A Ground Station Software Architecture Based on Heterogeneous UAV Clusters

Abstract

This invention provides a ground station software architecture based on heterogeneous UAV swarms, comprising: one decision console and multiple control consoles; the decision console dynamically adjusts the control console position of each UAV based on the number of UAVs and the number of control consoles, and determines the UDP multicast communication channel number of each UAV; the control consoles are equipped with swarm data processing software, swarm control software, and swarm planning software. This invention comprehensively considers the characteristics of multiple UAV types and large batches, changing the mode of UAV control by ground station software through distributed dynamic control, achieving rapid control and rapid switching, making UAV control more flexible; it simplifies the development and deployment of application software, while improving the maintainability of application software and reducing development costs. It is beneficial not only to the research and maintenance of ground station software, but also to the operation of operators.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention belongs to the field of software architecture technology in the field of UAV ground station control, specifically relating to a ground station software architecture based on heterogeneous UAV swarms. Background Technology

[0002] A UAV ground station, also known as a command and control station or mission planning station, is the "brain" and "nerve center" of a UAV system. It is an integrated system located on the ground (or on a ship or vehicle) that allows operators to monitor, control, plan missions, and manage data for the UAV beyond visual range. The ground station software plays a crucial role in controlling the UAV to take off, execute missions, and land. Based on operator instructions, the ground station software transmits ground station data to the UAV via air-to-ground links. Simultaneously, UAV data is transmitted to the ground station application software via air-to-ground links, displaying command execution results and real-time UAV status.

[0003] With the rapid development of drone technology, a full spectrum of drones has emerged, ranging from low-cost small drones to high-altitude long-endurance strategic drones. Among them, heterogeneous drone swarms, as a specialized branch, have gradually gained attention in recent years. Drone swarms do not simply refer to multiple drones flying simultaneously, but rather a large number of low-cost, simple-function drones connected through advanced communication networks and intelligent algorithms to form a single system with high autonomy, collaboration, and overall intelligence.

[0004] Traditional ground station software is designed for controlling single drones and is limited by fixed control positions, making it difficult to meet the collaborative control needs of large swarms of heterogeneous drones. This necessitates that swarm ground station software break away from traditional software architectures and be redesigned based on the technical characteristics and application scenarios of heterogeneous drone swarms. Summary of the Invention

[0005] This invention provides a ground station software architecture based on heterogeneous UAV swarms. By designing software components, data structures and exchange standards, distributed dynamic control, auxiliary decision-making, and batch software deployment, it achieves the goal of enabling the swarm of heterogeneous UAVs to complete flight missions in an orderly, rapid, and efficient manner through ground station software control, and improves the software development efficiency for expanding to new UAV models.

[0006] The first aspect of this invention provides a ground station software architecture based on a heterogeneous unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) cluster, comprising: one decision-making seat and multiple control seats; The decision-making seat is used to dynamically adjust the control seat of the drone based on the number of drones and the number of control seats, and to determine the UDP multicast communication channel number of each drone. The control panel is equipped with cluster data processing software, cluster control software, and cluster planning software. The cluster control software and cluster planning software are used to generate control commands for the UAV and send the control commands to the cluster data processing software through the corresponding UDP multicast communication channel number of the UAV. The cluster data processing software is used to organize the control commands into uplink remote control data and send it to the UAV through the air-to-ground link device. The cluster data processing software is also used to parse the downlink telemetry data received from the UAV through the air-to-ground link device, send the parsed data to the cluster control software and cluster planning software through the corresponding UDP multicast communication channel number of the UAV for display, and further send it to the decision-making console.

[0007] Optionally, the cluster control software is also used for cluster flight control and monitoring, and the cluster planning software is used for cluster route planning and load control.

[0008] Optionally, control commands include: control commands generated by cluster control software and route task commands generated by cluster planning software.

[0009] Optionally, for uplink remote control data, the communication protocol between the ground station and the UAV is consistent with the communication protocol between the ground station software, adopting a binary protocol and transmitting it in the form of a binary byte stream; For downlink telemetry data, the communication protocol between the ground station and the UAV adopts a binary protocol, and the software between the ground stations adopts a dictionary serialization protocol to achieve one decoder for multiple uses.

[0010] Optionally, the decision-making console is equipped with decision-making support software to display the data traffic of each UDP multicast communication channel number in real time; It is also used to continuously monitor the position of each drone during takeoff, flight, and landing, calculate the distance to other nearby drones in real time, issue different levels of warnings based on distance or time, and cancel the warning when the collision risk is eliminated.

[0011] Optionally, the decision-making panel also includes tools for batch software deployment; The software batch deployment tool is specifically used to select the control panel and software to be deployed during runtime. First, it backs up the software of the corresponding control panel. If problems occur during the upgrade, it can be rolled back. After the backup, the software can be upgraded again.

[0012] Optionally, the maximum number of drones that can be controlled by each control station is 16.

[0013] The second aspect of the present invention provides a method for managing a drone swarm, which adopts a ground station software architecture based on a heterogeneous drone swarm as described in any one of the first aspects.

[0014] This invention provides a ground station software architecture based on heterogeneous UAV swarms. Taking into account the characteristics of multiple UAV models and large-scale operations, it changes the way ground station software controls UAVs through distributed dynamic control, achieving rapid control and switching, making UAV control more flexible. By defining a unified data structure, it reduces differences between UAV models, ensuring a highly consistent user interface. This not only reduces software development pressure but also lowers the barrier for operators to operate across different UAV models. Assisted decision-making provides strong ground support for the safe and reliable flight of UAV swarms, improving decision accuracy and reducing operator error. Batch software deployment reduces manpower consumption for software maintenance, alleviating maintenance pressure and providing better support for the rapid deployment and upgrade of ground stations. This architecture supports cross-UAV platforms, improving reusability and reducing the time costs and risks associated with upgrading or adding UAV platforms. It simplifies application software development and deployment, while improving application software maintainability and reducing development costs. It benefits not only the development and maintenance of ground station software but also the operation and use by operators. Attached Figure Description

[0015] To more clearly illustrate the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention or the prior art, the drawings used in the description of the embodiments or the prior art will be briefly introduced below. The drawings described below are only some embodiments of the present invention. For those skilled in the art, other drawings can be obtained based on these drawings without creative effort.

[0016] Figure 1 A block diagram of the software components of the cluster ground station; Figure 2 Define a graph for the data structure; Figure 3 This is a distributed topology diagram of the cluster's ground stations; Figure 4 Cross-connection diagram to aid decision-making; Figure 5 This is a diagram illustrating the batch deployment of software. Detailed Implementation

[0017] To make the objectives, technical solutions, and advantages of the embodiments of the present invention clearer, the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. Obviously, the described embodiments are only some embodiments of the present invention, not all embodiments. Based on the embodiments of the present invention, all other embodiments obtained by those skilled in the art without creative effort are within the scope of protection of the present invention.

[0018] The features and illustrative embodiments of various aspects of the present invention will now be described in detail. Numerous specific details are set forth in the following detailed description to provide a thorough understanding of the invention. However, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the invention may be practiced without requiring some of these specific details. The following description of embodiments is merely intended to provide a better understanding of the invention by illustrating examples of the invention. The invention is by no means limited to any specific setups and methods set forth below, but covers any improvements, substitutions, and modifications to structures, methods, and devices without departing from the spirit of the invention. Well-known structures and techniques are not shown in the drawings and the following description to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the invention.

[0019] In the description of this invention, it should be noted that the directions or positional relationships indicated by terms such as "center," "upper," "lower," "left," "right," "vertical," "horizontal," "inner," and "outer" are based on the directions or positional relationships shown in the accompanying drawings and are only for the convenience of describing and simplifying the invention, and should not be construed as limiting the invention. Furthermore, the use of ordinal numbers (e.g., "first and second," etc.) is for distinguishing objects and is not limited to this order, and should not be construed as indicating or implying relative importance.

[0020] In the description of this invention, it should be noted that, unless otherwise explicitly specified and limited, the terms "installation," "connection," and "linking" should be interpreted broadly, encompassing both direct connection and indirect connection via an intermediate medium. Those skilled in the art can understand the specific meaning of these terms in this invention based on the specific circumstances.

[0021] It should be noted that, unless otherwise specified, the embodiments of the present invention and the features thereof can be combined with each other, and the various embodiments can be referenced and cited in each other. The present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings and embodiments.

[0022] The present invention will be further described in detail below with reference to the embodiments and accompanying drawings, but the embodiments of the present invention are not limited thereto.

[0023] Specifically, such as Figure 1-5 As shown, this invention proposes a ground station software architecture based on heterogeneous UAV swarms, including designing software components, data structures and exchange standards, distributed dynamic control, decision support, and batch software deployment; The software composition defines the basic division of the entire site software, including cluster control software, cluster planning software, cluster data processing software, decision support software, and software batch deployment tools. The cluster control software has cluster flight control and monitoring functions, controlling UAVs to execute operational commands and displaying telemetry data in real time. The cluster planning software has cluster route planning and payload control functions, enabling the cluster to fly and perform tasks according to preset routes. The cluster data processing software is responsible for organizing in-site control commands into uplink remote control data and sending it to the air-to-ground link equipment, while simultaneously parsing downlink telemetry data received from the air-to-ground link equipment and sending it to other software within the site for display. The decision support software is responsible for UAV control allocation, UAV collision warning, data channel allocation, and traffic monitoring, assisting operators in making or adjusting control decisions. The software batch deployment tools have batch deployment capabilities, enabling rapid software backup and upgrades.

[0024] The data structure and exchange standard define the air-to-ground communication protocol between the ground station and the UAV, as well as the communication protocol between the ground station software. For uplink remote control data, the communication protocol between the ground station and the UAV and the communication protocol between the ground station software are consistent, using a binary protocol and transmitting data in the form of binary byte streams. For downlink telemetry data, the communication protocol between the ground station and the UAV uses a binary protocol, while the communication between the ground station software uses a dictionary serialization protocol to achieve one decoder for multiple uses. Distributed dynamic control defines the operational state of the ground station software. The cluster control software, cluster planning software, and cluster data processing software constitute the control panel. The number of UAVs controlled by the control panel has an upper limit, but the number of control panels is not limited in principle and is dynamically adjusted according to the number of UAVs in the swarm. The auxiliary decision-making software and software batch deployment tools constitute the decision panel, with one decision panel. The control panel for each UAV and the data transmission channels for remote control and telemetry within the station are dynamically adjusted based on the number of UAVs and control panels. The decision panel and control panel together achieve distributed dynamic control of the UAV swarm, effectively achieving load balancing and improving the robustness of the ground station control system. The decision support function provides a basis for operators to make decisions. Since the number of drones and control stations is not fixed, it displays the number of drones and control stations in real time and supports dynamic adjustment of the drones controlled by the control stations. The maximum number of drones controlled by a control station is 16. It supports setting up remote control and telemetry data transmission channels for the control station's software, provides data traffic monitoring, provides a reference for data transmission channel configuration, reduces data transmission pressure, and reduces the performance consumption of data parsing by the software in the station. It provides collision warnings throughout the drone's flight process, prompting operators to adjust the drone's flight attitude in a timely manner. Batch software deployment defines the function of batch software upgrades. With a large number of control stations in the cluster and a large amount of software deployed, the batch software deployment tool can be run on the decision-making station to complete the software backup and upgrade for all control stations, improving the efficiency of software upgrades and avoiding problems such as missed upgrades and incorrect upgrades.

[0025] In a specific embodiment, the present invention provides a ground station software architecture based on heterogeneous UAV clusters, which specifically includes the following design: software composition, data structure and exchange standards, distributed dynamic control, decision support, and batch software deployment.

[0026] See Figure 1 As shown, the cluster ground station software consists of decision support software, cluster control software, cluster planning software, cluster data processing software, and software batch deployment tools.

[0027] The decision support software is responsible for allocating drone control authority, allocating data channels and monitoring traffic, and providing drone collision warnings, assisting operators in making or adjusting control decisions. Drone control authority allocation determines the number of drones each control station can control; it can be one drone per station or multiple drones per station. For example, each control station can control a maximum of 16 drones. Data channel allocation determines the UDP multicast communication channel number for remote control and telemetry data between the cluster data processing software and other software within each control station. Different control stations are configured with different channel numbers. Data traffic monitoring displays the data traffic of each channel in real time, continuously maintaining performance monitoring and traffic warnings. Drone collision warnings continuously monitor the position of each drone throughout its takeoff, flight, and landing, calculate the distance to other nearby drones in real time, and issue different levels of warnings based on distance or time. Warnings are canceled when the collision risk is eliminated.

[0028] The cluster control software has swarm flight control and monitoring functions, and consists of two parts: cluster control and individual drone control. The cluster control part displays the status of the drones controlled by the controller in a simplified manner. Selecting one drone will display its full status in the individual drone control part and execute operation commands.

[0029] The cluster planning software has cluster route planning and payload control functions, supports batch creation of routes and tasks, and batch loading and injection of them into the corresponding UAVs; it displays the UAV positions on the map in real time, and uses different UAV symbols to represent UAVs controlled by the control room, UAVs with collision warnings, and other UAVs.

[0030] The cluster data processing software is responsible for organizing the control commands sent by the cluster control software at its control station and the route mission commands sent by the cluster planning software into uplink remote control data and sending it to the air-to-ground link equipment. At the same time, it parses the downlink telemetry data received from the air-to-ground link equipment and sends it to the cluster control software, cluster planning software, and auxiliary decision-making software to display the corresponding functions.

[0031] The software batch deployment tool has the function of batch deploying software. It is deployed on the decision console. When running, you can select the control console and software to be deployed. First, the software of the corresponding control console is backed up. If problems occur during the upgrade, it can be rolled back. After the backup, the software can be upgraded.

[0032] See Figure 2 As shown, the data structure and exchange standard define the air-to-ground communication protocol between the ground station and the UAV, and the communication data structure between the ground station software.

[0033] For uplink remote control data, the control commands from the trunking control software and the flight path task commands from the trunking planning software are sent to the trunking data processing software at the corresponding seat. The data uses a remote control binary data structure and communicates via UDP multicast. The trunking data processing software then sends the uplink remote control data to the air-to-ground link equipment.

[0034] For downlink telemetry data, the cluster data processing software receives telemetry data sent by the air-to-ground link device, using a telemetry binary data structure. The cluster data processing software parses the telemetry data, converts it into a telemetry dictionary data structure, serializes it, and sends it to the cluster control software, cluster planning software, and decision support software via UDP. These software programs receive the serialized telemetry data, deserialize it to obtain the telemetry dictionary data, and then extract the corresponding data as needed.

[0035] See Figure 3 As shown, the cluster ground station consists of one decision-making seat and multiple control seats, with the number of control seats dynamically changing according to actual needs. The decision-making seat, control seats, and air-to-ground link devices are connected to the same switch, forming a distributed network for the cluster ground station. The decision-making seat deploys auxiliary decision-making software and software batch deployment tools, while the control seats deploy cluster control software, cluster planning software, and cluster data processing software. The auxiliary decision-making software allocates the drones controlled by each control seat, with a maximum of 16 drones per control seat. However, the number of control seats is not limited in principle and is dynamically adjusted according to the number of drones in the swarm. Based on the allocation of drone control rights, the auxiliary decision-making software sets up UDP transmission channels for remote control and telemetry data within each control seat, ensuring that the cluster data processing software only communicates with the cluster control and cluster planning software of its own seat.

[0036] When needed for missions or emergency response, the control of the UAV can be transferred to other control stations to achieve distributed dynamic control of the UAV swarm, effectively achieve load balancing, and improve the robustness of the ground station control system.

[0037] See Figure 4As shown, the input data for the decision-making desk is telemetry data sent by the cluster data processing software of each control desk, and the output data is messages sent by the auxiliary decision-making software to each control desk, including control allocation messages, data channel allocation messages, and collision warning messages.

[0038] The control allocation message determines the number of drones controlled by each control station, with a maximum of 16. The auxiliary decision-making software sets the drone number controlled by each control station. Upon receiving the control allocation message, the corresponding control station's cluster data processing software, cluster control software, and cluster planning software can then process only the remote control and telemetry data of the drones controlled by that station.

[0039] The data channel allocation message determines the UDP channels for remote control and telemetry data between the cluster data processing software, cluster control software, and cluster planning software within each control station. The auxiliary decision-making software sets up the UDP channels for remote control and telemetry data within each control station. Upon receiving the data channel allocation message, the cluster data processing software, cluster control software, and cluster planning software at the corresponding control station can process the remote control and telemetry data according to the set UDP channels. The UDP channel number for remote control data corresponds one-to-one with the control station number, ranging from 30000 to 39999. The UDP channel number for telemetry data also corresponds one-to-one with the control station number, ranging from 40000 to 49999.

[0040] Collision warning is a feature of the decision support software that continuously monitors the position of each drone throughout its takeoff, flight, and landing process based on telemetry data, calculating the distance between each drone and other nearby drones in real time. A blue warning is issued when the distance is less than 20 kilometers or the time is less than 8 minutes; a yellow warning when the distance is less than 15 kilometers or the time is less than 6 minutes; an orange warning when the distance is less than 10 kilometers or the time is less than 4 minutes; and a red warning when the distance is less than 5 kilometers or the time is less than 2 minutes. Warnings are canceled when the distance is greater than 20 kilometers or the time is greater than 8 minutes. Simultaneously, the decision support software sends collision warning messages to the corresponding control console, and the cluster control software and cluster planning demonstrate relevant functions.

[0041] See Figure 5 As shown, batch software deployment tools can effectively improve the efficiency and reliability of software deployment, deploying software to the decision-making console. When using a batch software deployment tool, simply set the control console's IP address and software name, and the software will be automatically deployed to the control console. It can deploy a single piece of software to a single control console, or support simultaneous deployment of multiple software programs to multiple control consoles, offering convenience and flexibility. It also backs up the previous version of the software, ensuring a quick rollback to a previous stable version in case of a new version deployment failure.

[0042] This invention has been applied in ground station systems, which not only meets the control requirements of heterogeneous UAV swarms, but also simplifies the development and deployment of application software, improves the maintainability of application software, and reduces development costs, indicating that this invention meets practical needs.

[0043] The above detailed embodiments are a description of the present invention. It should not be considered that the specific embodiments of the present invention are limited to these descriptions. For those skilled in the art, several simple deductions and substitutions can be made without departing from the concept of the present invention, and all of these should be considered to fall within the protection scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. A ground station software architecture based on heterogeneous UAV swarms, characterized in that, include: One decision-making seat and multiple control seats; The decision-making seat is used to dynamically adjust the control seat of the drone based on the number of drones and the number of control seats, and to determine the UDP multicast communication channel number of each drone. The control panel is equipped with cluster data processing software, cluster control software, and cluster planning software. The cluster control software and cluster planning software are used to generate control commands for the UAV and send the control commands to the cluster data processing software through the corresponding UDP multicast communication channel number of the UAV. The cluster data processing software is used to organize the control commands into uplink remote control data and send it to the UAV through the air-to-ground link device. The cluster data processing software is also used to parse the downlink telemetry data received from the UAV through the air-to-ground link device, send the parsed data to the cluster control software and cluster planning software through the corresponding UDP multicast communication channel number of the UAV for display, and further send it to the decision-making console.

2. The ground station software architecture based on heterogeneous UAV swarms according to claim 1, characterized in that, Cluster control software is also used for cluster flight control and monitoring, while cluster planning software is used for cluster route planning and load control.

3. The ground station software architecture based on heterogeneous UAV swarms according to claim 1, characterized in that, Control commands include: control commands generated by the cluster control software and route task commands generated by the cluster planning software.

4. The ground station software architecture based on heterogeneous UAV swarms according to claim 1, characterized in that, For uplink remote control data, the communication protocol between the ground station and the UAV is consistent with the communication protocol between the ground station software, using a binary protocol and transmitting it in the form of a binary byte stream; For downlink telemetry data, the communication protocol between the ground station and the UAV adopts a binary protocol, and the software between the ground stations adopts a dictionary serialization protocol to achieve one decoder for multiple uses.

5. The ground station software architecture based on heterogeneous UAV swarms according to claim 1, characterized in that, The decision-making console is equipped with auxiliary decision-making software to display the data traffic of each UDP multicast communication channel number in real time; It is also used to continuously monitor the position of each drone during takeoff, flight, and landing, calculate the distance to other nearby drones in real time, issue different levels of warnings based on distance or time, and cancel the warning when the collision risk is eliminated.

6. The ground station software architecture based on heterogeneous UAV swarms according to claim 1, characterized in that, The decision-making board also set up software batch deployment tools; The software batch deployment tool is specifically used to select the control panel and software to be deployed during runtime. First, it backs up the software of the corresponding control panel. If problems occur during the upgrade, it can be rolled back. After the backup, the software can be upgraded again.

7. The ground station software architecture based on heterogeneous UAV swarms according to claim 1, characterized in that, The maximum number of drones that can be controlled by each control station is 16.

8. A method for managing a drone swarm, characterized in that, The ground station software architecture based on heterogeneous UAV clusters as described in any one of claims 1-7 is adopted.

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