Unmanned aircraft systems and methods of assembly

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10467376-B2
Application number	US-201715467783-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 23, 2017
Priority date	Mar 25, 2016
Publication date	Nov 5, 2019
Grant date	Nov 5, 2019

Abstract

Some embodiments provide a system to design an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) based on an intended task, comprising: UAS component database and a design control circuit configured to: obtain a first set of multiple task parameters corresponding to a requested task that the UAS is being designed to perform; identify at least one primary type of UAS component to be included in the UAS being designed; identify a first set of one or more secondary types of UAS components to support the primary type of UAS component while implementing the task; and provide a design plan of the designed UAS designed to be utilized to implement the task.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of designing an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) based on an intended task, comprising:
by a design control circuit:
obtaining a first set of multiple task parameters specified by a first customer and corresponding to a requested first task that the first customer is requesting a UAS be designed to perform;
identifying, from a UAS component database storing UAS component identifiers and corresponding UAS attributes for each of numerous UAS components, at least one primary type of UAS component to be included in the UAS being designed based on a correlation between the task parameters and the UAS component attributes of the UAS components;
identifying, from the UAS component database, a first set of one or more secondary types of UAS components to be included in the designed UAS to support the at least one primary type of UAS component while implementing the first task; and
providing a design plan of the designed UAS designed to be utilized to implement the first task, wherein the design plan specifies at least a first primary UAS component that corresponds to the primary type of UAS component, and secondary UAS components that each correspond to at least one of the secondary types of UAS components, wherein the first primary UAS component and the secondary UAS components are configured to cooperate in assembling the designed UAS intended to implement the first task;
controlling, through a transport controller of the first primary UAS component, a transport system of the first primary UAS component to autonomously cause the first primary UAS component to move toward one of the secondary UAS components and couple with the one of the secondary UAS components; and
wherein the providing the design plan comprises accessing the UAS component database, extracting from the UAS component database the UAS component attributes of each of the secondary UAS components and the UAS component attributes of the first primary UAS component, and confirming, in accordance with the UAS component attributes accessed from the UAS component database, that each of the secondary UAS components are physically and electrically configured to cooperate with at least one of the first primary UAS component and another one of the secondary UAS components.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the identifying the first set of the one or more secondary types of UAS components comprises identifying the secondary types of UAS components that ensure the designed UAS is capable of flight while employing the first primary UAS component in performing the first task.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
distributing user interface information over a computer network to a plurality of geographically distributed and unassociated customers, wherein the user interface information causes a population, with respect to each of the plurality of customers, of a request user interface corresponding to at least one of multiple different predefined tasks for which a UAS can be designed.

4. The method of claim 3 , further comprising:
communicating the user interface information to customer computer systems associated with each of the plurality of customers and configured to populate at each customer computer system the request user interface comprising predefined fields to receive task parameters corresponding to one of the multiple predefined tasks; and
receiving, from each of the plurality of customer computer systems through the request user interface, sets of task parameters corresponding to one of the multiple predefined tasks for which a UAS is being designed.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
distributing user interface information over a computer network to a first customer computer system associated with the first customer and causing a user interface to populate; and
receiving through the user interface a selection of the first primary UAS component from a plurality of potential primary UAS components that correspond to the primary type of UAS components.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
distributing user interface information over a computer network to a first customer computer system associated with the first customer and enabling the first customer to simulate flight of the designed UAS in accordance with predefined flight characteristics corresponding to the first primary UAS component and the secondary UAS components.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the distributing the user interface information comprises distributing the user interface information to the first customer computer system and enabling the first customer to control a simulated UAS corresponding to the designed UAS through at least a first certification simulation.

8. A system to design an unmanned aircraft system based on an intended task, comprising:
an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) component database storing UAS component identifiers and corresponding UAS attributes for each of numerous UAS components; and
a design control circuit coupled with the UAS component database and configured to:
obtain a first set of multiple task parameters specified by a first customer and corresponding to a requested first task that the first customer is requesting a UAS be designed to perform;
identify, from the UAS component database, at least one primary type of UAS component to be included in the UAS being designed based on a correlation between the task parameters and the UAS component attributes of the UAS components;
identify, from the UAS component database, a first set of one or more secondary types of UAS components to be included in the designed UAS to support the at least one primary type of UAS component while implementing the first task; and
provide a design plan of the designed UAS designed to be utilized to implement the first task, wherein the design plan specifies at least a first primary UAS component that corresponds to the primary type of UAS component, and secondary UAS components that each correspond to at least one of the secondary types of UAS components, wherein the first primary UAS component and the secondary UAS components are configured to cooperate in assembling the designed UAS intended to implement the first task;

wherein the first primary UAS component comprises a transport controller and a transport system communicatively coupled with the transport controller, wherein the transport controller is configured to execute one or more computer programs to control the transport system to autonomously cause the first primary UAS component to move toward one of the secondary UAS components and couple with the one of the secondary UAS components; and
wherein the design control circuit in identifying, from the UAS component database, the first set of one or more secondary types of UAS components is configured to access the UAS component database, extract from the UAS component database the UAS component attributes of each of the secondary UAS components and the UAS component attributes of the first primary UAS component, and confirm, in accordance with the UAS component attributes accessed from the UAS component database, that each of the secondary UAS components are physically and electrically configured to cooperate with at least one of the first primary UAS component and another one of the secondary UAS components.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the design control circuit in identifying the first set of the one or more secondary types of UAS components is configured to identify the secondary types of UAS components that ensure the designed UAS is capable of flight while employing the first primary UAS component in performing the first task.

10. The system of claim 8 , further comprising:
an interfac

Assignees

• Walmart Apollo Llc

Inventors

• Thompson John P
• High Donald R
• Jones Nathan G

Classifications

• H04B7/18504 Primary

  Aircraft used as relay or high altitude atmospheric platform · CPC title

• G06F30/15 Primary

  Vehicle, aircraft or watercraft design · CPC title

• G06F2111/20

  Configuration CAD, e.g. designing by assembling or positioning modules selected from libraries of predesigned modules · CPC title

• G06Q30/0621

  by configuring or customising goods or services · CPC title

• G06F2217/02

  Physics · mapped topic