Patent ID: 11961027
Assignee: CATERPILLAR INC.
Field: IT methods for management (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 9:
10. A system for optimal utilization of work machines for performing tasks across a predetermined work area, comprising:
one or more processors; and
at least one non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:
electronically receiving a single request to initiate a job on the predetermined work area, the job comprising a plurality of tasks associated with a plurality of machines;
electronically receiving information indicative of one or more characteristics of a first machine of the plurality of machines;
setting a size of the predetermined work area based on the received one or more characteristics of the first machine;
deploying, in response to the single request, a first machine of the plurality of machines to the predetermined work area to execute a first task of the plurality of tasks autonomously;
determining whether the first machine will be able to trigger a deployment event to deploy a second machine of the plurality of machines based on operation of the first machine in the predetermined work area toward autonomously completing the first task;
determining, prior to deploying any additional machines of the plurality of machines to the first segment, that the first machine will be unable to trigger the deployment event;
in response to said determining that the first machine will be unable to trigger the deployment event, without another request to initiate the job being received, and prior to occurrence of the triggering event, automatically deploying a third machine to execute the first task of the plurality of tasks autonomously and trigger the deployment event instead of the first machine continuing to execute the first task;
determining occurrence of the deployment event triggered by the third machine, the deployment event triggered by the third machine being determined based on characteristics of the third machine and the second machine, and based on characteristics of the predetermined work area; and
upon detection of the deployment event triggered by the third machine, and without another request to initiate the job being received, deploying the second machine to the predetermined work area to execute a second task of the plurality of tasks autonomously,
wherein the single request to initiate the job on the predetermined work area is the only request to perform the job by way of the second machine and a combination of the first machine and the third machine, and
wherein the second task is based on the first task and cannot occur without the first task being completed by the third machine.