Apparatus for Mediation between Measurement, Biometric, and Monitoring Devices and a Server

• US 20090024733A1
• Filed: 07/16/2007
• Published: 01/22/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 07/16/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Edward Shteyman
• Original Assignee: Edward Shteyman
• Inventors: Shteyman, Edward
• Application Number:
  US11/778,132
• Publication Number:
  US 20090024733A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/025 for remote control or remote monitoring of applications

Abstract

The present invention is a mediation apparatus between a server on a communication network and measurement, biometric, and monitoring devices, which, on their own, may or may not be capable to originate connections. Additionally, the mediation apparatus of the present invention can serve as an intermediate buffer for the data acquired from devices and as a source of control or processing data for devices. The present invention may be implemented either as a standalone device or built-in to a measurement device. Measurement devices may be of almost any type: biometric access control devices, security monitoring devices, physical access monitoring devices, various measurement devices, etc. The main function of mediation apparatus is a connection of measurement devices to the server through a communications network. In this arrangement the central server doesn'"'"'t need to connect to devices directly. Instead, it periodically tries to connect to the server or constantly polls the server.

Claims

1. An Apparatus for Mediation between Measurement, Biometric, and Monitoring Devices and a Server comprising:

a central server;

a mediation apparatus

a first network connecting said central server to said mediation apparatus;

and one or more measurement devices connected to said mediation apparatus through one or more additional network connections.

2. The Apparatus of claim 1 wherein

the mediation apparatus is connected to the server through TCP/IP protocol running on top of an Ethernet network, and

the measurement devices are connected via RS-232 connections and UDP protocol on top of a modem PPP connection.

3. The Apparatus of claim 1 wherein the mediation apparatus further consists of

a self-contained central processing unit;

a data buffer; and

one or more network interfaces.

4. The Apparatus of claim 3 wherein the mediation apparatus further consists of a management interface that provides means for enabling administrative tasks.

5. The Apparatus of claim 3 wherein the data buffer of the mediation apparatus if further comprised of a file system on non-volatile storage means.

6. The Apparatus of claim 3 wherein the network interfaces are used to connect the mediation apparatus to one or more measurement devices and to the central server.

7. The Apparatus of claim 3 wherein one or more measurement devices are connected to a single network interface.

8. The Apparatus of claim 7 wherein the single network interface also connects to one or more measurement devices and to the central server.

9. A method for mediation between measurement, biometric, and monitoring devices and a server, comprising

polling one or more measurement devices by a mediation apparatus connected to a central server that regularly polls the measurement devices for special event flags;

regulating the poll rate by delay time;

initiating a measurement and waiting until the measurement is completed;

processing measurement data by the mediation apparatus;

providing a pending command queue for each measurement device wherein said command queue is checked, before polling for a special event flag.

processing pending commands; and

entering a state of measurement readiness and setting an event flag when no additional commands are pending.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the processing pending commands results in the addition of one or more commands to the mediation apparatus'"'"' pending command queues.

11. The method of claim 9 wherein measurement results are processed on the internal data in the data buffer of the mediation apparatus.

12. The method of claim 9 wherein measurement results are processed by a central server when there is an adequate and active network connection between the mediation apparatus and the central server.

13. The method of claim 11 wherein when there is no network connection to the central server or if the connection speed to the central server is below the adequate speed needed for error free data transmission, the data buffer stores measurement results and makes decisions based on the measurement results.

14. The method of claim 9 wherein

the mediation apparatus first determines if there is a connection to the central server,

if there is a connection, the mediation apparatus transmits data to the server for processing, receives an answer from the server, and processes the server'"'"'s answer before finishing, or

if there is no connection, the mediation apparatus processes the measurement using the information in the data buffer and puts a control command in a calling devices queue before finishing.

15. The method of claim 9 wherein commands may be put into a measurement device'"'"'s pending commands queue.

16. The method of claim 9 wherein

the central server provides an answer to the mediation apparatus that contains data buffer synchronization information or commands to be added to the device'"'"'s pending commands queue;

and

said commands are used to control the measurement device'"'"'s settings or to perform additional actions.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein the mediation apparatus must regularly poll the central server or maintain connection to the central server, because the central server is incapable of initiating the connections to the mediation device on its own.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein a sequence of polling operations of the central server is performed simultaneously with the polling of the measurement devices.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein

polling begins with the network configuration;

synchronization between the mediation apparatus and its data buffer with the central server occurs after a successful connection attempt and connection;

processing of one or more of the central server result set(s) by the mediation apparatus occurs after the successful process of data buffer synchronization with the server; and

synchronization between the mediation apparatus and its data buffer with the central server continues the polling loop after waiting a specified amount of time.

20. The method of claim 18 wherein the network configuration uses automatic configuration protocols, supported by the underlying network and allowed in the apparatus configuration.