Fleet controller

An autonomous vehicle fleet control method, comprising:

• controlling, by a fleet controller, a vehicle of a fleet of autonomous vehicles according to a flight path associated with a mission for the vehicle, the controlling the vehicle causing the vehicle to execute the mission according to mission performance requirements;
• monitoring, by the fleet controller, operation of the vehicle during performance of the mission;
• monitoring, by the fleet controller, mission parameters associated with the mission, wherein the monitoring the mission parameters comprises monitoring at least operation of the vehicle during performance of the mission and mission performance requirements;
• receiving mission impact data comprising at least one of an event message or updated unmanned aircraft system (UAS) traffic management (UTM) data received during performance of the mission;
• determining, according to the mission parameter and the mission impact data, whether vehicle operation adjustment is needed;
• generating, in response to determining that the vehicle operation adjustment is needed, adjusted vehicle commands;
• and
• controlling the vehicle according to the adjusted vehicle commands by sending, through a control arbitrator, the adjusted vehicle commands associated with the flight path to the vehicle, the controlling the vehicle, wherein the control arbitrator forwards the adjusted vehicle commands to the vehicle in response to the control arbitrator determining that the vehicle is being controlled by a single source of commands.

A fleet controller, comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a program for controlling a fleet of autonomous vehicles to be executed by the processor, the program including instructions for:
• obtaining a mission for a vehicle of the fleet of autonomous vehicles;
• identifying a flight path associated with the mission;
• verifying a usability of the flight path with an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) traffic management (UTM), wherein the UTM performs checking on the flight path for at least one of traffic in the flight path, availability of the flight path due to flight restrictions, or requirements for use of the flight path;
• modifying the flight path according to data from the UTM in response to the UTM indicating that the usability of the flight path is not verified;
• and
• controlling the vehicle according to the flight path by sending, through a control arbitrator, vehicle commands associated with the flight path to the vehicle, the controlling the vehicle causing the vehicle to execute the mission, wherein the control arbitrator forwards the vehicle commands to the vehicle in response to the control arbitrator determining that the vehicle is being controlled by a single source of commands.