Drone Airspace Allocation Using Formation Flight Sharing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing techniques for allocating airspace to aerial vehicles, such as drones, face challenges in balancing safety and convenience, especially when multiple vehicles approach each other, leading to inefficient use of airspace and potential collisions.
Innovation Solution
An information processing apparatus that allocates airspace based on flight schedules, allowing multiple aerial vehicles to share airspace during formation flights, adjusts airspace size according to the number of vehicles, and determines optimal vehicle arrangements considering flight speeds and functions, ensuring safe and efficient use of airspace.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If separate airspaces are allocated to ensure safety when aerial vehicles approach each other, then safety is improved, but convenience deteriorates due to depleted allocatable airspaces and inability to fly at desired times
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the airspaces of multiple aerial vehicles that are expected to approach each other, allowing them to share a common airspace under formation flight conditions. This resolves the contradiction by enabling vehicles to fly in the same airspace (improving convenience) while maintaining safety through coordinated formation flight control that prevents collisions.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent dynamically adjusts airspace allocation based on real-time flight conditions and formation flight status. When vehicles are in formation flight, their airspaces are merged; when not, separate airspaces are allocated. This dynamic approach allows the system to optimize both safety and convenience according to actual operational needs.
2Productivity
If aerial vehicles fly in the same direction with approaching trajectories, then airspace utilization efficiency is improved, but collision risk increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a feedback mechanism that monitors the relative positions and trajectories of aerial vehicles in real-time. When vehicles are detected to be approaching each other in the same direction, the system provides feedback to adjust their flight paths or speeds, maintaining safe separation distances while allowing efficient airspace utilization through formation flight.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a management server as an intermediary that coordinates the flight paths of multiple aerial vehicles. The server processes flight plan information, determines optimal formation flight arrangements, and provides guidance to vehicles to prevent collisions while maximizing airspace utilization efficiency.
3Ease of operation
If formation flight is permitted to share airspace, then convenience is improved, but device complexity increases due to arrangement determination requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The patent enables aerial vehicles to autonomously determine their formation flight arrangements based on pre-stored function information indicating their formation flight capabilities. Each vehicle independently assesses its own capabilities and adjusts its position and behavior accordingly, eliminating the need for complex centralized arrangement determination and reducing system complexity while maintaining convenience.
Data Source
AI summary
An information apparatus includes a schedule obtainment unit that obtains flight schedule information transmitted from terminals. Allocation unit allocates an airspace and a permitted flight period to drone based on the obtained flight schedule information. If there is a predetermined commonality in the airspaces and the flight directions of multiple drones, allocation unit causes those multiple drones to share the airspace under the condition that formation flight in which distances therebetween are controlled is performed. Allocation unit determines an arrangement in which multiple drones are aligned in the order in which drones withdraw from formation flight as the arrangement of multiple drones during formation flight. Also, allocation unit determines an arrangement in which drone that does not include a formation flight function is in front and drone that includes formation flight function follows therebehind.