Anticipatory dispatch of UAVs to pre-staging locations

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11256271-B2
Application number	US-202015930054-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 12, 2020
Priority date	Dec 21, 2017
Publication date	Feb 22, 2022
Grant date	Feb 22, 2022

Abstract

An example method involves determining an expected demand level for a first type of a plurality of types of transport tasks for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the first type of transport tasks associated with a first payload type. Each of the UAVs is physically reconfigurable between at least a first and a second configuration corresponding to the first payload type and a second payload type, respectively. The method also involves determining based on the expected demand level for the first type of transport tasks, (i) a first number of UAVs having the first configuration and (ii) a second number of UAVs having the second configuration. The method further involves, at or near a time corresponding to the expected demand level, providing one or more UAVs to perform the transport tasks, including at least the first number of UAVs.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions that, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:
determining, for a geographic area, an expected demand level corresponding to a demand, by item providers in the geographic area, for transport tasks for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), wherein an aerial transport service provider (ATSP) operates the UAVs, and wherein the ATSP houses the UAVs at a particular location different from locations of the item providers;
determining, based on the expected demand level, one or more pre-staging locations within the geographic area at which one or more UAVs of the UAVs can land prior to initiating one or more of the transport tasks; and
before a time corresponding to the expected demand level, dispatching the one or more UAVs from the particular location to the one or more pre-staging locations.

2. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the expected demand level indicates a distribution of the item providers in the geographic area.

3. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the expected demand level indicates (i) source locations from which the item providers are predicted to request pick up of payload items associated with the transport tasks and (ii) expected times at which the transport tasks are predicted to be requested.

4. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the expected demand level comprises: (i) a first demand level associated with a first subset of a plurality of item recipients expected to request, from a first subset of the item providers, at least a first subset of the transport tasks, and (iii) a second demand level associated with a second subset of the plurality of item recipients expected to request, from the ATSP, at least a second subset of the transport tasks associated with a second subset of the item providers.

5. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the expected demand level indicates expected times at which the transport tasks are predicted to be requested, and wherein the operations further comprise:
determining, based on distances between the particular location and the one or more pre- staging locations, transit times between the particular location and the one or more pre-staging locations; and
dispatching, based on the transit times, the one or more UAVs from the particular location such that each respective UAV of the one or more UAVs arrives at a corresponding pre- staging location of the pre-staging locations at or before a corresponding expected time of the expected times.

6. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise:
receiving a request for a first transport task of the transport tasks, wherein the first transport task is associated with a first item provider of the item providers in the geographic area and a first item recipient in the geographic area; and
based on receiving the request for the first transport task, dispatching a first UAV of the one or more UAVs from a corresponding pre-staging location of the one or more pre-staging locations to perform the first transport task.

7. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 6 , wherein the request for the first transport task is received from at least one of: (i) the first item provider, or (ii) the first item recipient.

8. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 6 , wherein the operations further comprise:
receiving, from the first item provider and by the first UAV, a payload item;
determining, based on the request for the first transport task, a destination for the payload item; and
causing the first UAV to transport the payload item to the destination.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein at least one pre-staging location of the one or more pre-staging locations is within a threshold distance of at least one item provider of the item providers.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the one or more pre-staging locations comprise one or more landing structures distributed throughout the geographic area.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the one or more pre-staging locations comprise one or more features of an environment within the geographic area.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the particular location is a UAV nest location.

13. A system comprising:
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) operated by an aerial transport service provider (ATSP);
a particular location operated by the ATSP and configured to house the UAVs;
a control system comprising a processor and a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:
determining, for a geographic area, an expected demand level corresponding to a demand, by item providers in the geographic area, for transport tasks for the UAVs, wherein the particular location is different from locations of the item providers;
determining, based on the expected demand level, one or more pre-staging locations within the geographic area at which one or more UAVs of the UAVs can land prior to initiating one or more of the transport tasks; and
before a time corresponding to the expected demand level, dispatching the one or more UAVs from the particular location to the one or more pre-staging locations.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the expected demand level indicates expected times at which the transport tasks are predicted to be requested, and wherein the operations further comprise:
determining, based on distances between the particular location and the one or more pre- staging locations, transit times between the particular location and the one or more pre-staging locations; and
dispatching, based on the transit times, the one or more UAVs from the particular location such that each respective UAV of the one or more UAVs arrives at a corresponding pre- staging location of the pre-staging locations at or before a corresponding expected time of the expected times.

15. The system of claim 13 , wherein the operations further comprise:
receiving requests for the transport tasks; and
based on receiving the requests for the transport tasks, dispatching the one or more UAVs from the one or more pre-staging locations to perform the requested transport tasks.

16. The system of claim 13 , wherein at least one pre-staging location of the one or more pre-staging locations is within a threshold distance of at least one item provider of the item providers.

17. The system of claim 13 , wherein the one or more pre-staging locations comprise one or more landing structures distributed throughout the geographic area.

18. A system comprising:
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), wherein each of the UAVs is physically reconfigurable between at least a first configuration corresponding to a first payload type of a plurality of payload types and a second configuration corresponding to a second payload type of the plurality of payload types; and
a control system comprising a processor and a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:
determining

Assignees

• Wing Aviation Llc

Inventors

• Blake Jesse
• Schmalzried James
• Velez Scott
• Prager Andre
• Teller Eric
• Nubbe Matthew

Classifications

• B64U2201/20

  Remote controls · CPC title

• B64U2201/10

  autonomous, i.e. by navigating independently from ground or air stations, e.g. by using inertial navigation systems [INS] · CPC title

• B64U2101/64

  for parcel delivery or retrieval · CPC title

• B64U10/20

  Vertical take-off and landing [VTOL] aircraft (flying platforms B64U10/13; helicopters B64U10/17) · CPC title

• B64U10/25

  Fixed-wing aircraft (VTOL aircraft B64U10/20) · CPC title