Fedex Corporate Services, Inc.

Other

Federal Express Corporation

Yucheng Liu

Reuben F Burch, V

Michael S Mazzola

Howard McKinney

James R Gafford

John E Ball

Tyler J Hannis

Sherif Abelwahed

Matt Doude

Andrew M LeClair

Dennison W Iacomini

Lucas D Cagle

Collin S Davenport

Andrew R Hegman

Tasmia Reza

Jian Shi

Pan Wei

V Reuben Burch

Andrew M Leclair

Howard G Mcckinney

Reuben F Burch V

An improved retrofit assembly for ground support equipment providing autonomous operation of the logistics ground support equipment (GSE). The assembly has a refit control system attached to the GSE (with a vehicle dynamics control processor and a data preprocessing control processor), retrofitted proprioceptive sensors coupled to the vehicle dynamics control processor monitoring operating parameters and characteristics of the GSE, retrofitted exteroceptive sensors coupled to the data preprocessing control processor that monitor an exterior environment of the GSE, and refit actuators for different control elements on the GSE and to autonomously alter motion of the GSE. The refit control system programmatically receives sensor data from the proprioceptive sensors and exteroceptive sensors; optimizes a path for the GSE based upon the different sensor data; and activates at least one of the actuators according to the optimized path for the GSE.

Enhanced systems, apparatus, and method for improved automated and autonomous operation of logistics ground support equipment

Enhanced systems, apparatus, and methods for improved automated and autonomous operation of logistics ground support equipment

Enhanced systems and methods for collision avoidance of a high value asset with reflective beacons around it using multi-sensor data fusion on a mobile industrial vehicle. The system has a sensing processing system with a LiDAR and camera sensors, and a multi-processor module responsive to the different sensors. The sensing processing system fuses the different sensor data to locate the reflective beacons. A model predictive controller on the vehicle determines possible control solutions where each defines a threshold allowable speed for the vehicle at discrete moments based upon an estimated path to a breaching point projected from the reflective beacons, and then identifies an optimal one of the control solutions based upon a performance cost function and associated with an optimal threshold allowable speed. The system has a vehicle actuator configured to respond and alter vehicle movement to avoid a collision when the vehicle exceeds the optimal threshold allowable speed.

Systems and methods for enhanced collision avoidance on logistics ground support equipment using multi-sensor detection fusion

Growing community of inventors

Starkville, MS, United States of America

Yucheng Liu