US 2017/0323235 A1 · FOG DRONE FLEET ORCHESTRATOR

Abstract

Embodiments herein describe a fog drone that selects, organizes, monitors, and controls a plurality of drones in a fleet. The fog drone receives a job to be completed from a dispatcher and identifies the resources for accomplishing the job such as the amount of material (e.g., fiber optic cable) or the type of drones (e.g., drones with RF antennas or digging implements) needed to execute the job. Using the identified resources, the fog drone estimates the number of drones needed to complete the job and can recruit available drones to form the fleet. Once the fleet is formed, the fog drone determines a number of drones to place on standby to replace active drones if those drones need to recharge or malfunction.

Claims20

Dependent claims

An autonomous fog drone, comprising:

a processor;
and
a memory comprising at least one application configured to perform an operation when executed by the processor, the operation comprising:
receiving a job from a dispatcher;
determining a number of drones required for performing the job;
transmitting a request to recruit drones to form a drone fleet;
adding a first drone to the drone fleet thereby incurring a monetary cost for leasing the first drone;
and
upon determining the first drone in the drone fleet is no longer needed, releasing the first drone from the drone fleet.

6 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Fog drone fleet orchestrator

Life of this patent

Fog drone fleet orchestrator

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20