US 9,552,564 B1Granted

Autonomous delivery transportation network

AssigneeAmazon Technologies, Inc.

InventorChristopher Charles Martenis

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

Aspects of an autonomous delivery transportation network for the delivery of items are described. The network includes a central management system that directs the operation of a network of vehicles for delivering items. In one embodiment, the system receives a request for transportation including a pickup location, a delivery location, and item attribute data. The system analyzes the existing service routes of vehicles in the network to identify a vehicle compatible with the request. The system also estimates a delay to the existing service route of the vehicle with reference to the pickup and delivery locations and, when determining that the delay is acceptable, assigns the vehicle to service the request. When determining that the delay is unacceptable, the system may dispatch a new vehicle to join the network. The system may also communicate various aspects of service, such as estimated pickup and/or drop off times, to client devices.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A non-transitory computer-readable medium embodying at least one program executable in at least one computing device, the at least one program having instructions that direct the at least one computing device to perform a method comprising:

receiving a request to transport an item from a first client device, the request including a pickup location, a delivery location, and an item description;
based on at least one of the pickup location, the delivery location, and the item description, identifying a vehicle and an existing service route compatible with the request;
estimating a delay associated with transporting the item in the identified vehicle along at least a portion of the existing service route;
determining whether the estimated delay is acceptable based on a comparison of the estimated delay with at least one service level parameter;
in response to determining that the estimated delay is acceptable, sending the vehicle to the pickup location to receive the item;
communicating the delivery location to the vehicle and calculating an estimated delivery time until the vehicle arrives at the delivery location;
and
communicating the estimated delivery time, a vehicle identifier, and a cargo compartment identifier to a second client device.

5 more elements

A method, comprising:

analyzing, by at least one computing device, a plurality of existing service routes of a plurality of vehicles in a transportation network for an existing service route and capacity of a vehicle compatible with a request for service received from a client device;
estimating, by the at least one computing device, a delay to the existing service route of the vehicle to service the request and determining whether the estimated delay is acceptable;
in response to determining that the estimated delay is acceptable, communicating, by the at least one computing device, a delivery location to the vehicle based on the request;
calculating, by the at least one computing device, an estimated delivery time until the vehicle arrives at the delivery location;
and
communicating, by the at least one computing device, the delivery time to the client device.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.