MOBILE OFFLOADING FOR DISCONNECTED TERMINAL OPERATION

1 . A method, comprising:

deploying a mobile offload station to within a predetermined proximity of an autonomous vehicle (AV) responsive to receipt of an instruction to ingest log data stored on a data storage device onboard the AV;

establishing, by the mobile offload station, a data communication link with the AV responsive to entry into the predetermined proximity; and

storing, by the mobile offload station, on a storage device onboard the mobile offload station, the log data transferred via the data communication link from the data storage device of the AV.

2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

returning, by the mobile offload station, to an operations center; and

transferring, the log data from the storage device onboard the mobile offload station to a central server at the operations center.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the instruction is generated by the operations center based on an amount of available space on the storage device onboard the AV being lower than a threshold value.

4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the threshold value is based on a level of significance of the log data.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the instruction comprises information corresponding to a common meeting location and information corresponding to an identity of the AV.

6 . The method of claim 5 , wherein the common meeting location minimizes an average cumulative distance travelled by a plurality of AVs to reach the common location.

7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the mobile offload station comprises a plurality of data transfer interfaces for parallel ingestion of log data from a plurality of AVs.

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the data communication link is a point-to-point wireless link.

9 . A mobile offload station, comprising:

a memory to store instructions; and

at least one processor coupled to the memory and configured to process the stored instructions to perform operations comprising:

deploying the mobile offload station to within a predetermined proximity of an autonomous vehicle (AV) responsive to receipt of an instruction to ingest log data stored on a data storage device onboard the AV;

establishing, by the mobile offload station, a data communication link with the AV responsive to entry into the predetermined proximity; and

storing, by the mobile offload station, on a storage device onboard the mobile offload station, the log data transferred via the data communication link from the data storage device of the AV.

10 . The mobile offload station of claim 9 , the operations further comprising:

returning, by the mobile offload station, to an operations center; and

transferring, by the mobile offload station, the log data from the storage device onboard the mobile offload station to a central server at the operations center.

11 . The mobile offload station of claim 9 , wherein the instruction is generated by the operations center based on an amount of available space on the storage device onboard the AV being lower than a threshold value.

12 . The mobile offload station of claim 11 , wherein the threshold value is based on a level of significance of the log data.

13 . The mobile offload station of claim 9 , wherein the instruction comprises information corresponding to a common meeting location and information corresponding to an identity of the AV.

14 . The mobile offload station of claim 9 , wherein the mobile offload station comprises a plurality of data transfer interfaces for parallel ingestion of log data from a plurality of AVs

15 . The mobile offload station of claim 9 , wherein the data communication link is a wired link or a point-to-point wireless link.

16 . A non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by at least one computing device, cause the at least one computing device to perform operations comprise:

deploying a mobile offload station to within a predetermined proximity of an autonomous vehicle (AV) responsive to receipt of an instruction to ingest log data stored on a data storage device onboard the AV;

establishing, by the mobile offload station, a data communication link with the AV responsive to entry into the predetermined proximity; and

storing, by the mobile offload station, on a storage device onboard the mobile offload station, the log data transferred via the data communication link from the data storage device of the AV.

17 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 16 , the operations further comprise:

returning, by the mobile offload station, to an operations center; and

transferring, the log data from the storage device onboard the mobile offload station to a central server at the operations center.

18 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 16 , wherein the instruction is generated by the operations center based on an amount of available space on the storage device onboard the AV being lower than a threshold value.

19 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 16 , wherein the instruction comprises information corresponding to a common meeting location and information corresponding to an identity of the AV.

20 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 16 , wherein the mobile offload station comprises a plurality of data transfer interfaces for parallel ingestion of log data from a plurality of AVs.