Method, system and apparatus for handling operational constraints for control of unmanned vehicles

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016349749-A1
Application number	US-201615167002-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	May 27, 2016
Priority date	May 29, 2015
Publication date	Dec 1, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

Systems, methods and apparatus are provided for handling operational constraints for unmanned vehicles. The system includes: a plurality of mobile unmanned vehicles for deployment in an environment; a computing device connected to the plurality of unmanned vehicles via a network, the computing device storing, in a memory, a plurality of operational constraints; each operational constraint including (i) a type identifier, (ii) an indication of a region of the environment, and (iii) a property defining a constraint on the operation of the unmanned vehicles within the region. The computing device is configured to: receive a request from one of the mobile unmanned vehicles, the request identifying an operational constraint; responsive to receiving the request, retrieve an operational constraint from the memory based on the request; and send the retrieved operational constraint to the one of the mobile unmanned vehicles.

First claim

We claim:

1 . A system, comprising:
at least one mobile unmanned vehicle for deployment in an environment; a computing device connected to the at least one unmanned vehicle via a network, the computing device storing, in a memory, a plurality of operational constraints; each operational constraint including (i) a type identifier, (ii) an indication of a region of the environment, and (iii) a property defining a constraint on the operation of the at least one unmanned vehicle within the region; the computing device configured to:
receive a request from one of the at least one mobile unmanned vehicle, the request identifying an operational constraint;
responsive to receiving the request, retrieve an operational constraint from the memory based on the request; and
send the retrieved operational constraint to the one of the at least one mobile unmanned vehicle.

2 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the region is at least one of an area and a volume within the environment.

3 . The system of claim 2 , wherein a set of regions for a plurality of the operational constraints having the same type are stored as polygons in an image file; and wherein the properties corresponding to the set of regions are stored in association with the polygons.

4 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the request identifies a location within the environment; the computing device configured to retrieve any operational constraints indicating regions that intersect the location.

5 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the request identifies a type of operational constraint; the computing device configured to retrieve any operational constraints including types that match the requested type.

6 . The system of claim 1 , the one of the mobile unmanned vehicles further configured, prior to sending the request, to execute a navigational process and to determine whether operational requirement data is required for the navigational process.

7 . The system of claim 6 , wherein the navigational process comprises at least one of: path generation, path execution, and mapping and localization.

8 . The system of claim 6 , the one of the mobile unmanned vehicles further configured, when the determination is affirmative, to examine a cache in a vehicle memory to assess whether the required operational constraints are present in the cache.

9 . The system of claim 8 , the mobile unmanned vehicle further configured, when the required operational constraints are not present in the cache, to send the request.

10 . The system of claim 6 , the one of the mobile unmanned vehicles further configured to receive the operational constraint from the computing device, to store the operational constraint in the vehicle memory, and to resume execution of the navigational process.

11 . The system of claim 10 , wherein the navigational process is a path execution process; the mobile unmanned vehicle configured to set a speed of travel for the path execution process based on the operational constraint)

12 . The system of claim 1 , the computing device further configured, prior to storing the plurality of operational constraints, to store operational constraint templates, each template including (i) a type and (ii) a property definition.

13 . The system of claim 12 , the computing device further configured to receive a request to create an operational constraint.

14 . The system of claim 13 , the computing device further configured, responsive to receiving the request to create an operational constraint, to present a list of the templates and to receive a selection of one of the templates.

15 . The system of claim 14 , the computing device further configured to retrieve and present the property definition for the selected template, to receive a value corresponding to the property definition, and to create and store a new operational constraint containing (i) the type of the template and (ii) a property containing the value.

16 . The system of claim 12 , the computing device further configured to determine any of the operational constraints having overlapping regions contain conflicting properties.

17 . The system of claim 12 , the computing device further configured to determine whether any of the operational constraints having adjacent regions contain potentially conflicting properties.

18 . A method in a system having at least one mobile unmanned vehicle for deployment in an environment and a computing device connected to the at least one unmanned vehicle via a network, the method comprising:
storing, in a memory of the computing device, a plurality of operational constraints; each operational constraint including (i) a type identifier, (ii) an indication of a region of the environment, and (iii) a property defining a constraint on the operation of the at least one unmanned vehicle within the region; at the computing device:
receiving a request from one of the at least one mobile unmanned vehicle, the request identifying an operational constraint;
responsive to receiving the request, retrieving an operational constraint from the memory based on the request; and
sending the retrieved operational constraint to the one of the at least one mobile unmanned vehicle.

19 . A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing computer-readable instructions for execution by a processor of a computing device for causing the computing device to perform a method comprising:
storing a plurality of operational constraints; each operational constraint including (i) a type identifier, (ii) an indication of a region of an environment in which at least one mobile unmanned vehicle is to be deployed, and (iii) a property defining a constraint on the operation of the at least one unmanned vehicle within the region; receiving a request from one of the at least one mobile unmanned vehicle, the request identifying an operational constraint; responsive to receiving the request, retrieving an operational constraint from the memory based on the request; and sending the retrieved operational constraint to the one of the at least one mobile unmanned vehicle via the network.

Assignees

• Clearpath Robotics Inc

Inventors

• Gariepy Ryan Christopher
• Bencz Alex
• Blakey Andrew Clifford
• Kaynama Shahab
• Servos James

Classifications

• G01C21/3407 Primary

  specially adapted for specific applications · CPC title

• B66F9/063

  Automatically guided · CPC title

• G05D1/0231

  using optical position detecting means (position-fixing by using electromagnetic waves other than radio waves, e.g. optical position detecting means G01S5/16) · CPC title

• G05D1/0027 Primary

  involving a plurality of vehicles, e.g. fleet or convoy travelling (fleet control of land vehicles from a control room G05D1/0297; traffic control systems for road vehicles G08G1/00; for marine craft G08G3/00; for aircraft G08G5/00) · CPC title

• G05D1/0088 Primary

  characterized by the autonomous decision making process, e.g. artificial intelligence, predefined behaviours (using knowledge based models G06N5/00) · CPC title