Drone Flight Plan Control Using Predicted Illuminance Limits
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Unmanned flight vehicles, or drones, face difficulties flying at night due to illuminance restrictions, which existing control mechanisms fail to address effectively, limiting their operational time based on ambient brightness.
Innovation Solution
An information processing apparatus with a prediction unit that forecasts when illuminance will fall below a threshold, a comparison unit that assesses remaining flight time against scheduled plans, and a changing unit that adjusts the flight plan accordingly to ensure safe operation until illuminance becomes insufficient.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If drones are restricted to fly only during daytime when illuminance is sufficient, then flight safety is ensured, but operational time is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The prediction unit performs preliminary calculations to forecast future illuminance levels and determines the time when illuminance will fall below the threshold. This advance prediction allows the flight control to proactively adjust the flight plan before insufficient illuminance occurs, ensuring safety while maximizing operational time by utilizing the predicted window period.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically adjusts the flight plan based on real-time illuminance measurements and predicted trends. Instead of using a fixed daytime restriction, the flight end time is flexibly determined by the prediction unit's forecast, allowing the drone to operate as long as possible within safety constraints by continuously adapting to changing environmental conditions.
2Ease of operation
If drones use simple illuminance threshold checks to determine flight permission, then control simplicity is maintained, but operational flexibility is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements a feedback mechanism where the prediction unit continuously monitors current illuminance levels, compares them against historical data and environmental factors, and forecasts future illuminance trends. This feedback loop enables the flight control to make informed decisions about flight plan adjustments, providing operational flexibility while maintaining automated simple control through the comparison unit that evaluates predicted times against scheduled flight times.
Solution Approach 2:
By performing preliminary predictions of illuminance trends, the system prepares advance information about when insufficient illuminance will occur. This allows the flight control to proactively adjust flight plans before the problem arises, maintaining ease of operation through automated decision-making while significantly improving operational flexibility by extending flight windows beyond simple threshold checks.
Data Source
AI summary
A prediction unit predicts an illuminance limit time (LT) at which an illuminance of an area in which a drone flies falls below a threshold value, based on an illuminance acquired by an acquisition unit, and predicts a remaining time (ST) from a current time (NT) to the illuminance limit time (LT). A comparison unit (compares the remaining time (ST) predicted by the prediction unit with a future scheduled flight time (FT) included in the flight plan information for the drone in accordance with the above-described method. A changing unit changes the flight plan information for the drone when the remaining time (ST) is considered insufficient compared to the future scheduled flight time (FT), so that the future scheduled flight time (FT) is no greater than the remaining time (ST).