Waypoint Flight Declaration Signaling for UAV Sector Handoffs
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Solution Overview
Problem
There are incompatibilities between how flight plans or paths are characterized by wireless communications systems and aviation standards or regulatory entities, leading to network inefficiencies, particularly in ensuring adequate spacing and collision avoidance for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) operating within assigned airspace volumes.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of waypoint-based flight declaration signaling, where a UAV receives an approved flight plan with sectors and determines a flight path including waypoints based on the plan, transmitting these to network nodes for communication and collision avoidance, facilitating translation between polygon-based and waypoint-based flight paths.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If volume-based flight declaration is used, then airspace management is simplified, but collision avoidance and spacing assurance for multiple UAVs cannot be ensured
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the approved flight plan into multiple sectors, each representing a specific geographic region. The UAV reports waypoints sector by sector rather than providing the entire flight path at once. This segmentation allows the network to manage airspace volume efficiently while maintaining collision avoidance through sector-specific waypoint reporting and acknowledgment requirements.
2Reliability
If waypoint-based flight declaration is implemented, then collision avoidance is improved, but network signaling overhead and complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The network node provides an approved flight plan to the UAV in advance, which includes predefined sectors. The UAV then reports waypoints sector by sector as it progresses through the flight path. This preliminary action reduces signaling overhead because the UAV only needs to report waypoints for current and future sectors, not the entire flight path, and the network only acknowledges sectors that require attention.
3Loss of information
If complete flight path information is transmitted, then network awareness of UAV position is improved, but data transmission overhead increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a dynamic waypoint reporting mechanism where the UAV reports waypoints based on its current sector and the network's acknowledgment status. As the network acknowledges sectors, the UAV stops reporting waypoints for those sectors and focuses on reporting waypoints for future sectors. This dynamic approach ensures the network has necessary position information while minimizing data transmission overhead by avoiding redundant reports.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described. In some systems, a user equipment (UE) (e.g., an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)) may receive an approved flight plan including approved flight plan sectors. The UE may also receive a query from a network node, the query including an indication of a subset of the plurality of approved flight plan sectors and a request for a plurality of waypoints of the UE within the indicated subset of the plurality of approved flight plan sectors. The UE may further determine, in response to receiving the query from the network node, a flight path including the plurality of waypoints of the UE for the indicated subset of the plurality of approved flight plan sectors based on the received approved flight plan, and the UE may transmit, to the network node, a flight declaration message including the waypoints of the UE.