Detection of malfunctioning sensors in a multi-sensor internet of things environment

• US 10,499,124 B1
• Filed: 06/30/2018
• Issued: 12/03/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2018
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Natanzon, Assaf, Shemer, Jehuda, Wolfson, Kfir
• Primary Examiner(s): Blouin, Mark S
• Application Number:
  US16/024,759
• Time in Patent Office: 521 Days
• Field of Search: 340 343
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/065 involving logical or physical relationship, e.g. grouping and hierarchies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/147 for predicting network behaviour
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/125 involving control of end-device applications over a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2209/86 Performing a diagnostic of the sensing device
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13162 Fault indication and localisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 9/00 Arrangements in telecontrol or telemetry systems for selectively calling a substation from a main station, in which substation desired apparatus is selected for applying a control signal thereto or for obtaining measured values therefrom
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 9/02 Automatically-operated arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/38 for collecting sensor information

Abstract

Techniques are provided for detection of malfunctioning sensors in a multi-sensor IoT environment. An exemplary method comprises: obtaining sensor data from a plurality of sensors; and determining if a first sensor is malfunctioning based on a comparison of the sensor data of the first sensor with the sensor data obtained from one or more additional sensors within the plurality of sensors, wherein the additional sensors within the plurality of sensors are identified based on a location and/or a sensor type of the additional sensors relative to a location and/or a sensor type of the first sensor. Remedial steps are optionally performed for a given malfunctioning sensor based on one or more predefined policies. For example, the remedial steps may comprise resetting the given malfunctioning sensor, calibrating the given malfunctioning sensor, servicing the given malfunctioning sensor, and/or notifying one or more users of the malfunction.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

obtaining sensor data from a plurality of sensors; and

determining, by at least one processing device, if a first one of the plurality of sensors is malfunctioning based on a comparison of the sensor data of the first sensor with the sensor data obtained from one or more additional sensors within the plurality of sensors, wherein the one or more additional sensors within the plurality of sensors are identified based on one or more of a location and a sensor type of the one or more additional sensors relative to one or more of a location and a sensor type of the first sensor.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the sensor data of at least one of the additional sensors comprises environmental knowledge.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of performing one or more predefined steps for a given malfunctioning sensor based on one or more predefined policies.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the one or more predefined steps for the given malfunctioning sensor comprise one or more of the following predefined steps:

resetting the given malfunctioning sensor, calibrating the given malfunctioning sensor, servicing the given malfunctioning sensor, and notifying one or more users of the malfunction.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the first sensor and the one or more additional sensors comprise sensors that have a substantially similar sensor type and a substantially similar sensor location.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the first sensor comprises a first predefined sensor type and wherein the one or more additional sensors comprise one or more additional predefined sensor types.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of determining if the first sensor is malfunctioning further comprises estimating a value of the sensor data based on a predefined source of information.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of estimating a probability that a given sensor will malfunction based on a probabilistic model.

9. A system, comprising:

a memory; and

at least one processing device, coupled to the memory, operative to implement the following steps;

obtaining sensor data from a plurality of sensors; and

determining, by the at least one processing device, if a first one of the plurality of sensors is malfunctioning based on a comparison of the sensor data of the first sensor with the sensor data obtained from one or more additional sensors within the plurality of sensors, wherein the one or more additional sensors within the plurality of sensors are identified based on one or more of a location and a sensor type of the one or more additional sensors relative to one or more of a location and a sensor type of the first sensor.

10. The system of claim 9, further comprising the step of performing one or more predefined steps for a given malfunctioning sensor based on one or more predefined policies.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the first sensor and the one or more additional sensors comprise sensors that have a substantially similar sensor type and a substantially similar sensor location.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein the first sensor comprises a first predefined sensor type and wherein the one or more additional sensors comprise one or more additional predefined sensor types.

13. The system of claim 9, wherein the step of determining if the first sensor is malfunctioning further comprises estimating a value of the sensor data based on a predefined source of information.

14. The system of claim 9, further comprising the step of estimating a probability that a given sensor will malfunction based on a probabilistic model.

15. A computer program product, comprising a tangible machine-readable storage medium having encoded therein executable code of one or more software programs, wherein the one or more software programs when executed by at least one processing device perform the following steps:

obtaining sensor data from a plurality of sensors; and

determining, by the at least one processing device, if a first one of the plurality of sensors is malfunctioning based on a comparison of the sensor data of the first sensor with the sensor data obtained from one or more additional sensors within the plurality of sensors, wherein the one or more additional sensors within the plurality of sensors are identified based on one or more of a location and a sensor type of the one or more additional sensors relative to one or more of a location and a sensor type of the first sensor.

16. The computer program product of claim 15, further comprising the step of performing one or more predefined steps for a given malfunctioning sensor based on one or more predefined policies.

17. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the first sensor and the one or more additional sensors comprise sensors that have a substantially similar sensor type and a substantially similar sensor location.

18. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the first sensor comprises a first predefined sensor type and wherein the one or more additional sensors comprise one or more additional predefined sensor types.

19. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the step of determining if the first sensor is malfunctioning further comprises estimating a value of the sensor data based on a predefined source of information.

20. The computer program product of claim 15, further comprising the step of estimating a probability that a given sensor will malfunction based on a probabilistic model.