US 12,136,350 B2
Air vehicle mission deconfliction
Francisco A. Navarro Félix, Lucerne (CH); Zarrin Chua, Boston, MA (US); Alfredo Giuliano, Lucerne (CH); Martin Kearney-Fischer, Boston, MA (US); Tim Moser, Solothurn (CH); Christopher John Devine, Bristow, VA (US); and Jakob Widauer, Zurich (CH)
Assigned to Aurora Flight Sciences Corporation, a subsidiary of the Boeing Company, Manassas, VA (US)
Filed by Aurora Flight Sciences Corporation, Manassas, VA (US)
Filed on Dec. 3, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/457,614.
Claims priority of provisional application 63/156,439, filed on Mar. 4, 2021.
Prior Publication US 2022/0284823 A1, Sep. 8, 2022
Int. Cl. G08G 5/04 (2006.01); G05D 1/00 (2024.01); G06Q 10/063 (2023.01); G08G 5/00 (2006.01)
CPC G08G 5/045 (2013.01) [G08G 5/003 (2013.01); G08G 5/0043 (2013.01)] 25 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method for operating air vehicles, the method comprising:
grouping, by a computer system, flights for the air vehicles into categories based on a duration, respectively from an origination location to a destination location, of each of the flights, each flight of the flights comprising, respectively, a departure time and at least one critical phase;
clustering, by the computer system, the flights within the categories into subsets of the flights that can be concurrently performed to meet a set of criteria comprising:
each flight, in a subset of the subsets of the flights, departing sequentially at a distinct departure time; and
the critical phase, respectively of each flight in the subset, occurring distinct from a critical phase of any flight in the subset with an adjacent departure time;
assigning, by the computer system, the subset to a single air vehicle supervisor in a set of air vehicle supervisors; and
the air vehicles in a subset of the subsets concurrently flying the flights assigned to the subset under direction of an air vehicle supervisor in the set of air vehicle supervisors.