Virtual Private Drone System for Secure Local Data Processing
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Solution Overview
Problem
The increasing use of drones in public and private spaces raises security concerns due to potential malfunctions or misuse, and the high cost of commercial drone deployments limits their widespread adoption, necessitating a solution for secure, modular, and cost-effective drone operations.
Innovation Solution
A Virtual Private Drone (VPD) system that integrates a device manager, stations, drones, and computing engines to provide a virtualized drone service, allowing real-time data processing and secure, local peer-to-peer communication within a configured space, minimizing latency and power consumption, and enabling on-demand drone tasks compliant with regulations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If drones are deployed in public and private spaces, then drone service availability and application range are improved, but security risks and regulatory compliance difficulties increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments drone operations into virtual private instances, each isolated and governed by its own security policies and regulatory rules. This allows multiple drone services to operate simultaneously with different security requirements without interfering with each other, thus maintaining security compliance while expanding service availability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a virtualization layer and management platform as intermediaries between physical drones and users. This intermediary layer enforces security policies, manages authentication, and ensures regulatory compliance, allowing broader drone deployment while maintaining controlled security oversight.
2Adaptability or versatility
If commercial drone systems are deployed, then drone functionality and task capability are improved, but total cost of ownership increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system creates a universal drone platform where a single physical drone can be virtualized into multiple instances, each capable of performing different tasks. This multi-functionality allows one drone to serve multiple purposes and multiple users, reducing the need for separate dedicated drones for each function, thereby lowering overall deployment costs while maintaining diverse task capabilities.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs virtualization to create software copies of drone instances from a single physical platform. These virtual copies can be deployed and managed independently, allowing organizations to access advanced drone capabilities without purchasing multiple physical units, thus reducing capital expenditure while maintaining functional versatility.
3Speed
If real-time data processing is implemented in drone systems, then response speed and user interaction quality are improved, but bandwidth consumption and power usage increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements local processing capabilities at the edge devices and intermediate servers, handling time-critical data processing locally rather than requiring all data to be transmitted to centralized cloud processors. This local quality approach maintains fast response speeds for immediate decisions while reducing overall bandwidth consumption and power usage for data transmission.
Data Source
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AI summary
A virtual private drone (VPD) system may include a device manager, one or more stations, one or more drones, and one more computing engines. The device manager keeps a repository of device metadata of all drones and computing engines in each deployment of the drone, and runs as an always-on point of contact on the network, globally reachable by all other drones and computing engines in the system. The station is a control center of the VPD system, and each station obtains its network address during registration with the device manager, and starts to synchronize copies of the device metadata using local communication. The drone includes a flight controller module programmable with a flight plan using a number of navigating points, and/or responding to runtime commands. The computing engine includes hardware and software that perform specialized compute-intensive data processing such as computer vision and artificial intelligence (AI).