Patent ID: 9382003
Filing Date: 2016-07-05
CPC Classification: A01B,A01C,B64C,B64D,Y10S

Claim Text:
1. A method of automated farming where a fleet of two or more aerial farm robots is used to carry out farming tasks and where the method includes at least the operations of: accepting from a farmer a service order to carry out a farming task on a field or on plants being farmed, creating and maintaining a map of the field and plants being farmed, using the map to transform the service order into individual assignments for each of the aerial farm robots in the fleet to perform on all or part of the field or for one or more of the plants being farmed, using a reservoir on at least one aerial farm robot in the fleet to hold farm inputs, monitoring the amount of the farm inputs remaining in the reservoir and automatically refilling the reservoir on the at least one aerial farm robot when the reservoir becomes empty, tracking the precise coordinates of each robot at all times; using the precise coordinates to automatically plot individual assignments for the two or more robots and then simultaneously directing the two or more robots to proceed along individual paths to individual points in the field and to perform a farming task beginning at those points, using a toolset on at least one aerial farm robot in the fleet to deliver the farm inputs or to perform other farming tasks, monitoring the amount of power remaining on each of the aerial farm robots in the fleet and automatically providing additional power to each robot when power becomes too low, controlling traffic as the aerial farm robots in the fleet travel so the robots avoid colliding with each other or with people or other things, and directing the aerial farm robots in the fleet to a home base for automatic parking or storage when no longer needed.