UAV Flight Path Deconfliction via ASIC Circuitry

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Solution Overview

Problem

The increasing prevalence of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in airspace poses challenges for safe navigation, particularly in preventing flight path conflicts and collisions, especially as UAVs operate at varying altitudes and encounter weather and structural impediments, necessitating a complex and computationally intensive framework for flight path deconfliction.

Innovation Solution

A method involving the receipt of telemetry and air traffic data by deconfliction circuitry, which analyzes potential collisions and reroutes UAV flight paths to avoid conflicts, utilizing an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) optimized for UAV navigation, and transmits navigation instructions to ensure safe flight paths.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If comprehensive flight path deconfliction is implemented to prevent collisions, then safety is improved, but computational complexity and processing requirements increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveflight safetyVSAvoiddeconfliction system complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The deconfliction system is segmented into distributed components: each UAV runs a local deconfliction module that processes only relevant flight path data, while a central server handles broader coordination. This segmentation reduces the computational burden on any single system component while maintaining comprehensive safety coverage across the entire UAV fleet.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

A central server acts as an intermediary between individual UAVs and the broader air traffic management system. The server receives telemetry data from multiple UAVs, performs centralized deconfliction analysis, and distributes navigation instructions back to the UAVs. This intermediary approach consolidates computational complexity into a dedicated component that can efficiently manage multiple flight paths without requiring each UAV to independently process all flight path data.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Reliability

If real-time flight path analysis is performed to detect conflicts, then collision avoidance capability is improved, but data processing time and computational resources increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvecollision avoidanceVSAvoiddata processing time
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary deconfliction analysis by continuously monitoring flight paths and identifying potential conflicts before they occur. The deconfliction circuitry proactively analyzes predicted flight paths against each other and against air traffic data, allowing the system to detect and resolve conflicts in advance rather than reacting after conflicts have developed, thereby reducing real-time processing requirements.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The system applies partial deconfliction analysis focused on the most critical flight path interactions and spatial zones rather than exhaustively analyzing all possible flight path combinations. By prioritizing analysis of flight paths that are closest to each other in space and time, the system achieves adequate collision avoidance with reduced computational overhead.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #16Partial or excessive action

Data Source

PatentUS11335204B2Flight path deconfliction among unmanned aerial vehicles
Publication Date: 2022.05.17 SKYGRID LLC
  • US11335204B2 patent drawing
  • US11335204B2 patent drawing
  • US11335204B2 patent drawing

AI summary

Flight path deconfliction among unmanned aerial vehicles is disclosed. Telemetry data received from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and air traffic data received from a server or other data sources are analyzed, using deconfliction circuitry, to determine whether a flight path conflict indicative of a potential collision exists. The deconfliction circuitry reroutes the flight path of the UAV to avoid the flight path conflict, and transmits, in dependence upon the rerouted flight path, navigation instructions to the UAV for avoiding the potential collision. The deconfliction circuitry includes hardware-implemented logic optimized for processing the navigation data.