WO2018207012A1

WO2018207012A1 - System and method for managing drones

Info

Publication number: WO2018207012A1
Application number: PCT/IB2017/057375
Authority: WO
Inventors: Srinivasulu Reddy Guvvala
Original assignee: Srinivasulu Reddy Guvvala
Priority date: 2017-05-10
Filing date: 2017-11-24
Publication date: 2018-11-15

Abstract

A system and method for managing drones is provided. The system comprises a drone (102) with a first distributed register (202a). The first distributed register (202a) is configured to record information corresponding to the drone (102). The system further comprises an external system (108) with a second distributed register (202a). The external system (108) is configured to communicate with the drone (102) to receive at least a block of information from the drone (102). Further, the external system (108) is configured to update the second distributed register (202a) using the received block of information. Further, the information in the first distributed register (202a) of the drone (102) and second distributed register (202a) of the external system (108) is stored in the form of blocks, wherein each block is embedded with information of a previous block.

Description

SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MANAGING DRONES

BACKGROUND

Field of invention:

[001] The subject matter in general relates to the field of drones. More particularly, but not exclusively, the subject matter relates to a system for managing drones.

Discussion of related art:

[002] Drones belong to an interesting branch of technology involving UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) or Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). Drones are aircrafts of any type or size that fly by themselves without any passengers or a pilot on-board. They may be controlled remotely, or they may be programmed to operate autonomously.

[003] Nowadays, drones are widely used in commercial, personal, civil and military use all over the world. Several organizations deal with the use of drones for various commercial purposes such as surveillance, aerial inspections, inventory monitory and management, photography and videography, among others. There has also been an increase in hobby enthusiasts who use drones for recreational aerial photography and videography. Additionally, military drones are used for reconnaissance and combat purposes.

[004] With the increase in the number of drones in usage, there are increased concerns related to safety and privacy of individuals. Conventional systems fail to check whether, or when a drone has trespassed or intruded into private property. Further, it is difficult to trace or track such UAVs, which may lead to privacy invasions and trespasses. Additionally, it is difficult to produce proof or evidence related to flight path trespasses and intrusions, as well as false accusations of intrusions.

[005] Thus, the conventional systems failed to solve the above problems resulting in security and privacy concerns, and uncertainty regarding intrusions by drones, which are not desirable. Further, with the increase in the number of drones being bought and used, it is of prime importance to improve safety and security.

[006] In view of the foregoing discussion, there is a need to overcome the above problems and improve security.

SUMMARY

[007] Accordingly, an improved system to overcome the above problems is needed. To fulfil this need, a system and method for managing drones is provided. The system comprises a drone with a first distributed register. The first distributed register is configured to record information corresponding to the drone. The first distributed register records one or more information corresponding to the drone. Further, the first distributed register records one or more events corresponding to the drone. Consequently, the first distributed register stores the recorded drone information and event information in the form of one of more blocks and embeds each block with one or more information of a previous block. The system further comprises an external system with a second distributed register. The external system is configured to communicate with the drone to transmit at least a query to the drone. Further, the external system is configured to receive at least a block of information from the drone. The external system is configured to update the second distributed register of the external system using the received block of information.

[008] In an embodiment, the information in the first distributed register of the drone and the second distributed register of the external system is stored in the form of one or more of database, linked list, distributed database, blockchain or blockchain database.

[009] In an embodiment, an external system maintains one or more copies of the first distributed register of the drone.

[010] In an embodiment, the information in the first distributed register comprises flight path of the drone.

[011] In an embodiment, the second distributed register in the external system is configured to store one or more information among identities, commands, communications, statuses, events, timestamps and readings.

[012] In an embodiment, the second distributed register in the external system is queried by other devices, including a drone. [013] In an embodiment, the block of information in the first distributed register of the drone comprises one or more of a sequence of commands and logic for the external system to execute.

[014] In an embodiment, the block of information in the second distributed register of the external system comprises one or more of a sequence of commands and logic for the drone to execute.

[015] In an embodiment, the drone stores one or more information in multiple first distributed registers.

[016] In an embodiment, the external system stores one or more information in multiple second distributed registers.

[017] In an embodiment, the information in the block of the first distributed register and the second distributed register links two or more of the first distributed register and the second distributed registers.

[018] In an embodiment, the external system is configured to create one or more new blocks of information in the first distributed register of the drone.

[019] In an embodiment, the drone is configured to create one or more new blocks of information in the second distributed register of the external system.

[020] In an embodiment, each block of the first distributed register and the second distributed register is represented as a hash using a hash function.

[021] In an embodiment, each block of the first distributed register and the second distributed register comprises the hash value of the previous block.

[022] In an embodiment, the information in each block of the first distributed register of the drone and the second distributed register of the external system is verified or authenticated by one or more of the drone or external system.

[023] In an embodiment, the authentication is permission-based or permission-less.

[024] In an embodiment, the authenticated blocks are hashed and encoded into one or more of a merkle tree, hash tree, skip list, hash list, hash chains and distributed hash table.

[025] In an embodiment, there are restrictions on access to blocks of information in the first distributed register of the drone to one or more external systems.

[026] In an embodiment, all or part of the block of information in the first distributed register and the second distributed register is encrypted.

[027] In an embodiment, the information in the first distributed register and the second distributed register comprises additional information used in encryption.

[028] In an embodiment one or more blocks of information of the first distributed register and the second distributed register are stored in the external system.

[029] In an embodiment, the information in the first distributed register and the second distributed register further comprises identification information of one or more of the drone and the external system querying the distributed register of the drone.

[030] In an embodiment, the information in the first distributed register and the second distributed register further comprises the structure of the distributed register.

[031] In an embodiment, the information in the first distributed register and the second distributed register comprises one or more communications of the drone or the external system.

[032] In an embodiment, the information in the first distributed register and the second distributed register further comprises data corresponding to one or more queries initiated by the external system regarding information related to the drone.

[033] In an embodiment, the external system is configured to query the drone based on one or more of the identity and the location of the drone.

[034] In an embodiment, the information in each of the one or more information blocks is linked to the previous information block with linked time stamping, using time stamping tokens, and stored in an authenticated data structure.

[035] In an embodiment, the drone is configured to initiate a query for the external system.

[036] Other objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description. It should be however understood that the detailed description and specific examples, while indicating preferred embodiments of the present invention, are given by way of illustration only and various modifications may naturally be performed without deviating from the present invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DIAGRAMS

[037] This disclosure is illustrated by way of example and not limitation in the accompanying figures. Elements illustrated in the figures are not necessarily drawn to scale, in which like references indicate similar elements and in which:

[038] FIG.s 1A-B depict an exemplary system including drones 102a-b in communication with external systems, according to an embodiment;

[039] FIG. 2A depicts an external system 108 communicating a query with a drone 102, according to an embodiment;

[040] FIG. 2B depicts a distributed register 202, according to an embodiment;

[041] FIG. 3A depicts a flow diagram 300 wherein an external system 108 communicates a query, according to an embodiment;

[042] FIG. 3B depicts a flow diagram describing a permission-based system wherein an external system 108 receives a response for the query, according to an embodiment;

[043] FIG. 3C depicts a flow diagram describing a permission-less system wherein an external system 108 receives a response for the query, according to an embodiment; and

[044] FIG. 4 depicts a flow diagram 400 wherein drone information is shared with an external system 108, according to an embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[045] The following detailed description includes references to the accompanying drawings, which form part of the detailed description. The drawings show illustrations in accordance with example embodiments. These example embodiments are described in enough details to enable those skilled in the art to practice the present subject matter. However, it will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art that the present invention may be practised without these specific details. In other instances, well-known methods, procedures and components have not been described in detail so as not to unnecessarily obscure aspects of the embodiments. The embodiments can be combined, other embodiments can be utilized or structural and logical changes can be made without departing from the scope of the invention. The following detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken as a limiting sense.

[046] In this document, the terms "a" or "an" are used, as is common in patent documents, to include one or more than one. In this document, the term "or" is used to refer to a non-exclusive "or," such that "A or B" includes "A but not B," "B but not A," and "A and B," unless otherwise indicated.

[047] It should be understood that the capabilities of the invention described in the present disclosure and elements shown in the figures may be implemented in various forms of hardware, firmware, software, non-transitory computer readable medium or combinations thereof.

[048] The embodiments disclose a system for managing drones. The system comprises a drone with a distributed register. The distributed register records various drone information related to flight, owner, operator, manufacturer, location, altitude and speed, among others. The system further includes an external system that can communicate with one or more drones. The external system comprises a distributed register. Any updates recorded in the drone's distributed register are shared with the distributed register of the external system, and vice versa. The two distributed registers may be used as public register, wherein information recorded in the distributed register can be accessed by a user who wishes to view some information related to the drone. The stored information can be used in various scenarios, such as keeping track of a drone, providing proof or evidence of the whereabouts of a drone, managing multiple drones in a fleet of drones, and identifying intruding drones, among others. It may be noted that, several external systems (similar to the external system discussed above) may maintain copies of the distributed register corresponding to the drone.

[049] FIG. 1A depicts a system 100 comprising drones 102, according to an embodiment. The drones 102a-b may communicate with one or more external systems 108 such as an air traffic controller 106, a remote server 104, a drone operator 112 or an aircraft 110, among others. Further, the drones 102 may communicate with one or more external systems 108 such as cloud computing devices, sensors, actuators, civil or commercial aircrafts, other drones 102, drone infrastructure and information technology infrastructure equipment, among others.

[050] In an embodiment, the drone 102 may include one or more of an aerial drone, a manned drone, a terrestrial drone, an aquatic drone, a robotic drone, a sensing system and an actuating system, among others.

[051] In an embodiment, the drone 102 may include a first distributed register 202a. The first distributed register 202a may be configured to electronically record one or more information corresponding to the drone 102.

[052] In an embodiment, the first distributed register 202a may receive one or more inputs from multiple sensors on the drone 102. The one or more sensors in the drone 102 may enable the detection of one or more readings related to the drone 102 such as: location, acceleration, inertia, tilt, angular acceleration, altitude, heading, route, pressure, position, displacement, temperature, level, distance and proximity, among others. The sensors may share one or more of the above- mentioned information with the first distributed register 202a, which may store the received information as drone information. The drone information may comprise one or more of flight path, flight time, flight area, owner name, owner details, flight operator name, flight operator details, type of drone, payload information, manufacturer name and unique id of drone.

[053] In an embodiment, a drone 102 may store one or more information in multiple first distributed registers 202a. The multiple distributed registers 202a may be internal to the drone 102 or located outside the drone 102 in an external system 108. The stored data may be accessed by one or more people or organizations that require the drone information.

[054] In an embodiment, referring to FIG. IB, as an example, drones 102a-b may fly over a house as shown. An external system 108 may require some drone information such as the name of the owner, the name of the operator, time of flight and flight path, among others. In this case, the external system 108 may transmit one or more queries to the drones 102a-b. The queries may be conducted through one or more wired or wireless communication channels as depicted in FIG. IB. Further, the drones 102a-b may respond to the query by searching for one or more relevant information blocks within its first distributed register 202a. Consequently, the drones 102a-b may share one or more information blocks with the external system 108 that sent the query.

[055] In an embodiment, the external system 108 may be used by a person or an organization to detect one or more drone 102 intrusions on their property. Further, the external system 108 may be used by a civil authority as evidence or proof. Additionally, the external system 108 may be used by a person or organization with a fleet of drones 102 to track the fleet and manage one or more drones 102 of the fleet. In an embodiment, external system 108 may directly query the drone 102 based on one or more of the location or identity of the drone 102, as depicted in FIG. IB.

[056] FIG. 2A depicts an external system 108 communicating a query with a drone 102, according to an embodiment. The drone 102 may comprise a first distributed register 202a, which may be configured to record one or more information and one or more events corresponding to the drone 102. The drone information may be stored in the form of one or more blocks, wherein each block may be embedded with information of a previous block. The external system 108 may further comprise a second distributed register 202b. The external system 108 may be configured to communicate with the drone 102 to transmit one or more queries regarding a block of information from the drone 102. Further, the external system 108 may receive at least a block of information from the drone 102. Further, the external system 108 may update the second distributed register 202b using the received block of information.

[057] In an embodiment, information in the first and second distributed register 202a-b may be stored in the form of one or more of database, linked list, distributed database, blockchain or blockchain database.

[058] In an embodiment, the one or more information stored by the distributed registers 202a-b may include information such as identities, commands, communications, statuses, events, timestamps and readings.

[059] In an embodiment, the second distributed register (202b) in the external system (108) may be queried by other devices, including a drone (102).

[060] In an embodiment, one or more drone information may be stored in the first distributed register 202a of the drone 102 and the second distributed register 202b of the external system 108 using blockchain technology. The blocks of information stored in a blockchain may be timestamped and hashed. Further, information blocks in a blockchain may not be altered, deleted or manipulated, as it is impossible to alter one information block without making the alteration obvious in the connected chain of information blocks.

[061] In an embodiment, all or part of the block of information in the first and second distributed registers 202a-b may be encrypted.

[062] In an embodiment, the information in the block of the first distributed register (202a) and the second distributed register (202b) comprises additional information used in encryption.

[063] In an embodiment, the external system 108 may be configured to store information in multiple second distributed registers 202b. Further, the external system 108 may be authorized to create one or more new blocks of information in the first distributed register 202a of the drone 102. As an example, a drone 102 passing near an air traffic control (ATC) tower located in an airport, airbase or airfield, may receive and store one or more information from the ATC. The information may, for example, include flight time, flight date, location name and altitude of flight, among others. This information may be stored in the form of one or more information blocks in the drone's first distributed register 202a. Further, these information blocks may be stored in the second distributed register 202b of one or more external systems 108, and in the ATC's second distributed register 202b.

[064] In an embodiment, one or more blocks of information of the first distributed register 202a and the second distributed register 202b are stored in the external system 108. In one situation, the external system 108 may be a cloud database.

[065] In an embodiment, the drone 102 may be authorized to create a new block of information in the second distributed register 202b of an external system 108. As an example, a drone 102 may be travelling from a start location A, may cross areas B and C while travelling towards a destination D. The drone 102 may transmit one or more messages to certain external systems 108 while flying over areas B and C. These messages may be transmitted as one or more blocks of information.

[066] In an embodiment, one or more external systems 108 may maintain one or more copies of the drone's first distributed register 202a. For example, a company operating a fleet of drones 102 may require and maintain a record of one or more drone information. In this case, the company may store the required drone information in one or more distributed registers 202b of their external systems 108.

[067] In an embodiment, the information in the block of the first distributed register 202a and the second distributed register 202b links two or more of the first distributed register 202a and the second distributed registers 202b.

[068] In an embodiment, the drone 102 may be configured to communicate at least one block of information to an external system 108 that initiated a query, as shown in FIG. 2. Further, the identity of the querying external system 108 may be recorded and included in the information block added in the second distributed register 202b of the external system 108.

[069] In an embodiment, the query may be recorded as a block of information and may be shared with one or more of the first distributed register 202a of the drone 102, the second distributed register 202b of one or more external systems 108 and second distributed register 202b of the external system 108 that initiated the query to the drone.

[070] In an embodiment, the information in the first distributed register 202a and second distributed register 202b may comprise the identification of the drone 102 or outside systems 108 querying the drone's first distributed register 202a.

[071] In an embodiment, a block of information in the first distributed register 202a of the drone 102 may comprise a sequence of commands or logic for an external system 108 to read and execute.

[072] In an embodiment, one or more information may be stored for the entire lifetime of the drone 102 in a sufficiently large amount of memory. As an example, the permanently stored drone information may include one or more of manufacturer, year of manufacture, model number, model specifications and name of owner, among others.

[073] In an embodiment, one or more information in the first and second distributed registers 202a-b may be stored in a fixed sized memory where older or least important entries are deleted as the memory limit is reached.

[074] In an embodiment, the information in the first distributed register 202a and the first distributed register 202b may comprise the structure of the distributed register 202.

[075] In an embodiment, the information in each of the one or more information blocks may be linked to the previous information block with linked time stamping, using time stamping tokens, and stored in an authenticated data structure.

[076] In an embodiment, the information in the distributed register 202 may comprise the commands of the drone 102. As an example, the first distributed register 202a of the drone 102 may include one or more commands used to operate the drone 102, which may be used by a person/organization operating the drone 102. In another example, the second distributed register 202b of an external system 108 such as an organization may include one or more of the commands of the drone 102. These one or more commands may be used to operate the drone 102 remotely, or to operate the drone 102 in situations such as malfunctions and intrusions, among others.

[077] In an embodiment, the information in the first distributed register 202a and the second distributed register 202b may comprise one or more communications of the drone 102 or the external system 108.

[078] In an embodiment, the information in the first distributed register 202a and the second distributed register 202b may comprise identification information of one or more individual blocks of information.

[079] In an embodiment, the information in the block of the distributed register 202 may comprise one or more digital signatures belonging to one or more drones 102 and/or systems 108. [080] In an embodiment, each information block may be associated with additional meta data.

[081] In an embodiment, a block of information in the second distributed register 202b of the external system 108 may include a sequence of commands or logic for the drone 102 to execute.

[082] In an embodiment, the information in a distributed register 202 may link two different distributed registers 202.

[083] FIG. 2B depicts a distributed register 202, according to an embodiment. The distributed register 202 may be the first distributed register 202a or the second distributed register 202b.

[084] In an embodiment, as depicted in the figure, every information block of the first distributed register 202a and the second distributed register 202b may include one or more types of information. In particular, each information block may comprise data related to the previous information block, such as a hash value of the previous block. Each information block may be represented by a hash using a hash function and, subsequently, may get stored in the next information block. A single information block may make it possible to trace all the prior information blocks. This makes the drone management system secure and provides for transparency and reliability.

[085] FIG. 3A depicts a flow diagram 300 wherein an external system 108 communicates a query to the drone 102, according to an embodiment. The first distributed register 202a may receive one or more drone information from one or more sensors located in the drone 102, as shown in step 302. Further, the received drone information may be stored as a block of information in the first distributed register 202a, as shown in step 304. At step 306, the drone 102 may store one or more event information in the first distributed register 202a. A user using an external system 108 may communicate a query regarding one or more drone information to the drone 102, as shown at step 308. From step 318, the steps shown in FIG. 3B may be implemented in case of a permission-based system, and the steps shown in FIG. 3C may be implemented in case of a permission-less system

[086] In an embodiment, the information in the first and second distributed registers 202a-b may comprise one or more events related to the drone 102. The events may include one or more of flight, access, query, communication, storage, content verification of information blocks, validation of information blocks, and authentication of information blocks, among others.

[087] In an embodiment, the authentication of an information block may be done by permission-based or permission-less methods.

[088] FIG. 3B depicts a flow diagram describing a permission-based system wherein an external system 108 receives a response for the query, according to an embodiment. The drone 102 may first verify whether the user or the external system 108 is a registered user or system 108 or has necessary credentials (such as an authentication key), as shown at step 310. In case the user/external system 108 is not registered or does not have the necessary credentials, the drone 102 may not provide the requested information, as shown at step 312. in case the user/external system 108 is registered or has necessary credentials, the drone 102 may record the query and one or more identity information of the external system 108, as shown at step 314. The query and identity information may include one or more of query, type of query, user's name, user's location, organization name, time of query, location of user/external system 108, and reason for query, among others. Further, the drone 102 may process the query to identify the queried information among the blocks of the distributed register 202, as shown at step 316, in order to verify the identity of the queried drone 102. Further, the drone 102 may retrieve the requested drone information and share it with the external system 108. Additionally, the query response information of the user/external system 108 may be stored in the form of a block of information and shared with the first distributed register 202a, as shown at step 318. Further, the information block may also be shared with the external system 108.

[089] In an embodiment, as an example, an organization with a fleet of drones 102 may need information regarding the usage of one or more drones 102 in the fleet, an investigative agency may require information regarding any intruding drones 102 and their flight times and flight paths, or a person owning a drone 102 may wish to provide proof of evidence that includes flight information of their drone 102 in various situations. In this case, the person or organization may send a query to a drone 102 using an external system 108.

[090] In an embodiment, one or more systems 108 may communicate in the form of a network. Further, these systems 108 may monitor or manage one or more drones 102. Hence, the systems 108 may receive and record all information blocks stored in the first distributed register 202a in the drone 102 in regular intervals or when the first distributed register 202a includes one or more information blocks.

[091] FIG. 3C depicts a flow diagram describing a permission-less system wherein an external system 108 receives a response for the query, according to an embodiment. The drone 102 may record the query and one or more identity information of the external system 108, as shown at step 320. The query and identity information may include one or more of query, type of query, user's name, user's location, organization name, time of query, location of user/external system 108, and reason for query, among others. Further, the drone 102 may process the query to identify the queried information among the blocks of the distributed register 202, as shown at step 322, in order to verify the identity of the queried drone 102. Further, the drone 102 may retrieve the requested drone information and share it with the external system 108. Additionally, the query response information of the user/external system 108 may be stored in the form of a block of information and shared with the first distributed register 202a, as shown at step 324. Further, this information block may also be shared with the external system 108.

[092] In an embodiment, there may be one or more restrictions on the access of the blocks of information in the first distributed register 202a of the drone 102 by one or more external systems 108.

[093] In an embodiment, the authenticated blocks may be hashed and encoded into one or more of a merkle tree, hash tree, skip list, hash list, hash chains and distributed hash table.

[094] In an embodiment, the drone 102 is configured to initiate a query for the external system 108.

[095] FIG. 4 depicts a flow diagram 300 wherein drone information may be shared with the external system 108 that queried the drone 102, as shown at step 402. The drone 102 and/or the external system 108 may exchange one or more information blocks, as shown at step 404. Further, the drone 102 and/or the external system 108 may verify the content of one or more information blocks, as shown at step 406. Consequently, the drone 102 and/or the external system 108 may validate one or more information blocks, as shown at step 408.

[096] In an embodiment, one or more information blocks in the second distributed register 202b of an external system 108 may be verified or authenticated by the drone 102. As an example, an external system 108 may have recorded and stored the flight of a drone 102 as it passed over the external system 108. The drone 102 may communicate with the external system 108 to verify and/or authenticate one or more information blocks stored in the external system 108.

[097] In an embodiment, one or more information blocks in the first distributed register 202a of the drone 102 may be verified or authenticated by one or more external systems 108. As an example, a drone 102 flying from source A to destination B, may fly through a city C. When the drone 102 flies over city C, the drone 102 may store one or more blocks of information comprising flight time, flight path and time of passing through city C. City C may comprise one or more systems 108 with distributed registers 202b. These distributed registers 202b may be configured to access one or more information blocks in the first distributed register 202a in the drone 102. In this case, the external system 108 may access the information block in the drone 102 related to the flight of the drone 102 through city C. Further, the external system 108 may validate one or more information stored in the information block related to the drone 102 flying through city C.

[098] In an embodiment, the drone 102 may mean and include one or more autonomous systems such as autonomous cars or robots, street cleaning robots, industrial robots. The drone 102 may also mean and include one or more of self- driving cars, autonomous drones, personal and commercial robots and non-moving systems such as Internet-Of-Thing (IoT) based systems and other artificial intelligence-based systems, which require a framework that may provide accountability.

[099] In an embodiment, in the above-mentioned situation, one or more first distributed registers 202a may be present in one or more of the abovementioned drones, robots and IoT systems. These first distributed registers 202a may provide the same functionality as explained in previous embodiments. These drones and robots with first distributed registers 202a may communicate with each other and with one or more second distributed registers 202b of one or more external systems 108. The one or more first distributed registers 202a and second distributed registers 202b may depict one or more of the functionalities described in previous embodiments.

[0100] In an embodiment, abovementioned drones, robots and IoT systems may be a part of a connected system wherein one or more different devices may communicate and share one or more data with each other, thus forming an interconnected system with multiple devices. The first distributed registers 202a in the abovementioned devices may be used by one or more organizations for one or more purposes. These devices may be used by one or more users belonging to one or more commercial, civil or administrative organizations. As an example, data related to one or more driverless cars may be queried in case of an accident concerning an autonomous car. Similarly, one or more data related to an IoT device may be used by one or more IoT users such as homeowners, office owners and store owners, among others. Further, data related to one or more robots and drones may be used by one or more manufacturers, sellers and government entities, among others.

CONCLUSION

[0101] The forgoing disclosure overcomes the drawbacks of the conventional transaction failures, by providing a distributed system comprising drone information, wherein the distributed system cannot be altered or manipulated. Further, the system provides safety as it allows multiple individuals and organizations to access the stored information, without the risk of data manipulation or deletion. The system is also helpful in identifying intrusions by an intruding drone. Additionally, the stored drone information may be used to manage one or more drones in a fleet of drones, by keeping a track of the one or more drones. Additional advantages not listed may be understood by a person ordinary skilled in the art in view of the embodiments disclosed above.

[0102] In the foregoing detailed description, numerous specific details, examples, and scenarios are explained in order to facilitate a thorough understanding of the present disclosure. However, the embodiments of the disclosure may be practiced without such specific details. Further, such examples and scenarios are provided for illustration, and are not intended to limit the disclosure in any way. Those of ordinary skill in the art, with the included descriptions, should be able to implement appropriate functionality without undue experimentation. Thus, the scope of the invention should be determined by the appended claims and their legal equivalents rather than by details, examples, and scenarios provided.

[0103] It shall be noted that the processes described above are described as sequence of steps; this was done solely for the sake of illustration. Accordingly, it is understood that some steps may be added, some steps may be omitted, the order of the steps may be re-arranged, or some steps may be performed simultaneously.

[0104] Although embodiments have been described with reference to specific example embodiments, it will be evident that various combinations, modifications, additions, and omissions may be made to these embodiments without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the foregoing disclosure and appended claims. Accordingly, the specification and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative sense rather than a restrictive sense.

[0105] It is to be understood that the phraseology or terminology employed herein is for the purpose of description and not of limitation.

Claims

CLAIMS I claim:

1. A system for managing drones, the system further comprising:

a drone (102) comprising a first distributed register (202a), the first distributed register (202a) configured to:

record one or more information corresponding to the drone (102);

record one or more events corresponding to the drone;

store the recorded drone information and event information in the form of one or more blocks and embed each block with one or more information of a previous block, forming a continuous chain of blocks of information;

an external system (108) comprising a second distributed register (202a), the external system (108) configured to:

communicate with the drone (102) to transmit at least a query regarding a block of information from the drone (102);

communicate with the drone (102) to receive at least a block of information from the drone (102); and

update the second distributed register (202a) using the received block of information.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein information in the first distributed register (202a) and the second distributed register (202b) is stored in the form of one or more of database, linked list, distributed database, blockchain or blockchain database.

3. The system according to claim 1, wherein an external system (108) maintains one or more copies of the first distributed register (202a) of the drone (102).

4. The system according to claim 1, wherein the information in the first distributed register (202a) comprises flight path of the drone (102).

5. The system according to claim 1, wherein the second distributed register (202a) in the external system (108) is configured to store one or more information among identities, commands, communications, statuses, events, timestamps and readings.

6. The system according to claim 1, wherein the second distributed register (202b) in the external system (108) is queried by other devices, including a drone (102).

7. The system according to claim 1, wherein the block of information in the first distributed register (202a) of the drone (102) comprises one or more of a sequence of commands and logic for the external system (108) to execute.

8. The system according to claim 1, wherein the block of information in the second distributed register (202b) of the external system (108) comprises one or more of a sequence of commands and logic for the drone (102) to execute.

9. The system according to claim 1, wherein the drone (102) stores one or more information in multiple first distributed registers (202a).

10. The system according to claim 1, wherein the external system (108) stores one or more information in multiple second distributed registers (202b).

11. The system according to claim 1, wherein the information in the block of the first distributed register (202a) and the second distributed register (202b) links two or more of the first distributed register (202a) and the second distributed registers (202b).

12. The system according to claim 1, wherein the external system (108) is configured to create one or more new blocks of information in the first distributed register (202a) of the drone (102).

13. The system according to claim 1, wherein the drone (102) is configured to create one or more new blocks of information in the second distributed register (202b) of the external system (108).

14. The system according to claim 1, wherein each block of the first distributed register (202a) and the second distributed register (202b) is represented as a hash using a hash function.

15. The system according to claim 1, wherein each block of the first distributed register (202a) and the second distributed register (202b) comprises the hash value of the previous block.

16. The system according to claim 1, wherein the information in each block of the first distributed register (202a) of the drone (102) and the second distributed register (202b) of the external system (108) is verified or authenticated by one or more of the drone (102) and external system (108).

17. The system according to claim 16, wherein the authentication is permission-based or permission-less.

18. The system according to claim 17, wherein the authenticated blocks are hashed and encoded into one or more of a merkle tree, hash tree, skip list, hash list, hash chains and distributed hash table.

19. The system according to claim 16, wherein one or more information blocks in the first distributed register (202a) of the drone (102) and the second distributed register (202b) of the external system (108) comprise one or more data related to the authentication of one or more information blocks.

20. The system according to claim 16, wherein one or more information blocks in the first distributed register (202a) of the drone (102) and the second distributed register (202b) of the external system (108) comprise one or more data related to the verification of one or more information blocks.

21. The system according to claim 1, there are restrictions on access to blocks of information in the first distributed register (202a) of the drone (102) to one or more external systems (108).

22. The system according to claim 1, all or part of the block of information in the first distributed register (202a) and the second distributed register (202b) is encrypted.

23. The system according to claim 1, the information in the block of the first distributed register (202a) and the second distributed register (202b) comprises additional information used in encryption.

24. The system according to claim 1, wherein one or more blocks of information of the first distributed register (202a) and the second distributed register (202b) are stored in the external system (108).

25. The system according to claim 1, wherein the information in the first distributed register (202a) and the second distributed register (202b) further comprises identification information of one or more of the drone (102) and the external systems (108) querying the distributed register (202a) of the drone (102).

26. The system according to claim 1, wherein the information in the first distributed register (202a) and the second distributed register (202b) further comprises the structure of the distributed register (202).

27. The system according to claim 1, wherein the information in the first distributed register (202a) and the second distributed register (202b) further comprises one or more communications of the drone (102) or the external system (108).

28. The system according to claim 1, wherein the information in the first distributed register (202a) and the second distributed register (202b) comprises data corresponding to one or more queries initiated by the external system (108) regarding information related to the drone (102).

29. The system according to claim 1, wherein the external system (108) is configured to query the drone (102) based on one or more of the identity and the location of the drone (102).

30. The system according to claim 1, wherein the information in each of the one or more information blocks is linked to the previous information block with linked time stamping, using time stamping tokens, and stored in an authenticated data structure.

31. The system according to claim 1, wherein the drone (102) is configured to initiate a query for the external system (108).

32. A method for managing drones, the method comprising:

recording one or more information corresponding to the drone (102);

recording one or more events corresponding to the drone (102);

storing the recorded drone information and event in the form of one or more blocks of information in a first distributed register (202a) on a drone (102);

wherein each information block is embedded with one or more information of a previous information block;

receiving a query regarding one or more information blocks related to the drone (102) from an external system (108);

sharing the queried information blocks related to the drone (102) with the external system (108);

updating the information in the second distributed register (202b) on the external system (108) with one or more information related to the query of the external system (108); and

updating the information in the first distributed register (202a) on the drone (102) with one or more information related to the query of the external system (108).