CONTROL OF SENSOR NETWORKS

• US 20090006589A1
• Filed: 06/28/2007
• Published: 01/01/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/28/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Baribault, Gregory, Forbes, Scott C., Westerinen, William Jefferson, Panabaker, Ruston John David
• Granted Patent: US 8,447,847 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4541 Directories for service discovery
• 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 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services

Abstract

A method and apparatus is provided for generating an index and creating a network of devices based on the index. Information and data may be provided via the network. In one example, a request may be received from a user at a service. The service may maintain an index containing characteristics of devices. Any number or type of devices may be selected to participate in the network. Also, the network may be subsequently modified by the addition or removal of any device from the network. Information or data received from the network devices may be returned to the user requesting the information via the service.

Claims

1. A method providing data in a federated network, the method comprising:

receiving an input request for information;

identifying a plurality of data capture devices for providing the requested information based on characteristics of the data capture devices;

generating a federated network of data capture devices including the identified plurality of data capture devices;

receiving the requested information from the network of data capture devices;

outputting the received requested information.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of identifying the plurality of data capture devices comprises:

accessing an index, the index including characteristics of available data capture devices;

matching the characteristics of the available data capture devices with the input request;

selecting the plurality of data capture devices from the available data capture devices based on the matching.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the step of generating the federated network of data capture devices comprises identifying the selected plurality of data capture devices and including the identified selected plurality of data capture devices in the federated network of data capture devices.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the characteristics of available data capture devices includes location information for the available data capture devices, the step of matching including:

identifying a location associated with the input request;

identifying a subset of data capture devices from the available data capture devices in the vicinity of the location associated with the input request;

marking the identified subset of data capture devices.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the characteristics of available data capture devices further includes functional information for the available data capture devices, the functional information comprising information corresponding to capabilities of the available data capture devices.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the step of matching comprises:

identifying a function associated with the input request;

identifying a subset of data capture devices from the marked data capture devices having a capability corresponding to the identified function;

marking the identified subset of data capture devices having the capability.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the step of generating a federated network of data capture devices further includes including the marked identified subset of data capture devices having the capability in the federated network of data capture devices.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the characteristics of available data capture devices includes device orientation information for the available data capture devices, the method further comprising:

identifying a device orientation from the index for one or more available data capture devices;

modifying the device orientation of the one or more available data capture devices, the modified device orientation corresponding with the input request;

including the one or more available data capture devices with the modified device orientation.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

identifying a remote service associated with a second plurality of data capture devices, the second plurality of data capture devices containing one or more data capture devices that are distinct from the data capture devices of the first plurality of data capture devices,

wherein the step of generating a federated network of data capture devices comprises including one or more data capture devices from the second plurality of data capture devices in the federated network of data capture devices.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising sending a service request to the remote service, the service request including a characteristic of the input request, and receiving a message from the service responsive to the service request, wherein generating the federated network of data capture devices is based on the message from the service.

11. The method of claim 2 further comprising modifying the federated network of data capture devices, the modifying comprising:

receiving an updated characteristic from a data capture device in the plurality of data capture devices;

updating the index based on the updated characteristic;

modifying the federated network of data capture devices based on the updated index.

12. The method of claim 11 further comprising matching the updated characteristic with the input request and including the data capture device associated with the update characteristic in the federated network of data capture devices based on the matching of the updated characteristic with the input request.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein matching the updated characteristic with the input request includes identifying a match between the updated characteristic and the input request and the step of including the data capture device associated with the updated characteristic in the federated network includes incorporating the data capture device associated with the updated characteristic in the federated network.

14. The method of claim 12 wherein matching the updated characteristic with the input request includes identifying a mismatch between the updated characteristic and the input request and the step of including the data capture device associated with the updated characteristic in the federated network includes excluding the data capture device associated with the updated characteristic from the federated network.

15. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving a characteristic associated with a data capture device from a data capture device in the plurality of data capture devices; and

generating an index, the index including the characteristic associated with the data capture device in the plurality of data capture devices.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the step of identifying the plurality of data capture devices includes:

accessing the index; and

matching the characteristic in the index with the input request.

17. A service comprising:

an input for receiving an input request;

an index module for storing an index, the index containing a characteristic of a network device;

an analyzer for selecting a plurality of network devices based on the index and the input request;

an output for providing a network request for creating a network of devices.

18. The service of claim 17 further comprising a network input for receiving a characteristic of a network device, the network input further storing the received characteristic of the network device in the index module.

19. The service of claim 17 wherein the service further receives data from a network device based on the input request and transmits the received data to a requestor.

20. The service of claim 17 wherein the characteristic comprises at least one of a location, an orientation, or a capability of the network device.