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Details
Inventors: Yavnai, Arie;
Assignee: State of Israel (Haifa, IL)
Primary Examiner: Cuchlinski, Jr.; William A.
Assistant Examiner: Beaulieu; Yonel
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Oliff & Berridge, PLC

In a vehicle designed for the execution of a mission, a programmable decision unit capable of managing and controlling the execution of the mission by utilizing a plurality of subsystems and database capable of holding and managing data including pre-stored data and data acquired by and received from the plurality of subsystems. The programmable decision unit includes a mission plan (MP) for accomplishing the execution of the mission includes a succession of iterations that include each assignment of a mission segment associated with a current mission stated to one or more of the subsystems. Each iteration further includes receipt from the subsystems report data which include data indicative of the execution status of the mission segment by the corresponding subsystem; and evaluation of the report data for determining either normal behavior or an exceptional event. The programmable decision unit is capable of managing and controlling the execution of the mission in an autonomous fashion whereby the vehicle becomes an autonomous vehicle.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The detailed description, whilst focusing primarily in the tree-level hierarchy architecture of the invention applies, mutatis mutandis to different arrangements including multi-level hierarchy.
Attention is first directed to FIG.
1, which illustrates, in a diagrammatic way, the general view of the three-level functional organization of the Autonomous Mission Controller--AMC 100, and its relation to the Mission Planning System--MPS 105.
The AMC 100 is the core element of the autonomous UAV (referred to hereinbelow as AV) avionics.
It is an onboard embedded computer, which manage, supervise, command and control the AV and its sub-systems, throughout the entire mission sequence, in order to meet the assigned mission goals.
In a fully autonomous mode of operation, the AMC 100 shall command and control the AV, without any human intervention, from launch, or take-off, until the mission is completed.
Typically, the AMC 100 is installed in the avionics/electronics section.
If desired, it may be installed in another section.
The AMC three-level functional hierarchy is organized as follows: Level 1 101, the top level, is the organization and management level.
Level 2 102, the intermediate level is the supervision and coordination level.
Level 3 103, the bottom level, is the execution and control level.
The upper two levels, namely, level 1 101, and level 2 102, constitute the core of the AMC 100, while level 3 103 comprise of the AV subsystems, which in many cases, already exist, e.
g.
, navigation subsystem, propulsion subsystem, sensor subsystem.
Therefore, level 3 103 is not considered as an integral part of the AMC 100 although it is a part of a three-level hierarchy of the management, command, and control of the AV and its subsystems.
As had already been specified in the foregoing, by an alternative embodiment level 1 and 2 may be joined together to constitute a decision unit employing a generic mission plan for managing and controlling the subsystems.
Reverting now to the three-level hierarchy, illustrated in FIG



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