Self-verifying array of unmanned vehicles with mission-controller node for coordinated autonomous operation

An unmanned vehicle apparatus comprising:

• a) a first unmanned vehicle operative as a mission-controller Node, including one or more wireless transceivers and sensors operative to determine a position and orientation of the first unmanned vehicle within a self-verifying array of Nodes, wherein the self-verifying array of Nodes comprises the mission-controller Node of the first unmanned vehicle and respective Nodes of one or more secondary unmanned vehicles;
• b) the one or more secondary unmanned vehicles, each secondary unmanned vehicle being one or both of:
• an unmanned aerial vehicle and an unmanned ground vehicle, and each comprising a Node having a transceiver configured for bidirectional communication with the first unmanned vehicle and with the one or more secondary unmanned vehicles in the self-verifying array of Nodes, wherein each Node is operative to determine its position relative to at least three other Nodes using one or more of:
• time-of-flight, phase difference, signal strength, or angle-of-arrival of wireless communications;
• c) a controller disposed within the first unmanned vehicle operative to aggregate and verify location-identification data received from a plurality of Nodes of the one or more secondary unmanned vehicles within the self-verifying array of Nodes by excluding outlier data sets and generating verified Node positions;
• and
• d) the controller further operative to transmit mission instructions to the one or more secondary unmanned vehicles based upon the verified Node positions within the self-verifying array of Nodes.