Patent ID: 8862403

Claim:
A method comprising: a computing device receiving information indicative of a desired location within a region for a vehicle to reside and a time period for the vehicle to travel to the desired location, the region being divided into a plurality of cells; the computing device determining estimated cell locations that can be reached by the vehicle over a time interval of the time period by following a wind at a given altitude; for the time interval, the computing device assigning a cost value to one or more cells of the plurality of cells based on a proximity of the estimated cell locations to a cell including the desired location and based on a given cost value of the cell for a subsequent time interval; for the time interval, the computing device determining for the one or more cells an altitude for the vehicle to travel based on the assigned cost value for the cell; and the computing device storing for the time interval in non-transitory data storage coupled to or in communication with the computing device information per cell indicative of the cost value and the altitude for the vehicle to travel.