IoT gateway for weakly connected settings

• US 10,084,868 B2
• Filed: 09/03/2016
• Issued: 09/25/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 09/03/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Chandra, Ranveer, Kapoor, Ashish, Sinha, Sudipta, Phanishayee, Amar, Vasisht, Deepak, Jin, Xinxin, Sudarshan, Madhusudhan Gumbalapura
• Primary Examiner(s): Luu, Le H
• Application Number:
  US15/256,563
• Publication Number:
  US 20180069933A1
• Time in Patent Office: 752 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 11/02 Picture taking arrangements specially adapted for photogrammetry or photographic surveying, e.g. controlling overlapping of pictures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/66 Arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/762 triggered by the network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/5651 Reducing the amount or size of exchanged application data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/61 taking into account QoS or priority requirements
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/698 for achieving an enlarged field of view, e.g. panoramic image capture
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/181 for receiving images from a plurality of remote sources

Abstract

A gateway that may be implemented in a local network and that communicates with a cloud network to provide efficient services in a weakly connected setting is disclosed. The gateway may be configured to enable services that efficiently utilize resources in both of the gateway and the cloud network, and provide a desired quality of service while operating in a weakly connected setting. The gateway may provide data collection and processing, local network services, and enable cloud services that utilize data collected and processed by the gateway. The local network may include one or more sensors and/or video cameras that provide data to the gateway. In a further implementation, the gateway may determine an allocation of one or more tasks of a service between the gateway and a cloud network by determining the allocation of the one or more service tasks based on desired service latency.

Claims

1. An apparatus in a local network communicating with a cloud network, the apparatus comprising:

one or more processors; and

,

memory in communication with the one or more processors, the memory comprising code that, when executed, causes the one or more processors to control the apparatus to;

receive first data from at least one sensor;

process a first portion of the first data to generate second data;

queue the second data as having a non-time sensitive priority for sending to the cloud network when bandwidth is available; and

,

provide web services in the local network by processing the second data and a second portion of the first data that is different from the first portion in the local network.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first portion of the first data comprises video data received from at least one camera in an unmanned aerial vehicle and the second portion of the first data comprises sensor data received from at least one environmental sensor and, the code further causes the one or more processors to control the apparatus to process a first portion of the first data to generate second data by processing the video data to generate an orthomosaic, and provide web services in the local network by processing the orthomosaic and the sensor data to generate a precision map.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the code further causes the one or more processors to control the apparatus to provide web services in the local network by providing a viewing of a video based on the video data.

4. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the code further causes the one or more processors to control the apparatus to provide web services in the local network by providing a service based on the precision map.

5. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the code further causes the one or more processors to control the apparatus to queue the first portion of the first data as having a time sensitive priority for sending to the cloud network when bandwidth is available.

6. An apparatus comprising:

one or more processors; and

,

memory in communication with the one or more processors, the memory comprising code that, when executed, causes the one or more processors to control the apparatus to;

receive video data from at least one camera in a unmanned aerial vehicle;

convert the video data into an orthomosaic;

generate processed data based on the orthomosaic;

queue the orthomosaic as having a non-time sensitive priority for sending to a cloud network when bandwidth is available; and

,

provide off-line services at the apparatus utilizing the processed data.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the one or more processors further control the apparatus to:

receive sensor data from at least one environmental sensor;

generate the processed data to include a map based on the orthomosaic and the sensor data; and

,

queue the sensor data as having time sensitive priority for sending to the cloud network when bandwidth is available.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the sensor data comprises initial sensor data, the map comprises an initial map, and the one or more processors further control the apparatus to:

receive updated sensor data from the at least one environmental sensor;

generate an updated map based on the orthomosaic and the updated sensor data each time the updated sensor data is received;

queue the updated orthomosaic as having a non-time sensitive priority for sending to a cloud network when bandwidth is available;

queue the updated sensor data as having time sensitive priority for sending to the cloud network when bandwidth is available; and

,

provide off-lino services at the apparatus utilizing the updated map.

9. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the sensor data comprises moisture data and the map comprises a moisture map.

10. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the sensor data, comprises temperature data and the map comprises a temperature map.

11. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the sensor data comprises pH data and the map comprises a pH map.

12. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the video data comprises initial video data, the orthomosaic comprises an initial orthomosaic and the one or more processors control the apparatus to:

receive updated video data from the at least one camera;

convert the updated video data into an updated orthomosaic;

generate updated processed data based at least on the updated orthomosaic;

queue the updated orthomosaic as having a non-time sensitive priority for sending to the cloud network; and

,

provide off-line services at the apparatus utilizing the updated processed data.

13. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the one or more processors further control the apparatus to:

determine that bandwidth is available for sending non-time sensitive data to the cloud network; and

,

in response to a determination that bandwidth is available, send the processed data to the cloud network.

14. An apparatus comprising:

one or more processors; and

,

memory in communication with the one or more processors, the memory comprising code that, when executed, causes the one or more processors to control the apparatus to;

determine a desired latency for a service comprising a plurality of tasks, wherein the service includes processing data received at a gateway;

allocate a first task of the plurality of tasks to the gateway or a cloud network, and a second task of the plurality of tasks to the gateway or the cloud network based at least one on the desired latency and a network bandwidth available for communications between the gateway and the at least one cloud device; and

,

provide the service using the data received at the gateway and based on the allocation of the first and second tasks.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the code further causes the one or more processors to provide the service by controlling the system to:

profile the service during operation to determine at least one parameter;

determine a current latency of the service;

determine whether the current latency of the service satisfies the desired latency; and

,

perform, if the current latency of the service does not satisfy the desired latency, a re-allocation of the first task to the gateway or the cloud network based on at least the desired latency and the at least one parameter.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the at least one parameter comprises a processing time for each of the first at least one task and the second at least one task in the gateway and a processing time for each of the first at least one task and the second at least one task in the cloud network.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the bandwidth comprises an initial bandwidth and the at least one parameter comprises a current bandwidth for communications between the gateway and the cloud network.

18. The system of claim 14, wherein the apparatus is implemented in the gateway.

19. The system of claim 14, wherein the data received at the gateway comprises data from at least one sensor.

20. The system of claim 14, wherein the data received at the gateway comprises video data from a video camera.

21. The system of claim 14, wherein the first and second tasks are allocated to the gateway when network bandwidth is not available for communications between the gateway and the at least one cloud device.