Sensing environmental conditions using RFID

• US 20110215946A1
• Filed: 03/08/2010
• Published: 09/08/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/08/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Aguren, Jerry
• Granted Patent: US 8,482,429 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/870.3
• CPC Class Codes: G01K 1/024 for remote indication
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/0717 the sensor being capable of sensing environmental conditions such as temperature history or pressure
• CPC Class Codes: G08C 19/00 Electric signal transmission systems G08C17/00 takes precedence
• 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: H05K 7/1498 Resource management, Optimisation arrangements, e.g. configuration, identification, tracking, physical location thermal management H05K7/20836
• CPC Class Codes: H05K 7/20836 Thermal management, e.g. server temperature control

Abstract

RFID tag sensor devices are adapted to be mounted in locations relative to a rack mountable device to wirelessly report a condition relating to an operating environment of the rack mountable device at the location. The sensor device in some embodiments has a body having a mounting portion adapted to engage with at least one pre-configured environmental operating condition sense-location of a rack or rack mountable device.

Claims

1. An environmental condition sensing system comprising a plurality of RFID transponder equipped sensor devices to sense and wirelessly report conditions relating to an operating environment of a rack-based arrangement of information handling devices, at least some of the sensor devices comprising respective bodies having respective mounting portions adapted to selectively engage with a plurality of respective predetermined mount locations relative to the information handling devices, at least some of the sensor devices being adapted to sense different respective types of operating environment conditions.

2. The environmental condition sensing system of claim 1, at least some of the sensor devices respectively comprising a transducer and a passive RFID transponder, the transducer being operable, using power supplied from the RFID transponder, to sense an operating environment condition and communicate a resulting sensed-data signal to the RFID transponder.

3. The environmental condition sensing system of claim 1, the mounting portions being adapted to mechanically engage the pre-determined mount locations by at least one of:

press fitting, friction fitting, screw fitting, snap fitting, spring locking.

4. The environmental condition sensing system of claim 1, the mounting portions being adapted to engage the predetermined mount location without the use of tools.

5. The environmental condition sensing system of claim 1, at least some of the sensor devices respectively comprising a transducer and an RFID transponder, at least the mounting portions of the respective sensor bodies comprising a mouldable material that also encases at least the RFID transponder.

6. The environmental condition sensing system of claim 1, at least some of the sensor devices being adapted to report an operating environment condition relative to an information handling device, power supply or other rack mounted electrical device, the operating environment condition being selected from at least one of:

temperature, humidity, shock, vibration and air flow.

7. The environmental condition sensing system of claim 1, at least some of the sensor devices being colour coded according to sensing capability.

8. A data centre comprising a plurality of radio frequency identification (RFID) sensor devices having respective mounting portions selectively engaged at a plurality of respective preconfigured mount locations of a data center rack and/or rack-mounted information handling devices, at least some of the sensor devices being adapted to sense different respective types of operating environment conditions, and report the conditions through at least one RFID reader to a data center management database.

9. The data centre of claim 8, the sensor devices being engaged in mount locations in at least one door of a data center rack and/or inside at least one data processing device mounted in a data center rack.

10. The data center of claim 8, the sensor devices being engaged at the predetermined mount locations by at least one of:

friction fitting, screw fitting, snap fitting, spring locking.

11. The data center of claim 8, comprising sensor devices mounted in groups at at least some of the mount locations, to provide redundancy.

12. An RFID tag sensor device adapted to be mounted in any desired predetermined location relative to a rack mountable device to wirelessly report a condition relating to an operating environment of the rack mountable device at the location;

the sensor device comprising a body having a mounting portion adapted to engage with at least one pre-configured environmental operating condition sense-location of a rack or rack mountable device.

13. The sensor device of claim 12, the mounting portion of the body being adapted to mount at the desired pre-determined sense-location at a rack or a rack-mounted device by at least one of:

press fitting, friction fitting, screw fitting, snap fitting, spring locking.

14. The sensor device of claim 12, at least the mounting portion of the body comprising a mouldable material colour coded according to a sensing capability of the sensor device.

15. The sensor device of claim 12, comprising external electrical contacts and operable to output identification data and sensed data through the electrical contacts using an auxiliary data communication interface.

16. The sensor device of claim 12, adapted to report an operating environment condition relative to an information handling device, power supply or other rack mounted electrical device, the operating environment condition being selected from at least one of:

temperature, humidity, shock, vibration and air flow.

17. The sensor device of claim 12, comprising a transducer module selected from a plurality of types of environmental condition sensing transducer modules, selectively connected to a common RFID transponder module for communication of a transduced signal between the transducer module and the transponder module.

18. A passive RFID transponder device module selectively connectable to a plurality of types of transducer module to form a sensor device mountable to or about a rack mountable device, at preconfigured mount locations, to report a condition relating to an operating environment of the rack mountable device, the RFID device module being operable to supply power to operate the transducer module, receive sensed data from the transducer module, and output an RF signal to externally communicate the sensed data.

19. A sensor device comprising the RFID transponder device module of claim 18 connected to a transducer module, the transducer module being operable, using power scavenged by the transponder device from an RFID reader device, to sense an operating environment condition and transmit a corresponding sensed data signal to the transponder device module.

20. The sensor device of claim 19, at least some of the transducer modules being respectively operable to sense different operating environment conditions, and being colour coded according to sensing capability.