CN111483345B

CN111483345B - Charging control method and device for unmanned aerial vehicle, storage medium and electronic equipment

Info

Publication number: CN111483345B
Application number: CN201910080419.5A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 韩松
Original assignee: Beijing Jingdong Zhenshi Information Technology Co Ltd
Current assignee: Beijing Jingdong Zhenshi Information Technology Co Ltd
Priority date: 2019-01-28
Filing date: 2019-01-28
Publication date: 2022-09-06
Anticipated expiration: 2039-01-28
Also published as: CN111483345A

Abstract

The invention discloses a charging control method and device of an unmanned aerial vehicle, a storage medium and electronic equipment. The charging control method comprises the following steps: acquiring the residual electric quantity of the unmanned aerial vehicle; calculating the total power consumption consumed by the unmanned aerial vehicle after the unmanned aerial vehicle completes the unfinished flight mission and flies to the charging pile; comparing the total power consumption with the residual power, if the total power consumption is larger than the residual power, changing the current flight mission of the unmanned aerial vehicle into flying to a charging pile for charging, and executing the previous unfinished flight mission after charging is finished; and if the total power consumption is less than or equal to the residual power, restarting the charging control method. The charge to unmanned aerial vehicle is planned according to the flight task of unmanned aerial vehicle's current execution, can effectively reduce unmanned aerial vehicle's the number of times that charges, promotes unmanned aerial vehicle's rate of utilization.

Description

Charging control method and device for unmanned aerial vehicle, storage medium and electronic equipment

Technical Field

The present invention relates generally to an unmanned aerial vehicle technology, and in particular, to a charging control method and apparatus for an unmanned aerial vehicle, a storage medium, and an electronic device.

Background

With the development of warehouse logistics technology, automation equipment has been applied in a large scale. The unmanned aerial vehicle can also be applied to a warehouse management system, for example, the unmanned aerial vehicle can be applied to inspection, and is used for monitoring the operation conditions of other automation equipment in a warehouse or discovering whether disasters such as fire disasters exist; unmanned aerial vehicle can also be applied to the stock and check for solve the difficult problem that the stock is difficult to check in large-scale automatic stereoscopic warehouse.

The existing unmanned aerial vehicle needs to be provided with a storage battery as a power supply, and the unmanned aerial vehicle needs to be charged after working for a certain time, and generally returns to charge after the battery power of the unmanned aerial vehicle drops to a threshold value. To ensure that the drone can fly from the furthest distance to the charging site for charging, the threshold is typically set as large as possible, often greater than the amount of power consumed by the drone to fly from the furthest distance to the charging site. Just so led to unmanned aerial vehicle to be used for the electric quantity of work less relatively, further led to unmanned aerial vehicle to charge frequently, the problem that the unmanned aerial vehicle utilization ratio is low.

The above information disclosed in this background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not constitute prior art that is already known to a person of ordinary skill in the art.

Disclosure of Invention

In this summary, concepts in a simplified form are introduced that are further described in the detailed description. This summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.

The invention has a main purpose of overcoming at least one defect of the prior art and provides a charging control method of an unmanned aerial vehicle, wherein a plurality of landmarks are arranged at the bottom of a flight area in advance, a plurality of charging piles are arranged at the bottom of the flight area of the unmanned aerial vehicle, and each charging pile is correspondingly provided with one landmark;

each route of the unmanned aerial vehicle is continuously provided with a plurality of landmarks, and the unmanned aerial vehicle carries out positioning and navigation by identifying the landmarks below;

the charging control method includes the steps of:

acquiring the residual electric quantity of the unmanned aerial vehicle;

calculating the total power consumption consumed by the unmanned aerial vehicle after the unmanned aerial vehicle completes the unfinished flight mission and flies to the charging pile;

comparing the total power consumption with the residual power, if the total power consumption is larger than the residual power, changing the current flight mission of the unmanned aerial vehicle into flying to a charging pile for charging, and executing the previous unfinished flight mission after charging is finished; and if the total power consumption is less than or equal to the residual power, restarting the charging control method.

According to one embodiment of the invention, calculating the total power consumption comprises the steps of:

planning a first charging route by taking the end point of the uncompleted flight mission as a starting point and taking an idle charging pile as an end point, and calculating the total length of the first charging route and the remaining flight routes which need to be flown after the uncompleted flight mission is executed;

and multiplying the total length by the electric quantity consumed by the unmanned aerial vehicle per flight unit length to obtain the total electric consumption quantity.

According to one embodiment of the invention, the current flight mission of the unmanned aerial vehicle is changed into the flight to the charging pile for charging, and the previous unfinished flight mission is executed after the charging is finished, and the method comprises the following steps:

estimating the estimated position of the unmanned aerial vehicle when the unmanned aerial vehicle receives the second general route;

planning a second charging route which takes the estimated position as a starting point and takes the charging pile as a terminal point;

planning a return route which takes the charging pile as a starting point and is connected to the rest flight route at an end point;

intercepting the rest of flight routes from the end point of the return route to the end point of the rest of flight routes on the rest of flight routes;

and sequentially connecting the second charging route, the return route and the rest flying routes into a second general route, and sending the second general route to the unmanned aerial vehicle.

According to an embodiment of the invention, when planning the second charging route, the shortest route respectively reaching each idle charging pile from the estimated position is planned, and the shortest route with the least number of landmarks is selected as the second charging route.

According to one embodiment of the invention, the end point of the return route is the estimated location.

According to one embodiment of the invention, the end point of the return route is a point on the remaining flight route closest to the charging post.

According to one embodiment of the invention, the unmanned aerial vehicle is applied to warehouse management, the landmarks arranged in the lane of the warehouse are lane landmarks, the landmarks arranged on the charging pile are charging pile landmarks,

unmanned aerial vehicle is in discerning stake landmark back descending is in it charges to fill on the stake.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the charge control method further includes:

according to a charging request sent by the unmanned aerial vehicle after landing, controlling the charging pile to fix the unmanned aerial vehicle, and then controlling a charging connector on the charging pile to be inserted into a charging interface of the unmanned aerial vehicle for charging;

according to a charging completion indication sent by the unmanned aerial vehicle after charging is completed, the charging pile is controlled to pull out the charging connector, then the charging pile is controlled to loosen the unmanned aerial vehicle, and a take-off indication is sent to the unmanned aerial vehicle.

According to one embodiment of the invention, the charging pile comprises an apron, a fixing device and a charging assembly,

the fixing device comprises a plurality of clamping pieces distributed on the outer side of the parking apron and a clamping driving mechanism, wherein the clamping driving mechanism is used for driving the clamping pieces to simultaneously move towards the inner side of the parking apron to be close to each other and driving the clamping pieces to simultaneously move towards the outer side of the parking apron to be separated from each other;

the charging assembly comprises a charging connector and a telescopic mechanism used for driving the charging connector to extend out and retract.

An embodiment of the present invention further provides a charging control apparatus for an unmanned aerial vehicle, including:

the electric quantity acquisition module is used for acquiring the residual electric quantity of the unmanned aerial vehicle;

the power consumption prediction module is used for calculating the total power consumption consumed when the unmanned aerial vehicle finishes executing the unfinished flight mission and flies to the charging pile;

the electric quantity comparison module is used for comparing the total electric quantity consumption with the residual electric quantity;

and the task updating module is used for changing the current flight task of the unmanned aerial vehicle into flying to a charging pile for charging when the total power consumption is greater than the residual power, and executing the previous unfinished flight task after charging is finished.

An embodiment of the present invention also proposes a computer-readable storage medium on which a computer program is stored, which, when executed by a processor, implements the charging control method as described above.

An embodiment of the present invention also provides an electronic device, including: a processor; and a memory for storing executable instructions of the processor; wherein the processor is configured to perform the charging control method described above via execution of the executable instructions.

According to the technical scheme, the charging control method of the unmanned aerial vehicle has the advantages and positive effects that:

the method comprises the steps of evaluating the residual capacity of the unmanned aerial vehicle in the process of executing a flight task by the unmanned aerial vehicle, judging whether the residual capacity meets the condition of charging after the current flight task is completed, and if not, firstly charging the unmanned aerial vehicle and then completing the unfinished flight task. Can avoid unmanned aerial vehicle the in-process of flying the task to appear the condition that the electric quantity is not enough like this, simultaneously, plan charging to unmanned aerial vehicle according to unmanned aerial vehicle's the flight task of current execution, can effectively reduce unmanned aerial vehicle's the number of times that charges, promote unmanned aerial vehicle's rate of utilization.

Drawings

Various objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description of preferred embodiments of the invention, when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. The drawings are merely exemplary of the invention and are not necessarily drawn to scale. In the drawings, like reference characters designate the same or similar parts throughout the different views. Wherein:

fig. 1 is a flow chart illustrating a method of controlling charging of an unmanned aerial vehicle according to an exemplary embodiment;

fig. 2 is a flow chart illustrating a charging control method of a drone according to an exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 3 is a plan view of a warehouse, according to an exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 4 is a two-dimensional map of a warehouse, shown in accordance with an exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 5 is a road map of remaining flight routes displayed on a two-dimensional map, according to an exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 6 is a roadmap for a first bus route shown on a two-dimensional map, according to an exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 7 is a roadmap for a second bus displayed on a two-dimensional map, according to an exemplary embodiment;

fig. 8 is a schematic diagram illustrating a top view of a charging pole in accordance with an exemplary embodiment;

fig. 9 is a schematic structural diagram illustrating a charging control apparatus of a drone according to an exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 10 is a schematic diagram of an electronic device shown in accordance with an exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 11 is a schematic diagram illustrating a program product in accordance with one illustrative embodiment.

Detailed Description

Example embodiments will now be described more fully with reference to the accompanying drawings. Example embodiments may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the concept of example embodiments to those skilled in the art. The same reference numerals in the drawings denote the same or similar structures, and thus their detailed description will be omitted.

Referring to fig. 1, fig. 1 is a flowchart of a charging control method of an unmanned aerial vehicle in this embodiment. The charging control method comprises the following steps:

step S100: and acquiring the residual electric quantity of the unmanned aerial vehicle.

The unmanned aerial vehicle 1 detects the residual electric quantity of the storage battery in real time through the residual electric quantity detection module. The unmanned aerial vehicle 1 can upload the remaining capacity to the management system in real time. Or the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 may upload the remaining power to the management system after receiving the indication of uploading remaining power sent by the management system.

Step S200: and calculating the total power consumption to be consumed when the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 finishes the uncompleted flight mission and flies to the charging pile.

The flight mission of the drone 1 may be, but is not limited to, an inspection mission or an inventory task. The incomplete flight mission is a part of the current flight mission that has not been completed. Fill electric pile and be the supporting battery charging outfit of unmanned aerial vehicle 1, can charge for unmanned aerial vehicle 1.

Step S300: and judging whether the total power consumption is greater than the residual power, if so, entering step S400, and otherwise, entering step S100.

Step S400: the current flight task of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 is changed into flying to a charging pile for charging, and the unfinished flight task is continuously executed after the charging is finished.

The method comprises the steps of evaluating the residual capacity of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 in the process that the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 executes a flight mission, judging whether the residual capacity meets the condition of charging after the current flight mission is finished, and if not, firstly charging the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 and then finishing the unfinished flight mission. Can avoid unmanned aerial vehicle 1 the in-process of carrying out the flight task like this the condition that the electric quantity is not enough appears, simultaneously, plan the charging to unmanned aerial vehicle 1 according to unmanned aerial vehicle 1's current executive flight task, can effectively reduce unmanned aerial vehicle 1's the number of times that charges, promote unmanned aerial vehicle 1's rate of utilization.

Further, referring to fig. 2, step S200 includes steps S210 to S230.

Step S210: the remaining flight routes of the flight missions unfinished by the drone 1 are acquired. Step S210 includes steps S211 to S213.

Step S211: the current position of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 is obtained.

In the present embodiment, referring to fig. 3, the warehouse includes a rack area and a charging area. A plurality of shelves 4 are arranged in the shelf area. A plurality of charging piles 3 are arranged in the charging area. The charging area is arranged outside the goods shelf area. A plurality of rows of goods shelves 4 are arranged in the goods shelf area, and two adjacent goods shelves 4 are mutually separated. Roadways for conveying goods are arranged on two sides of the goods shelf 4. Fill electric pile 3 and can arrange in proper order along the edge of goods shelves district. The region of unmanned aerial vehicle 1's ability flight is including the tunnel in charging district and the goods shelves district.

A plurality of landmarks 2 are arranged in advance at the bottom of the flyable area of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 in the warehouse. The landmark 2 may be placed on the ground. The landmarks 2 include roadway landmarks 22 and charging post landmarks 21. The roadway landmarks 22 are disposed in the roadway of the warehouse and are arranged in sequence along the extending direction of the roadway. Fill electric pile landmark 21 setting on filling electric pile 3's 1 parking apron of unmanned aerial vehicle. The charging post landmark 21 is adjacent to the roadway landmark 22.

The pattern of each landmark 2 is not the same so that the information recorded by each landmark 2 is not the same. The pattern of landmarks 2 may be arranged as a two-dimensional code. The unmanned aerial vehicle 1 recognizes the pattern of the lower landmark 2 to acquire the information described in the landmark 2. The unmanned aerial vehicle 1 can obtain the following information by recognizing the landmark 2 pattern: number of landmark 2, position of landmark 2, type of landmark 2, roadway where landmark 2 is located, whether it is an intersection, type of intersection, direction of communication. The landmark 2 type indicates whether the landmark 2 is a roadway landmark 22 or a charging post landmark 21. The lane in which the landmark 2 is located is in which lane the landmark 2 is located when the landmark 2 is the lane landmark 22, and for example, the number of the lane in which the landmark 2 is located may be recorded in the pattern information of the landmark 2. If more than three landmarks 2 are adjacent to the landmark 2, the landmark 2 is the intersection, and the intersection type comprises an intersection and a T-junction. When the landmark 2 is an intersection, it is also indicated in which direction the landmarks 2 adjacent to the landmark 2 are respectively located in the landmark 2.

The location of landmark 2 is information indicating the location of landmark 2 within the warehouse. Referring to fig. 4, a two-dimensional map of the warehouse is created, on which square networks are evenly divided, and the distance between two adjacent landmarks 2 is equal to the length of one grid. The area filled with diagonal lines in fig. 4 is an area where the unmanned aerial vehicle cannot fly into, such as the shelf 4; the hollow white areas of fig. 5 correspond to roadways, each cell of which corresponds to a roadway landmark 22; the area filled with thin dots in fig. 4 corresponds to the charging zone, where each cell corresponds to a charging post landmark 21. And establishing a two-dimensional coordinate system, endowing each grid on the two-dimensional map with a coordinate value [ X, Y ], and mapping the landmark 2 and the grid where the landmark 2 is located so that the landmark 2 has a unique coordinate value. The coordinate value reflects the position of the landmark 2 in the warehouse.

The unmanned aerial vehicle 1 photographs a lower landmark pattern to identify the position of the landmark 2, so as to obtain the current position of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1. In this embodiment, the drone 1 is currently at landmark [5,1 ]. And then uploading the current position to a management system. The position of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 may be actively uploaded to the management system after passing through one landmark 2, or the current position of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 may be uploaded to the management system after receiving a position upload instruction issued by the management system.

The time interval between the acquisition of the remaining power of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 and the acquisition of the current position of the unmanned aerial vehicle is as small as possible. Preferably, acquiring the remaining power of the drone 1 and the current location are performed simultaneously.

It can be understood that the current position of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 can also be obtained by methods such as GPS positioning and Beidou satellite positioning, and the method of positioning by using the landmark 2 is not limited to that provided in this embodiment. Of course, the positioning itself by using the landmark 2 in this embodiment is more accurate, and the positioning signal is not shielded by the wall of the warehouse and thus the positioning is not inaccurate.

Step S212: the flight route of the current flight mission of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 is acquired.

Since the flight mission of the drone 1 is usually issued by the management system, the flight route of the current flight mission of the drone 1 can be acquired from the database of the management system itself. In the present embodiment, the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 navigates and locates by the landmark 2, and the flight route is information of a plurality of consecutively arranged landmarks 2. For example, a flight path with a landmark [5,0] as a starting point and a landmark [5,7] as an ending point may be represented by landmarks [5,0], [5,1], [5,2], [5,3], [5,4], [5,5], [5,6], [5,7 ]. The unmanned aerial vehicle 1 flies along a preset flight path by sequentially finding the landmarks 2 and sequentially flying over the landmarks 2.

Preferably, in this step, if the flight route of the current flight mission is not obtained, the management system establishes a mission for the drone. This task can be flight task or the task of charging, and the kind of task can be decided according to unmanned aerial vehicle's residual capacity. For example, when the remaining capacity of the unmanned aerial vehicle is greater than or equal to a preset value, a flight mission is established; and if the residual capacity is less than the preset value, establishing a charging task.

Step S213: and obtaining the remaining flight route 41 of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 according to the flight route of the current flight task of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 and the current position of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1.

The remaining flight route 41 of the uncompleted flight mission can be obtained by excluding the route from the current position of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 to the starting point of the flight route in the flight route of the current flight mission. Referring to fig. 5, in the present embodiment, the remaining flight path 41 can be represented as landmarks [5,1], [5,2], [5,3], [5,4], [5,5], [5,6], [5,7 ].

Of course, the steps of acquiring the remaining flight path 41 described in steps S211 to S213 may be replaced by a method in which the drone 1 directly uploads the remaining flight path 41 to the management system. This has the advantage that the computation time of the management system can be reduced.

Step S220: and planning a first charging route which takes the terminal point of the incomplete flight mission as a starting point and takes the charging pile 3 as a terminal point. This step includes step S221 to step S222.

Step S221: an idle charging pile is selected from the plurality of charging piles 3.

In a plurality of electric pile 3 that fill, it can have some to fill electric pile 3 and occupy by other unmanned aerial vehicle 1 and can't use, needs to elect an idle electric pile that fills. In this embodiment, the charging pile of the idle charging pile is labeled as [0,8 ]. The idle charging pile is preferably the one closest to the drone 1.

Step S222: a first charging route is planned from the end of the remaining flight route 41 to the idle charging post.

Referring to fig. 6, the roadway landmarks 22 corresponding to the end points of the remaining flight routes 41 and the charging pile landmarks 21 of the idle charging piles 3 are connected through the continuously arranged roadway landmarks 22, and the plurality of landmarks 2 continuously arranged from the roadway landmarks 22 corresponding to the end points of the remaining flight routes 41 to the charging pile landmarks 21 of the idle charging piles are the first charging routes 42. In the present embodiment, the first charging route 42 is the landmarks [5,7], [5,8], [4,8], [3,8], [2,8], [1,8] and [0,8 ].

Preferably, a first charging route 42 is planned that includes the least number of landmarks 2. The first charging route 42 is shortest, and the expected total power consumption of the drone 1 is also as small as possible.

Step S230: the total power consumption required for the drone 1 to fly through the remaining flight route 41 and the first charging route 42 is evaluated.

The total length of the remaining flight route 41 and the first charging route 42 is calculated, and then the total length is multiplied by the amount of power consumed by the drone 1 per unit length of distance flown to obtain the total power consumption. The amount of power consumed by the drone 1 per unit length of distance that is flown may be calculated from the past historical distance that the drone 1 is flying and the historical amount of power consumed by flying the historical distance, for example, the amount of power consumed by the drone 1 per unit length of distance that is flown may be equal to the historical amount of power divided by the historical distance. In the present embodiment, the amount of power consumed per unit length of flight is preferably expressed in terms of the amount of power consumed by the drone 1 flying a distance between two adjacent landmarks 2, which simplifies the calculation.

Further, step S400 includes steps S410 to S440.

Step S410: and estimating the estimated position of the unmanned aerial vehicle when the unmanned aerial vehicle receives the second general route, and planning a second charging route from the estimated position to the idle charging pile.

Referring to fig. 7, the predicted position is located on the remaining flight path 41 and between the start point and the end point of the remaining flight path 41. In the present embodiment, the estimated position is the landmark [5,2 ].

The estimated position is a position where the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 is expected to be located when the second bus route is received. A certain time is consumed in the process of performing the operations in steps S100 to S440 and obtaining the second general route in the management system, and a certain time is also required for transmitting the second general route to the unmanned aerial vehicle 1, and the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 continues to fly for a distance along the remaining flight route 41 in the two periods of time, so that the flight distance of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 needs to be pre-determined to obtain the pre-estimated position. The time period from the step S100 to the uploading of the second bus route to the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 by the management system can be measured through a plurality of tests, the flying distance of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 in the time period can be calculated by multiplying the time period by the average speed of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1, and then the position of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 receiving the second bus route can be estimated, and the position is the landmark 2 where the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 is located in the embodiment.

In this way, the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 just receives the second general route when flying to the estimated position along the remaining flight route 41, and just can change the flight route and fly along the second general route.

When a second charging route is planned, the shortest route from the estimated position to each idle charging pile is planned, and the shortest route with the least number of landmarks is selected as the second charging route.

Like this, the second route of charging just is short as far as possible, and unmanned aerial vehicle flight second charging circuit power consumption just as far as possible to guarantee that residual capacity can satisfy that unmanned aerial vehicle can have flown the second charging circuit.

The roadway landmarks 22 corresponding to the designated point are connected with the charging pile landmarks 21 of the idle charging pile through the continuously arranged roadway landmarks 22, and the plurality of landmarks 2 continuously arranged from the roadway landmarks 22 corresponding to the estimated position to the charging pile landmarks 21 of the idle charging pile are the second charging route 43. In this embodiment, the landmark of the idle charging pile is the landmark [0,2], and the second charging route 43 is the landmarks [5,2], [4,2], [3,2], [2,2], [1,2], [0,2 ].

Preferably, a second charging route 43 is planned that contains the least number of landmarks 2. The second charging route 43 is the shortest, and the amount of power consumed by the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 flying along the second charging route 43 is also as small as possible.

Step S420: and planning a return route 44 which takes the idle charging pile as a starting point and returns to the rest flight route 41.

The return route 44 is a route that starts from the idle charging pile in step S430 and ends at any point on the remaining flight route 41. The drone 1 may fly back from the charging post 3 along a return route 44 onto the remaining flight route 41.

The end of return route 44 may be a predicted location. When the end point of the return route 44 is set as the estimated position, the return route 44 may be a route formed by turning over the first and last of the second charging route 43, which may greatly reduce the amount of calculation for planning the return route 44. In the present embodiment, the return route 44 is the landmarks [0,2], [1,2], [2,2], [3,2], [4,2], [5,2 ].

The end point of the return route 44 may also be one of the landmarks 2 on the remaining flight route 41 that is closest to the idle charging post. In this way, the drone 1 may return faster along the return route 44 onto the remaining flight route 41.

In the present embodiment, the return route 44 is a route that is connected to the remaining flight routes 41 through a plurality of successively arranged roadway landmarks 22, starting from the charging pile landmark 21. The starting point of the return route 44 is the charging pile landmark 21 of the charging pile 3, and the end point of the return route 44 may be any landmark 2 on the remaining flight route 41.

Step S430: the remaining flight path 45 on the remaining flight path 41 from the end of the return path 44 to the end of the remaining flight path 41 is intercepted.

The remaining flight path 45 is a path from the intersection of the remaining flight path 41 and the return path 44 to the end of the remaining flight path 41 along the remaining flight path 41. The remaining flight path 45 is directly cut from the original remaining flight path 41, which can reduce the amount of calculation. In the present embodiment, the remaining flight lines 45 are landmarks [2,5], [3,5], [4,5], [5,5], [6,5], and [7,5 ].

In the present embodiment, the remaining flying route 45 is a set of all landmarks 2 from the landmark 2 corresponding to the end point of the return route 44 to the landmark 2 corresponding to the end point of the remaining flying route 41 in the remaining flying route 41.

Step S440: the second charging route 43, the return route 44, and the remaining flight routes 45 are sequentially connected to form a second bus route, and the second bus route is transmitted to the unmanned aerial vehicle 1.

The second charging route 43, the return route 44 and the remaining flying route 45 are merged into one second general route, that is, the end point of the second charging route 43 and the start point of the return route 44 are merged, and the end point of the return route 44 and the start point of the remaining flying route 45 are merged to form a second general route with the start point of the second charging route 43 as the start point and the end point of the remaining flying route 45 as the end point. In this embodiment, the second route is a landmark [5,2], [4,2], [3,2], [2,2], [1,2], [0,2], [1,2], [2,2], [3,2], [4,2], [5,2], [2,5], [3,5], [4,5], [5,5], [6,5], [7,5 ]. And sending the second general route to the unmanned aerial vehicle 1, and flying along the second general route after the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 receives the second general route.

Unmanned aerial vehicle 1 flies along the second total route, can reach the idle top of filling electric pile, carries out the operation of descending and berthing behind the electric pile landmark 21 of the discernment below. After the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 stops at the parking apron of the charging pile, a charging request is sent to the management system. The management system controls the charging pile to charge the unmanned aerial vehicle 1.

Referring to fig. 8, this embodiment further discloses a structure of the charging pile 3. The charging pile includes an apron 31, a fixing device 32 and a charging assembly 33.

The apron 31 is provided with a charging pile landmark 21. The charging pile landmark 21 is disposed in the middle of the apron 31.

The fixture 32 includes a plurality of clamps 321 and a clamp driving mechanism. A plurality of clamps 321 are distributed on the outer side of the apron 31. The clamping members 321 can be four, and the four clamping members 321 are uniformly distributed around the charging pile landmark 21. The clamp 321 is mounted on a clamp drive mechanism, which may be a plurality of electric push rods. The number of the electric push rods can be four, and four clamping pieces 321 are distributed and arranged on the four electric push rods. The electric push rod can drive the clamping piece 321 to move along a straight line. The clamp 321 is provided so as to be movable from the outside of the apron 31 to the inside of the apron 31. When the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 is parked at the middle of the apron 31, the grip driving mechanism drives the plurality of grips 321 to move inward at the same time to grip the landing frame of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1. When the position at which the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 is parked is not at the center of the apron 31, the clamp 321 pushes the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 to the center of the apron 31 in the process of being drawn inward. When unmanned aerial vehicle 1 need leave and fill electric pile, centre gripping actuating mechanism can drive a plurality of holders 321 simultaneously to the outside motion on air park 31, and holder 321 loosens unmanned aerial vehicle's the frame that falls.

The charging unit 33 includes a charging connector 331 and a telescopic mechanism. The charging connector 331 is mounted on the telescopic mechanism. The telescopic mechanism can drive the charging connector 331 to move along a straight line. The telescopic mechanism can be an electric cylinder, an oil cylinder or an air cylinder. The charging interface of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 is arranged on the outer side of the apron 31 and is arranged to extend towards the inner side of the apron 31. When the charging interface of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 is also arranged on the side, the charging connector 331 can be inserted into the charging interface of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 when extending out of the inner side of the parking apron 31.

It can be understood that, when the charging interface of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 is arranged at the bottom, the charging connector 331 can be arranged at the bottom of the apron 31 and can extend upwards. Thus, when the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 is parked on the apron 31, the charging connector 331 can also be extended upward to be inserted into the charging interface of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1.

Further, the charge control method further includes:

s500: according to the charging request sent by the unmanned aerial vehicle 1, the charging pile 3 is controlled to fix the unmanned aerial vehicle 1, and then the charging connector 331 on the charging pile 3 is controlled to be inserted into the charging interface of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 for charging.

After receiving the charging request sent by the unmanned aerial vehicle 1, the management system controls the fixing device 32 to fix the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 at a predetermined position; the management system controls the charging connector 331 to extend out, so that the charging connector 331 is inserted into the charging interface of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1; after the charging connector 331 is inserted in place, the pipeline system connects the charging connector 331 to the power supply, so that the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 can be charged through the charging connector 331.

S600: according to the charging completion indication sent by the unmanned aerial vehicle 1, the charging pile 3 is controlled to pull out the charging connector 331, then the charging pile 3 is controlled to loosen the unmanned aerial vehicle 1, and a take-off indication is sent to the unmanned aerial vehicle 1.

The unmanned aerial vehicle 1 regularly detects the electric quantity of battery, sends the completion of charging instruction to the management system when the electric quantity is more than presetting the threshold value. The preset threshold may be any one of 90% to 100% of the battery capacity. After the management system receives the charging completion indication, the charging connector 331 is controlled to retract so as to be separated from the charging interface, then the fixing device 32 is controlled to loosen the unmanned aerial vehicle 1, and then the takeoff indication is sent to the unmanned aerial vehicle 1. The unmanned aerial vehicle 1 takes off after receiving the take-off instruction and continues to fly along the second general route. The drone 1 continues to fly along the second general route, i.e. first along the return route 44 onto the remaining flight route 45 and then along the remaining flight route 45 to complete the remaining flight mission.

Referring to fig. 9, the present exemplary embodiment also proposes a charging control apparatus 100 for the drone 1. The charging control apparatus 100 includes a power acquisition module 110, a power consumption prediction module 120, a power comparison module 130, and a task update module 140.

The power acquiring module 110 and the power consumption predicting module 120 are both connected to the power comparing module 130. The power comparison module 130 is connected to the task update module 140.

The power acquisition module 110 is configured to acquire the remaining power of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1. The power consumption prediction module 120 is configured to calculate a total power consumption consumed when the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 completes the execution of the uncompleted flight mission and flies to the charging pile. The power acquisition module 110 transmits the acquired remaining power to the power comparison module 130, and the power consumption prediction module 120 transmits the total power consumption to the power comparison module 130. After receiving the total power consumption amount and the remaining power amount, the power comparison module 130 compares the total power consumption amount and the remaining power amount, and sends the comparison result to the task update module 140. And the task receiving module receives the comparison result, when the total power consumption is greater than the residual power, the current flight task of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 is changed into flying to a charging pile for charging, and the previous unfinished flight task is executed after the charging is finished.

Further, the charging control apparatus 100 further includes a cycling module 150 respectively connected to the power comparing module 130, the power acquiring module 110 and the power consumption predicting module 120. The circulation module 150 can receive the comparison result transmitted by the power comparison module 130, and when the total power consumption is less than or equal to the remaining power, send a request for obtaining the remaining power of the drone 1 to the power obtaining module 110, and send a request for calculating the total power consumption to the power consumption prediction module 120. The power acquisition module 110 acquires the remaining power of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 after receiving the request for acquiring the remaining power of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1. The power consumption prediction module 120 calculates the total power consumption amount after receiving the request for calculating the total power consumption amount.

Further, the power consumption prediction module 120 further includes a route calculation module 121 and a power calculation module 122. The route calculation module 121 is connected to the electric quantity calculation module 122.

The route calculating module 121 is configured to plan a first charging route with the end point of the uncompleted flight mission as a starting point and the charging pile as an end point, and calculate a total length of the first charging route and the remaining flight route 41 to be flown after the uncompleted flight mission is executed. The route calculation module 121 transmits the calculated total length to the electricity amount calculation module 122.

The electric quantity calculation module 122 is configured to multiply the total length by the electric quantity consumed by the drone 1 per unit length of flight to obtain a total electric quantity consumed.

Further, the task update module 140 includes a route planning module 141 and a route delivery module 142. The route planning module 141 is connected to the route issuing module 142.

The route planning module 141 is configured to plan a second charging route 43 that takes a charging pile as a terminal and takes an estimated position between a starting point and a terminal of the remaining flight route 41 to be flown for executing the uncompleted flight mission as a starting point; a return route 44 which takes the charging pile as a starting point and is connected to the remaining flight route 41 at an end point is planned; intercepting the remaining flight path 45 on the remaining flight path 41 from the end of the return path 44 to the end of the remaining flight path 41; the second charging route 43, the return route 44, and the remaining flying route 45 are connected in this order to be a second bus route.

The route issuing module 142 is configured to send a second general route to the unmanned aerial vehicle 1.

Further, the estimated position is a position where the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 is expected to be located when the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 receives the second bus route.

Further, the end point of the return route 44 is the estimated position.

Further, the end point of the return route 44 is a point on the remaining flight route 41 that is closest to the charging pile.

Further, the charging control apparatus 100 further includes a charging pile management module 160. The charging pile management module 160 is used for controlling the charging pile to fix the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 according to a charging request sent by the unmanned aerial vehicle 1, and then controlling the charging connector 331 on the charging pile to be inserted into a charging interface of the unmanned aerial vehicle 1 for charging; according to the charging completion indication sent by the unmanned aerial vehicle 1, the charging pile is controlled to pull out the charging connector 331, then the charging pile is controlled to loosen the unmanned aerial vehicle 1, and a take-off indication is sent to the unmanned aerial vehicle 1.

In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, an electronic device capable of implementing the charging control method of the unmanned aerial vehicle is also provided.

As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, aspects of the present invention may be embodied as a system, method or program product. Thus, various aspects of the invention may be embodied in the form of: an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment (including firmware, microcode, etc.), or an embodiment combining hardware and software aspects that may all generally be referred to herein as a "circuit," module "or" system.

An electronic device 800 according to this embodiment of the invention is described below with reference to fig. 10. The electronic device 800 shown in fig. 10 is only an example and should not bring any limitation to the function and the scope of use of the embodiments of the present invention.

As shown in fig. 10, the electronic device 800 is in the form of a general purpose computing device. The components of the electronic device 800 may include, but are not limited to: the at least one processing unit 810, the at least one memory unit 820, and a bus 830 that couples the various system components including the memory unit 820 and the processing unit 810.

Wherein the storage unit stores program code that is executable by the processing unit 810 to cause the processing unit 810 to perform steps according to various exemplary embodiments of the present invention as described in the above section "exemplary methods" of the present specification.

The storage unit 820 may include readable media in the form of volatile memory units such as a random access memory unit (RAM)8201 and/or a cache memory unit 8202, and may further include a read only memory unit (ROM) 8203.

The storage unit 820 may also include a program/utility 8204 having a set (at least one) of program modules 8205, such program modules 8205 including, but not limited to: an operating system, one or more application programs, other program modules, and program data, each of which, or some combination thereof, may comprise an implementation of a network environment.

Bus 830 may be any of several types of bus structures including a memory unit bus or memory unit controller, a peripheral bus, an accelerated graphics port, a processing unit, or a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures.

The electronic device 800 may also communicate with one or more external devices 700 (e.g., keyboard, pointing device, bluetooth device, etc.), with one or more devices that enable a user to interact with the electronic device 600, and/or with any device (e.g., router, modem, etc.) that enables the electronic device 800 to communicate with one or more other computing devices. Such communication may occur via an input/output (I/O) interface 650. Also, the electronic device 800 may communicate with one or more networks (e.g., a Local Area Network (LAN), a Wide Area Network (WAN), and/or a public network, such as the internet) via the network adapter 860. As shown, the network adapter 860 communicates with the other modules of the electronic device 800 via the bus 830. It should be appreciated that although not shown in the figures, other hardware and/or software modules may be used in conjunction with the electronic device 600, including but not limited to: microcode, device drivers, redundant processing units, external disk drive arrays, RAID systems, tape drives, and data backup storage systems, among others.

Through the above description of the embodiments, those skilled in the art will readily understand that the exemplary embodiments described herein may be implemented by software, or by software in combination with necessary hardware. Therefore, the technical solution according to the embodiments of the present disclosure may be embodied in the form of a software product, which may be stored in a non-volatile storage medium (which may be a CD-ROM, a usb disk, a removable hard disk, etc.) or on a network, and includes several instructions to enable a computing device (which may be a personal computer, a server, a terminal device, or a network device, etc.) to execute the method according to the embodiments of the present disclosure.

In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, a computer-readable storage medium is further provided, on which a program product capable of implementing the charging control method of the unmanned aerial vehicle described above in this specification is stored. In some possible embodiments, aspects of the invention may also be implemented in the form of a program product comprising program code means for causing a terminal device to carry out the steps according to various exemplary embodiments of the invention described in the above section "exemplary methods" of the present description, when said program product is run on the terminal device.

Referring to fig. 11, a program product 900 for implementing the charging control method of the above-mentioned unmanned aerial vehicle according to an embodiment of the present invention is described, which may employ a portable compact disc read only memory (CD-ROM) and include program codes, and may be run on a terminal device, such as a personal computer. However, the program product of the present invention is not limited in this respect, and in this document, a readable storage medium may be any tangible medium that can contain, or store a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.

The program product may employ any combination of one or more readable media. The readable medium may be a readable signal medium or a readable storage medium. A readable storage medium may be, for example, but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or any combination of the foregoing. More specific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the readable storage medium include: an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable disk, a hard disk, a Random Access Memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing.

A computer readable signal medium may include a propagated data signal with readable program code embodied therein, for example, in baseband or as part of a carrier wave. Such a propagated data signal may take any of a variety of forms, including, but not limited to, electro-magnetic, optical, or any suitable combination thereof. A readable signal medium may also be any readable medium that is not a readable storage medium and that can communicate, propagate, or transport a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.

Program code embodied on a readable medium may be transmitted using any appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless, wireline, optical fiber cable, RF, etc., or any suitable combination of the foregoing.

Program code for carrying out operations for aspects of the present invention may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages, including an object oriented programming language such as Java, C + + or the like and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the "C" programming language or similar programming languages. The program code may execute entirely on the user's computing device, partly on the user's device, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user's computing device and partly on a remote computing device, or entirely on the remote computing device or server. In the case of a remote computing device, the remote computing device may be connected to the user computing device through any kind of network, including a Local Area Network (LAN) or a Wide Area Network (WAN), or may be connected to an external computing device (e.g., through the internet using an internet service provider).

It should be noted that although in the above detailed description several modules or units of the device for action execution are mentioned, such a division is not mandatory. Indeed, the features and functionality of two or more modules or units described above may be embodied in one module or unit, according to embodiments of the present disclosure. Conversely, the features and functions of one module or unit described above may be further divided into embodiments by a plurality of modules or units.

Moreover, although the steps of the methods of the present disclosure are depicted in the drawings in a particular order, this does not require or imply that these steps must be performed in this particular order, or that all of the depicted steps must be performed, to achieve desirable results. Additionally or alternatively, certain steps may be omitted, multiple steps combined into one step execution, and/or one step broken down into multiple step executions, etc.

Through the above description of the embodiments, those skilled in the art will readily understand that the exemplary embodiments described herein may be implemented by software, or by software in combination with necessary hardware. Therefore, the technical solution according to the embodiments of the present disclosure may be embodied in the form of a software product, which may be stored in a non-volatile storage medium (which may be a CD-ROM, a usb disk, a removable hard disk, etc.) or on a network, and includes several instructions to enable a computing device (which may be a personal computer, a server, a mobile terminal, or a network device, etc.) to execute the method according to the embodiments of the present disclosure.

Other embodiments of the disclosure will be apparent to those skilled in the art from consideration of the specification and practice of the disclosure disclosed herein. This application is intended to cover any variations, uses, or adaptations of the disclosure following, in general, the principles of the disclosure and including such departures from the present disclosure as come within known or customary practice within the art to which the disclosure pertains. It is intended that the specification and examples be considered as exemplary only, with a true scope and spirit of the disclosure being indicated by the following claims.

Claims

1. The charging control method of the unmanned aerial vehicle is characterized in that a plurality of landmarks are arranged at the bottom of a flight area in advance, a plurality of charging piles are arranged at the bottom of the flight area of the unmanned aerial vehicle, and each charging pile is correspondingly provided with one landmark;

the pattern of the landmark is a two-dimensional code;

the unmanned aerial vehicle acquiring information by recognizing the pattern of the landmark comprises: the number of landmarks, the positions of the landmarks, the types of the landmarks, the roadway where the landmarks are located, whether the roadways are intersections, the types of the intersections and the communication directions;

when the unmanned aerial vehicle plans a route, the route is a set of two-dimensional coordinates, and the unmanned aerial vehicle sequentially searches the landmarks and sequentially flies over the landmarks to fly along a preset flying route;

the charging control method includes the steps of:

acquiring the residual electric quantity of the unmanned aerial vehicle;

comparing the total power consumption with the residual power, if the total power consumption is larger than the residual power, changing the current flight mission of the unmanned aerial vehicle into flying to a charging pile for charging, and executing the previous unfinished flight mission after charging is finished; if the total power consumption is less than or equal to the residual power, restarting the charging control method;

wherein calculating the total power consumption comprises the steps of:

planning a first charging route by taking the end point of the unfinished flight mission as a starting point and taking one idle charging pile as an end point, and calculating the total length of the first charging route and the remaining flight routes to be flown when the unfinished flight mission is executed;

the total length is multiplied by the amount of power consumed by the drone per unit length of flight to obtain the total power consumption.

2. The charging control method for the unmanned aerial vehicle according to claim 1, wherein the current flight mission of the unmanned aerial vehicle is changed to fly to a charging pile for charging, and the previous incomplete flight mission is executed after the charging is completed, comprising the following steps:

3. The charging control method for the unmanned aerial vehicle according to claim 2, wherein when the second charging route is planned, the shortest routes respectively reaching each idle charging pile from the estimated position are planned, and one shortest route having the smallest number of landmarks is selected as the second charging route.

4. The charging control method for an unmanned aerial vehicle according to claim 2, wherein an end point of the return route is the estimated position.

5. The charging control method for the unmanned aerial vehicle according to claim 2, wherein the end point of the return route is a point on the remaining flight route that is closest to the charging post.

6. The charging control method for unmanned aerial vehicles according to claim 2, wherein the unmanned aerial vehicle is used for warehouse management, the landmarks disposed in the roadway of the warehouse are roadway landmarks, the landmarks disposed on the charging pile are charging pile landmarks,

and the unmanned aerial vehicle lands on the charging pile after identifying the charging pile landmark to charge.

7. The charging control method of an unmanned aerial vehicle according to claim 6, wherein the charging control method further includes:

controlling the charging pile to fix the unmanned aerial vehicle according to a charging request sent by the unmanned aerial vehicle after landing is completed, and then controlling a charging connector on the charging pile to be inserted into a charging interface of the unmanned aerial vehicle for charging;

8. The unmanned aerial vehicle charging control method of claim 7, wherein the charging pile includes an apron, a fixture, and a charging assembly,

9. The charging control device of the unmanned aerial vehicle is characterized in that a plurality of landmarks are arranged at the bottom of a flight area in advance, a plurality of charging piles are arranged at the bottom of the flight area of the unmanned aerial vehicle, and each charging pile is correspondingly provided with one landmark; each route of the unmanned aerial vehicle is continuously provided with a plurality of landmarks, and the unmanned aerial vehicle carries out positioning and navigation by identifying the landmarks below; the device comprises:

the electric quantity comparison module is used for comparing the total electric consumption quantity with the residual electric quantity;

the task updating module is used for changing the current flight task of the unmanned aerial vehicle into flying to a charging pile for charging when the total power consumption is larger than the residual power, and executing the previous unfinished flight task after the charging is finished;

wherein the power consumption prediction module is further configured to:

the total length is multiplied by the electric quantity consumed by the unmanned aerial vehicle per flight unit length to obtain the total electric quantity consumption;

wherein the pattern of the landmark is a two-dimensional code;

the unmanned aerial vehicle acquires information by recognizing the pattern of the landmark: the number of landmarks, the positions of the landmarks, the types of the landmarks, the roadway where the landmarks are located, whether the roadways are intersections, the types of the intersections and the communication directions;

wherein the task update module is further configured to:

when the unmanned aerial vehicle plans the route, the route is a set of two-dimensional coordinates, and the unmanned aerial vehicle sequentially searches the landmarks and sequentially flies over the landmarks to fly along a preset flying route.

10. A computer-readable storage medium on which a computer program is stored, the computer program, when being executed by a processor, implementing the charging control method according to any one of claims 1 to 8.

11. An electronic device, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory for storing executable instructions of the processor;

wherein the processor is configured to perform the charge control method of any one of claims 1 to 8 via execution of the executable instructions.