System and method for secure, privacy-aware and contextualised package delivery using autonomous vehicles
View Patent ↗Disclosed herein is a system for coordinating the delivery of a payload by a drone to a recipient, the system comprising a drone; where the drone is an autonomous vehicle that is operative to perform one or more functions without human intervention; and a facility agent acting on behalf of a facility in which the recipient is located; where the facility agent is autonomous and is operative to act on behalf of either the recipient or the facility in which the recipient is located; and where the facility agent comprises an access option enumerator for computing a set of delivery strategies in accordance with a constraint or a goal; and an access negotiator for reaching an agreement between the drone and the facility agent on the delivery strategy for the payload.
1. A system for coordinating the delivery of a payload by a drone to a recipient, the system comprising:
a drone; where the drone is an autonomous vehicle that is operative to perform one or more functions without human intervention; and
a facility agent acting on behalf of an external facility in which the recipient is located; where the facility agent is autonomous and is operative to act on behalf of either the recipient or the external facility in which the recipient is located; and where the facility agent comprises:
an access option enumerator for computing a set of delivery strategies in accordance with a constraint or a goal; and
an access negotiator for reaching an agreement between the drone and the facility agent on a delivery strategy for the payload.
2. The system of claim 1 , where the facility agent further comprises an authorization unit that is operative to receive and verify authentication information from the drone.
3. The system of claim 1 , where the facility agent further comprises a drone operations monitor that is operative to monitor operation of the drone once the drone is permitted to enter the external facility.
4. The system of claim 1 , where the facility agent further comprises a drone controller that is operative to control the drone once the drone is permitted to enter the external facility.
5. The system of claim 3 , where the drone operations monitor is in two-way communication with a database that is operative to store facility sensor data and drone sensor data.
6. The system of claim 1 , where the access option enumerator is in two way communication with a database that contains facility map data, facility sensor data and contextual data.
7. The system of claim 1 , where the drone comprises an authentication unit that is operative to identify the drone to an authorization unit contained in the facility agent.
8. The system of claim 1 , where the drone comprises a self-description unit that is operative to detail the payload as well as characteristics of the drone to the facility agent.
9. The system of claim 1 , where the drone comprises an access-option evaluator that evaluates the set of delivery strategies and selects a strategy and where the access-option evaluator communicates with the access negotiator.
10. The system of claim 1 , where the set of delivery strategies are selected to maximize a goal; where the goal comprises promoting safety, improving an efficiency of delivery, energy conservation, noise reduction, pollution reduction, maintaining privacy, reduction of visible disturbances, or a weighted combination thereof.
11. The system of claim 1 , where the drone comprises a configuration manager and a motion controller that are operative to control configuration of the drone and its travel respectively.
12. The system of claim 4 , where the drone controller assumes control of the drone from a motion controller located in the drone.
13. A method comprising:
autonomously initiating communication between a drone and a facility agent located at an external facility where the drone will deliver a payload to;
offering the drone a set of delivery strategies in accordance with a constraint or a goal; and
reaching an agreement between the drone and the facility agent on one delivery strategy for the payload.
14. The method of claim 13 , where the communication is initiated by the drone arriving at a location that is proximate to the facility but remote from the external facility and where the offering the drone a set of delivery strategies is initiated by the facility agent.
15. The method of claim 13 , where the drone comprises an access-option evaluator that evaluates the set of delivery strategies.
16. The method of claim 13 , where the set of delivery strategies are selected to maximize a goal.
17. The method of claim 16 , where the goal comprises promoting safety, improving an efficiency of delivery, energy conservation, noise reduction, pollution reduction, maintaining privacy, reduction of visible disturbances, or a weighted combination thereof.
18. A computer program product comprising:
a non-transitory storage medium readable by a processing circuit and storing instructions for execution by the processing circuit for performing a method comprising:
autonomously initiating communication between a drone and a facility agent located at an external facility where the drone will deliver a payload to;
offering the drone a set of delivery strategies in accordance with a constraint or a goal; and
reaching an agreement between the drone and the facility agent on one delivery strategy for the payload.