UAV Terminal Navigation With Altitude Slices and Pad Reassignment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Managing large fleets of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in terminal areas with minimal infrastructure for efficient landing, charging, and loading operations, particularly for package delivery, is challenging due to potential conflicts and inefficiencies that waste battery charge and flight time.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a system that includes dedicated flight altitude slices, autonomous pad reassignment, and synchronized loading techniques to optimize UAV movement and package delivery, using vertical takeoff and landing UAVs with modular components and computer vision for navigation and charging.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If multiple UAVs operate in close proximity in terminal areas, then delivery capacity and productivity increase, but congestion and conflict between vehicles increase leading to safety issues and operational inefficiency
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a vertical dimension to terminal area management by implementing designated flight altitude slices for different operational phases. Incoming UAVs operate at higher altitudes during approach, while outgoing UAVs operate at lower altitudes during departure. This vertical separation creates three-dimensional traffic flow patterns that prevent horizontal conflicts and congestion, allowing multiple UAVs to operate simultaneously without interference, thus increasing delivery capacity while maintaining safety.
Solution Approach 2:
The terminal area is segmented into distinct operational zones and altitude slices. The airspace is divided into incoming traffic corridors at higher altitudes and outgoing traffic corridors at lower altitudes. Landing pads are segmented into dedicated incoming pads and outgoing pads. This segmentation creates organized traffic flow patterns that eliminate random interactions between UAVs, reducing conflicts and improving both safety and operational efficiency.
2Ease of manufacture
If UAVs wait on interior charging pads for loading, then loading operations can be performed, but flight time is wasted and battery charge is depleted unnecessarily
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by having UAVs autonomously relocate from interior charging pads to peripheral loading pads before actual loading operations begin. The UAVs position themselves in advance at optimal locations around the terminal perimeter, ready for immediate package attachment. This preliminary repositioning eliminates waiting time during the loading process, as packages can be directly attached to UAVs already in position, thereby conserving battery charge and reducing loss of flight time.
Solution Approach 2:
UAVs autonomously navigate and reposition themselves without human intervention. The system employs automated navigation algorithms that enable UAVs to independently transition between charging pads and loading pads, and to self-select optimal loading positions. This self-service capability reduces operational complexity and eliminates delays associated with manual positioning, allowing continuous efficient operation.
3Productivity
If synchronized loading procedures are implemented, then loading efficiency increases, but coordination complexity and device complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements feedback mechanisms where UAVs communicate their status, position, and readiness information to the terminal control system. The control system processes this feedback and provides real-time guidance for synchronized loading operations. Package attachment mechanisms provide feedback on loading completion status, enabling automatic coordination between multiple UAVs and ground personnel. This feedback loop simplifies coordination complexity by providing real-time information that automates the synchronization process, thereby increasing loading efficiency without proportionally increasing device complexity.
Data Source
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AI summary
A technique for controlling unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) operating in proximity to a terminal area from which the UAVs are staged includes charging a plurality of the UAVs on charging pads disposed in a staging array at the terminal area. Merchant facilities for preparing packages for delivery by the UAVs are disposed about a periphery of the staging array. The UAVs are relocated under their own propulsion from interior charging pads to peripheral loading pads of the staging array as the peripheral loading pads become available and the UAVs are deemed sufficiently charged and ready for delivery missions.