Dynamic channel selection for unmanned aerial vehicles

An unmanned aerial vehicle comprising:

• a communication system onboard the unmanned aerial vehicle comprising one or more processors;
• and
• one or more non-transitory computer readable storage media having program instructions stored thereon that, when executed by the one or more processors of the communication system, direct the communication system to at least:
• select a current channel from among multiple channels for communication with an access point, wherein to select the current channel, the program instructions direct the communication system to:
• perform a scan of the multiple channels;
• for each channel of the multiple channels, generate a score based on performance metrics acquired during the scan, wherein the performance metrics include a percentage of clear airtime and a physical layer error count, wherein to generate the score, the program instructions direct the communication system to determine the performance metrics and sum the performance metrics for the given channel, and wherein to determine the performance metrics, the program instructions further direct the communication system to:
• capture scan data indicative of the percentage of clear airtime, the physical layer error count, a noise floor, a BSS count, and an RSSI metric;
• scale the scan data to a value between 0 and 100, resulting in scaled data;
• and
• apply a weight to the scaled data, wherein the weight is determined according to a performance profile;
• sort the multiple channels into an ordered list according to the scores of the multiple channels, wherein the ordered list includes a first channel corresponding to a channel with a best score relative to the other scores, a second channel corresponding to a channel with a second-best score relative to the other scores, and a third channel corresponding to a channel with a third-best score relative to the other scores;
• and
• select the first channel of the ordered list to be the current channel;
• periodically evaluate performance of the current channel against a performance threshold;
• and
• upon determining that the performance of the current channel is below the performance threshold, evaluate a performance of the second channel of the ordered list.

One or more non-transitory computer readable storage media having program instructions stored thereon that, when executed by one or more processors operatively coupled to the one or more computer readable storage media, direct a computing device to at least:

• select a current channel from among multiple channels for communication by a communications system onboard an unmanned aerial vehicle with an access point, wherein to select the current channel, the program instructions direct the computing device to:
• perform a scan of the multiple channels;
• for each channel of the multiple channels, generate a score based on performance metrics acquired during the scan, wherein the performance metrics include a percentage of clear airtime and a physical layer error count, wherein to generate the score, the program instructions direct the computing device to determine the performance metrics and sum the performance metrics for the given channel, and wherein to determine the performance metrics, the program instructions further direct the computing device to:
• capture scan data indicative of the percentage of clear airtime, the physical layer error count, a noise floor, a BSS count, and an RSSI metric;
• scale the scan data to a value between 0 and 100, resulting in scaled data;
• and
• apply a weight to the scaled data, wherein the weight is determined according to a performance profile;
• sort the multiple channels into an ordered list according to the scores of the multiple channels, wherein the ordered list includes a first channel corresponding to a channel with a best score relative to the other scores, a second channel corresponding to a channel with a second-best score relative to the other scores, and a third channel corresponding to a channel with a third-best score relative to the other scores;
• and
• select the first channel of the ordered list to be the current channel;
• periodically evaluate performance of the current channel against a performance threshold;
• and
• upon determining that the performance of the current channel is below the performance threshold, evaluate the second channel of the ordered list.