are used only for descriptive purposes to distinguish different components, and should not be construed as indicating or implying relative importance. The terms "a," "one," or "the," etc., used in this application description should not be construed as an absolute limitation on quantity, but should be construed as indicating the existence of at least one. The terms "including," "comprising," etc., used in this application description mean that the element or object preceding the word covers the element or object listed after the word and its equivalents, without excluding other elements or objects.

[0076] Furthermore, it should be noted that, unless otherwise explicitly specified and limited, terms such as “installation,” “connection,” and “linkage” used in the description of this application should be interpreted broadly. For example, a connection can be a fixed connection, a detachable connection, or an integral connection; it can be a mechanical connection or an electrical connection; it can be a direct connection or an indirect connection through an intermediate medium; or it can be a connection within two components. Those skilled in the art can understand its specific meaning in this application according to the specific circumstances.

[0077] The above description is merely a specific embodiment of the present invention and is not intended to limit the present invention. Within the spirit and principles of the present invention, any person skilled in the art may use the above-disclosed technical content to make changes or modifications to equivalent embodiments and apply them to other fields. However, any simple modifications, equivalent changes and modifications made to the above embodiments based on the technical essence of the present invention without departing from the content of the technical solution of the present invention, as well as any modifications, equivalent substitutions, improvements, etc., should be included within the protection scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. A multi-aircraft adaptive command and control coding terminal for medium and large unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), characterized in that, Its hardware includes a chassis, power supply, central processing unit, memory, and network interface; The power supply, central processing unit, and memory are installed inside the chassis and interact with the outside world through a network interface. Its logical processing includes instruction encoding template, instruction mapping dictionary, communication channel, framing unit, channel scheduling, status detection feedback and cascading management unit. The instruction encoding template stores the uplink remote control frame structure information transmitted to the data link, including synchronization flags, header information, voice data, mission data, flight control data, link data start bit, and data length parameter information; it can be defined externally and then imported into the terminal; the terminal loads the instruction encoding template at startup to form the uplink remote control frame format, ready to receive data processing from the framing unit; the instruction mapping dictionary stores various mission instruction IDs and detailed information, which are also defined externally and then imported into the encoder; With the help of the instruction mapping dictionary, external systems can control devices simply by using instruction IDs, shielding specific instruction information and ensuring system security; the terminal loads the instruction mapping dictionary file at startup, caches basic instruction information, and forms an instruction hash mapping table for external use, which is used for external control system access. The communication channel is a network channel used to communicate with the data link to transmit uplink remote control frames. Different channels transmit different aircraft or link information. The framing unit encodes the received flight data, mission data, voice data, and link data into the corresponding uplink remote control frames. Channel scheduling is used to set the control aircraft information for the current channel and perform aircraft switching operations; status detection feedback is the terminal's monitoring of the status of data frames at the operator's position during operation. Combined with the validity of the received control frames and the count statistics within the period, it determines the status of specific operator positions and data frames, including various situations such as low frequency, over frequency, or abnormal data frames, and reports them to the relevant systems of the ground station in the form of feedback frames. The cascading management unit is used for the cascading and collaborative work of the coding terminals. When the command and control coding terminal receives an uplink remote control data frame sent by another ground station terminal, if its priority identifier is higher than that of this device, it forwards the data from that device. If its priority is low, continue sending uplink remote control data from this device.

2. The terminal as described in claim 1, characterized in that, The instruction encoding template and instruction mapping dictionary are stored in the storage medium as files; The communication channel is managed by the channel control unit of the communication link; the framing unit receives flight data, mission data, link data, and voice data from the ground station and frames them according to the instruction encoding template.

3. The terminal as described in claim 1, characterized in that, Status detection feedback is to send feedback to the sender based on the status of various types of received data, thus informing the sender of the data status.

4. The terminal as described in claim 1, characterized in that, The command and control encoding terminals are interconnected through a cascaded management unit to support the cascaded transmission of commands between encoding terminals in different locations.

5. A multi-aircraft adaptive command and control coding method for medium and large-sized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), characterized in that, Including the following: 1) After the terminal powers on, it first locates and loads the instruction encoding template file, which defines the structure information of the uplink remote control frame. 2) The terminal generates uplink remote control frames in complete correspondence with the uplink remote control frame format defined in the template file, and sends these uplink remote control frames to the link device at a specific period; the received flight control data and mission data will be filled into the specified positions in the template; the template file can be defined externally and then imported into the encoding terminal; 3) Load the instruction mapping dictionary file, cache basic instruction information, and form an instruction hash mapping table for external use, providing support for external control system access; the instruction mapping dictionary file contains various instruction IDs and detailed information, which are also imported into the encoder after being defined externally; By using an instruction mapping dictionary, external systems can only use the instruction ID, thus shielding them from specific instruction information and ensuring information security. 4) When the flight data frames, mission data frames, voice data frames, and link data frames from the ground station arrive at the encoding terminal through the network, the terminal first performs a data validity check. If the data fails the check, it is discarded. If the data passes the check, the terminal extracts the flag and determines whether the contained UAV information exists. If the data does not exist, the UAV list is updated. 5) While receiving data frames in real time, data frames are also verified and identified. The status of the operating position and control frame is monitored. Combined with the validity of the received control frames and the count statistics within the period, the working status of a specific operating position is determined. The status of flight and mission-related data frames is monitored, including low frequency, over frequency or abnormal conditions of data frames. The data frames are reported to the relevant systems of the ground station in the form of feedback frames and reported in red, orange, yellow, green and gray. The content of the data frame that matches the identifier is extracted and encoded into the specified position in the uplink remote control frame according to the encoding template, so as to realize the data encoding of a specific aircraft. 6) When receiving data frames from outside the station, check and determine the flight information contained therein, extract the command ID from the correct data frame, look up the command mapping dictionary, obtain the corresponding specific command information and encode it into the uplink remote control frame; any external control system that needs to access the ground station system uses the command ID as the external interface for data communication. 7) Establish multiple data channels as needed, accept channel manager control and scheduling. The uplink command frames of each aircraft are in the channel. The channel is interconnected with the data link. With the support of high-precision timers, the uplink remote control frames are sent to the corresponding data link in real time, and then sent to the UAV by the data link.

6. The method as described in claim 5, characterized in that, The structural information in 1) includes synchronization flags, header information, voice data, mission data, flight control data, and link data. The template defines the data start bit and data length parameter information.

7. The method as described in claim 5, characterized in that, 4) If there is a completed UAV adaptive matching, the extracted flags include important basic information such as operator seat flag, control frame flag, station flag, and control aircraft flag.

8. The method as described in claim 5, characterized in that, By using priority flags in flight and mission data frames, the encoder can preempt or take over data in emergencies. When an operator station malfunctions, which can seriously affect flight safety, the backup flight or mission control system can forcibly take over using a high-priority flag. The corresponding control frame contains the high-priority flag, and the command and control encoding terminal will use the data with the high-priority flag for encoding, discarding other similar data, thus achieving preemption or takeover of control in emergencies.

9. The method as described in claim 5, characterized in that, The cascading management unit is used for the cascading and collaborative operation of coding terminals; when the command and control coding terminal receives an uplink remote control data frame sent by the command and control coding terminal of another ground station, if its priority identifier is higher than that of this device, it forwards the data of that device. If its priority is low, continue sending uplink remote control data from this device.

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