Patent ID: 7149625

Claim:
A distributed navigation system for providing navigation information to a navigable physical object, the system comprising: (a) a navigation management component for managing the generation and transmission of navigation information to a navigable physical object; (b) a navigation guidance interface component for: (i) receiving a route definition pertaining to the navigable physical object; and (ii) transmitting navigation information generated by the distributed navigation system to the navigable physical object controller; (c) a guidance component for generating the navigation information for the navigable physical object; (d) a navigation services component for providing routing information to the distributed navigation system; and (e) a physical location sensor component for obtaining the physical location of the navigable physical object; wherein the components of the distributed navigation system or software components distributed on a plurality of networked computers in a distributed network external to the navigable physical object; and wherein the components of the distributed navigation system communicate among themselves through the distributed network using a computer network protocol.