US 9,866,313 B1Granted

UAV cellular communication service delivery

AssigneeT-Mobile USA, Inc.

InventorSean Patrick Murphy

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Abstract

The use of UAV network cells may enable a wireless communication carrier to provide supplemental cellular network communication coverage to geographical areas. Geolocations of multiple user devices in a geographical area that is serviced by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) network cell may be determined. Subsequently, operation condition data for the geographical area that affect at least one of UAV flight or UAV communication signal transmission or reception for the UAV network cell may be received. Accordingly, a flight trajectory that provides network coverage to one or more specific user devices in the geographical area may be generated based on the geolocations of the multiple user devices and the operation condition data. A control command is then sent to the UAV network cell to direct the UAV network cell to travel according to the flight trajectory.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A system, comprising:

one or more processors;
and
memory having instructions stored therein, the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform acts comprising:
determining geolocations of a plurality of user devices in a geographical area that is serviced by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) network cell, the UAV network cell extending network coverage of a wireless carrier network to at least a portion of the geographical area;
sending a control command to the UAV network cell that dispatches the UAV network cell to travel according to a flight trajectory that provides network coverage to one or more specific user devices of the plurality user devices in the geographical area based on the geolocations of the plurality of user devices, the UAV network cell using a backhaul of a ground network cell to route communication of the one or more specific user devices to a core network of the wireless carrier network
receiving a first signal robustness value for the ground network cell and a second signal robustness value for a particular network cell that is proximate to the ground network cell from a user device that is communicating with the ground network cell, the second signal robustness value being greater than the first signal robustness value;
sending a command that directs the user device to switch from communicating with the ground network cell to communicating with the particular network cell in response to determining that the particular network cell is an additional UAV network cell that is not using the backhaul of the ground network cell to route communication of any user devices to the core network;
and
refraining from sending the command that directs the user device to switch from communicating with the ground network cell to communicating with the particular network cell in response to determining that the particular network cell is the UAV network cell that is using the backhaul of the ground network cell to route communication to the core network, despite the first and second robustness values indicating that the UAV network cell provides a stronger communication signal to the user device than the ground network cell.

6 more elements

One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing computer-executable instructions that upon execution cause one or more processors to perform acts comprising:

dispatching an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) network cell to a geographical area in response to determining at least that a ground vehicle for providing network coverage of a wireless carrier network is not deployable to the geographical area due to the lack of roadways in the geographical area;
determining geolocations of a plurality of user devices in the geographical area that are serviced by the network cell, the UAV network cell extending the network coverage of the wireless carrier network to at least a portion of the geographical area;
receiving operation condition data for the geographical area that affect at least one of UAV flight or UAV communication signal transmission or reception for the UAV network cell;
generating a flight trajectory that provides network coverage to one or more specific user devices of the plurality user devices in the geographical area based on the geolocations of the plurality of user devices and the operation condition data;
and
sending a control command to the UAV network cell that directs the UAV network cell to travel according to the flight trajectory.

3 more elements

A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving a first signal robustness value for a ground network cell of a wireless carrier network from a user device that is communicating with the ground network cell, the ground network cell including a backhaul that routes user device communications of user devices to a core network of the wireless carrier network;
receiving a second signal robustness value for a particular network cell of the wireless carrier network that is proximate to the ground network cell from the user device, the second signal robustness value being greater than the first signal robustness value;
sending a command that directs the user device to switch from communicating with the ground network cell to communicating with the particular network cell in response to determining that the particular network cell is a UAV network cell that is not using a backhaul of the ground network cell to route communications of the user device to the core network of the wireless carrier network;
and
refraining from sending the command that directs the user device to switch from communicating with the ground network cell to communicating with the network cell in response to determining that the particular network cell is a UAV network cell that is using the backhaul of the ground network cell to route communications of the user device to the core network of the wireless carrier network, and a difference between the second signal robustness value and the first signal robustness value does not exceed a maximum difference value.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.