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EP-3965089-B1 - METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR MULTI-INTERFACE TRANSMISSION GATEWAY PROCESSING AND LINEAR SEQUENCE CODING

EP3965089B1EP 3965089 B1EP3965089 B1EP 3965089B1EP-3965089-B1

Inventors

  • RUEGER, Klaus-Werner
  • DESAUTARD, Romain
  • CAO, Zhongren
  • PLYMOTH, ANDERS NILSSON

Dates

Publication Date
20260506
Application Date
20210827

Claims (8)

  1. A system (100) for processing a multi-interface transmission of a gateway, the system (100) comprising: - one or more vehicles (102A, 102B), each forming part of a first computing device with at least one first processor, and each vehicle (102A, 102B) comprising at least one vehicle gateway (110A, 110B) and a plurality of wireless communication interfaces, wherein the first computing device comprises a multi-interface transmission gateway, a computer, a mobile phone, an internet of things (IoT) device, a network device, a gateway device, a vehicle, a drone, an unmanned aerial system, an unmanned system, or any manned or unmanned autonomous system that requires reliable communications with one or more remote management network devices; and the system (100) further comprising: - one or more remote management network devices in communication with at least one vehicle of the one or more vehicles (102A, 102B) via at least one interface of the plurality of wireless communication interfaces of the at least one vehicle; wherein the one or remote more management network devices is configured to monitor or manage a status of at least one vehicle of the one or more vehicles (102A, 102B); wherein each of the one or more vehicles (102A, 102B) is configured to encode application network packets into coded network packets before transmitting the coded network packets to the one or remote more management network devices and decode received coded network packets received from the one or more management network devices; and wherein each of the one or more remote management network devices is configured to encode application network packets into coded network packets before transmitting the coded network packets to the one or more vehicles (102A, 102B) and decode received coded network packets received from the one or more vehicles (102A, 1028); said system (100) being characterized in that the processing comprises : a linear sequence coding scheme used for encoding and decoding such that a plurality of received coded network packets comprising k coded symbols has a 100 percent probability of decoding the application network packets successfully, where k is a number of encoded symbols representing the application network packets; wherein prior to the application network packets being encoded into the coded network packets using the linear sequence coding scheme and a source message, a sequence of coded symbols comprising linearly independent subsequences for the coded network packets are precomputed and related encoding vectors are stored for use during the encoding of the application network packets into the coded network packets; wherein each of the coded network packets indicates a plurality of coded symbols, wherein each of the plurality of coded symbols is linear independent, and sending, via a lossy channel or a wireless channel, the plurality of coded network packets.
  2. The system (100) of claim 1, wherein each vehicle gateway (110A, 110B) is configured to maintain a first virtual network interface (112A) and the one or more remote management devices is configured to maintain a second virtual network interface.
  3. The system (100) of claim 2, wherein the system is configured to maintain an overlay network (108) between the first virtual network interface (112A) of at least one of the one or more vehicles (102A, 102B) and the second virtual network interface; or wherein the system (100) is configured to maintain the overlay network (108) over at least one wireless communication interface of the plurality of wireless communication interfaces of the at least one vehicle such that if any of the plurality of wireless communication interfaces fails on a given vehicle, the overlay network (108) is maintained and communication between the given vehicle and the one or more remote management network devices is maintained.
  4. The system (100) according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the one or more remote management network devices comprises at least one of a management server (106) or a management gateway (104).
  5. A method of processing a multi-interface transmission of a gateway, the method comprising: a step of providing one or more remote management network devices in communication with at least one vehicle of a set of one or more vehicles (102A, 102B), each vehicle forming part of a first computing device with at least one first processor, and each vehicle (102A, 102B) comprising at least one vehicle gateway (110A, 110B) and a plurality of wireless communication interfaces, wherein the first computing device comprises a multi-interface transmission gateway, a computer, a mobile phone, an internet of things (IoT) device, a network device, a gateway device, a vehicle, a drone, an unmanned aerial system, an unmanned system, or any manned or unmanned autonomous system that requires reliable communications with one or more remote management network devices; a step of monitoring or managing, by the remote management network device, a status of each of the at least one vehicle the method further comprising the steps of: encoding, at each of the one or more vehicles (102A, 102B), application network packets into coded network packets before transmitting the application network packets to the one or more remote management network devices and decoding received coded network packets received from the one or more management network devices; and encoding, at the one or more remote management network devices application network packets into coded network packets before transmitting the coded network packets to the one or more vehicles and decoding received coded network packets received from the one or more vehicles; said method being characterized in that for processing it is comprising : a step of utilizing a linear sequence coding scheme for encoding and decoding such that a plurality of received coded network packets comprising k coded symbols has a 100 percent probability of decoding the application network packets successfully, where k is a number of encoded symbols representing the application network packets; wherein prior to the application network packets being encoded into the coded network packets using the linear sequence coding scheme and a source message, a sequence of coded symbols comprising linearly independent subsequences and related encoding vectors are computed for use during the encoding of the application network packets into the coded network packets; wherein each of the coded network packets indicates a plurality of coded symbols, wherein each of the plurality of coded symbols is linear independent, and sending, via a lossy channel or a wireless channel, the plurality of coded network packets.
  6. The method of claim 5, further comprising: comprising the steps of : maintaining a first virtual network interface (112A) at each vehicle gateway (110A, 110B); and maintaining a second virtual network interface at the one or more remote management network device.
  7. The method of claim 6, further comprising a step of maintaining an overlay network between the first virtual network interface (112A) of each of the one or more vehicles (102A, 102B) and the second virtual network interface; or maintaining the overlay network (108) over at least one of the plurality of wireless communication interfaces of the at least one vehicle such that if any of the plurality of wireless communication interfaces fails on a given vehicle, the overlay network (108) is maintained and communication between the given vehicle and the one or more remote management network devices is maintained.
  8. The method according to any one of claims 5 to 7, wherein the one or more remote management network devices comprises at least one of a management server (106) or a management gateway (104).

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD The subject matter disclosed herein relates generally to wireless network data communications. More particularly, the subject matter disclosed herein relates to wireless network data communications overlay networks. BACKGROUND Around the world, the use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) (i.e., commercial, military, and personal drones or other unmanned aerial vehicles) is growing very fast. Along with the increased prevalence of UAS comes potential safety issues between UAS and airlines and aerospace industry vehicles. For airlines and the aerospace industry, safety is paramount and aerial vehicles (i.e., especially commercial aircraft) are heavily regulated. An example environment in which UAS and manned aircraft, such as helicopters H and airplanes A, coexist is shown in FIG. 1A. This figure illustrates the possible security issues that could come into play, especially if UAS and manned aircraft do not communicate with one another or if UAS accidentally interferes with manned aircraft locations. For example, a major safety issue could be presented in the scenario where an autonomous drone enters the airspace surround an airport on accident (i.e., a bug in the autonomous flying software causes it to fly in the wrong direction). FIG. 1B illustrates another possible safety issue where several UAS, some being controlled by a human, other being controlled by remote communications. In this scenario, the UAS close to the helicopter H could potentially interfere with or crash into the helicopter H causing the helicopter H to malfunction, be damaged, or even crash, seriously or fatally injuring its passengers and crew. Recently, the industry, NASA, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have begun researching and implementing unmanned traffic management (UTM) systems to help manage communications and flights of UAS beyond line-of-sight at altitudes under 400 feet above ground level. UTM is separate from, but complementary to the FAA's Air Traffic Management systems used for manned aircraft. The plan for UTM is to make it a scalable and distributed system for large-scale and real-time UAS flight monitoring and controls. In order to communicate properly and allow for continuous monitoring and controls of the UAS devices, the communication systems between the UTM devices (i.e., monitoring and controlling devices) and the UAS requires a highly reliable and low-latency communication system. US 2017/358223 A1 describes an implementation of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) air traffic control method in a UAV during a flight, for concurrently utilizing a plurality wireless networks for air traffic control. The UAV air traffic control method includes maintaining communication with a first wireless network and a second wireless network of the plurality of wireless networks; communicating first data with the first wireless network and second data with the second wireless network throughout the flight, wherein one or more of the first data and the second data is provided to an air traffic control system configured to maintain status of a plurality of UAVs in flight and perform control thereof; adjusting the flight based on one or more of the first data and the second data and control from the air traffic control system. US 2020/005651 A1 describes a flying vehicle that is one of a passenger drone and an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) including a plurality of rotors disposed to a body and configured for flight; a processing device any of integrated with, disposed on, and associated with the body; wireless interfaces including hardware and antennas any of integrated with, disposed on, and associated with the body; and a control apparatus communicatively coupled to the processing device, wherein the control apparatus is configured to provide an interface between the wireless interfaces and an air traffic control system for control and/or monitoring of the flying vehicle by the air traffic control system. SAXENA PARESH ET AL: "Resilient Hybrid SatCom and Terrestrial Networking for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles",IEEE INFOCOM 2020 - IEEE CONFERENCE ON COMPUTER COMMUNICATIONS WORKSHOPS (INFOCOM WKSHPS), IEEE, 6 July 2020 (2020-07-06), pages 418-423, describes network coded torrents (NECTOR) to leverage multiple network interfaces for resilient hybrid satellite communications (SatCom) and terrestrial networking for UAVs. SECINTI GOKHAN ET AL: "Resilient end-to-end connectivity for software defined unmanned aerial vehicular networks", 2017 IEEE 28TH ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON PERSONAL, INDOOR, AND MOBILE RADIO COMMUNICATIONS (PIMRC), IEEE, 8 October 2017 (2017-10-08), pages 1-5, describes the design of a resilient end-to-end connectivity paradigm under unique architectural and scenario assumptions. SUMMARY The present invention is defined in the appended independent claims to which reference should be made. Advantageous features are set out in the appended dependent claims. In accordance with this disclosure syst