Patent ID: 11900821
Assignee: TEXTRON INNOVATIONS INC.
Field: Control (Instruments)
Classification: CPC G  H | IPC G  H

Claim 13:
14. A fleet controller, comprising:
a processor; and
a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a program for controlling a fleet of autonomous vehicles to be executed by the processor, the program including instructions for:
obtaining a mission for a vehicle of the fleet of autonomous vehicles;
identifying a flight path associated with the mission;
verifying a usability of the flight path with an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) traffic management (UTM), wherein the UTM performs checking on the flight path for at least one of traffic in the flight path, availability of the flight path due to flight restrictions, or requirements for use of the flight path;
modifying the flight path according to data from the UTM in response to the UTM indicating that the usability of the flight path is not verified; and
controlling the vehicle according to the flight path by sending, through a control arbitrator, vehicle commands associated with the flight path to the vehicle, the controlling the vehicle causing the vehicle to execute the mission, wherein the control arbitrator forwards the vehicle commands to the vehicle in response to the control arbitrator determining that the vehicle is being controlled by a single source of commands.