Aggregating and Routing Sensor Data at a Community Sensor-Coordinating Entity

• US 20120105214A1
• Filed: 10/29/2010
• Published: 05/03/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: SANDERS, Jeffery A.
• Granted Patent: US 8,963,692 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/10.42
• 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 67/63 Routing a service request depending on the request content or context
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/38 for collecting sensor information

Abstract

In one embodiment, a method includes receiving sensor data from multiple sensors associated with multiple persons; for each of the sensors, identifying the person associated with the sensor; determining whether the sensor data are valid; and, for the sensor data that are valid, aggregating them based on the associations of their sensors with the persons and routing them to one or more sensor-application-service providers based on associations of the persons with the sensor-application-service providers.

Claims

1. A method comprising, by one or more computer systems:

receiving a plurality of sensor data from a plurality of sensors associated with a plurality of persons;

for each of the sensors, identifying the person associated with the sensor;

determining whether the sensor data are valid; and

for the sensor data that are valid;

aggregating them based on the associations of their sensors with the persons; and

routing them to one or more sensor-application-service providers based on associations of the persons with the sensor-application-service providers.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the sensor data are further associated with a plurality of properties.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the sensor data are further associated with a plurality of sensor communities.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more primary software processes associated with the person perform the validation, aggregation, and routing.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein one or more secondary software processes are also associated with the person, the secondary software processes providing one or more sensor-brokering services, property-coordination services, community-coordination services, personal-portal services, accounting services, entity-management services, entity-modeling services, or policing services.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein one or more third-party software processes utilizing a service framework and application programming interface (API) extend the primary and secondary software processes.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the primary, secondary, and third-party processes are independent threads of control.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the primary, secondary, and third-party processes are distributed across a plurality of networked computing platforms in a unified computing system (UCS) environment.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein adapting the sensor data for communication to the sensor application provider comprises adapting the sensor data from a first data format supported by the community based sensor coordination entity to a second data format supported by the application provider.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more of the sensors are mobile sources.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein one or more of the mobile sources are smartphones associated with persons.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein some of the sensor data from the mobile sources are received over Short Message Service (SMS).

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the sensor data from the mobile sources comprise mobile-source preamble information, the mobile-source preamble information comprising:

caller identification (ID) information identifying the mobile source or the person;

sensor type information identifying a sensor type of each sensor that generated a portion of the sensor data; and

sensor ID information identifying each sensor that generated a portion of the sensor data.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more of the sensors are fixed sources.

15. One or more computer-readable non-transitory storage media embodying logic operable when executed to:

receive a plurality of sensor data from a plurality of sensors associated with a plurality of persons;

for each of the sensors, identify the person associated with the sensor;

determine whether the sensor data are valid; and

for the sensor data that are valid;

aggregate them based on the associations of their sensors with the persons; and

route them to one or more sensor-application-service providers based on associations of the persons with the sensor-application-service providers.

16. The media of claim 15, wherein the sensor data are further associated with a plurality of properties.

17. The media of claim 15, wherein the sensor data are further associated with a plurality of sensor communities.

18. The media of claim 15, wherein one or more primary software processes associated with the person perform the validation, aggregation, and routing.

19. The media of claim 18, wherein one or more secondary software processes are also associated with the person, the secondary software processes providing one or more sensor-brokering services, property-coordination services, community-coordination services, personal-portal services, accounting services, entity-management services, entity-modeling services, or policing services.

20. The media of claim 19, wherein one or more third-party software processes utilizing a service framework and application programming interface (API) extend the primary and secondary software processes.

21. The media of claim 20, wherein the primary, secondary, and third-party processes are independent threads of control.

22. The media of claim 21, wherein the primary, secondary, and third-party processes are distributed across a plurality of networked computing platforms in a unified computing system (UCS) environment.

23. The media of claim 15, wherein adapting the sensor data for communication to the sensor application provider comprises adapting the sensor data from a first data format supported by the community based sensor coordination entity to a second data format supported by the application provider.

24. The media of claim 15, wherein one or more of the sensors are mobile sources.

25. The media of claim 24, wherein one or more of the mobile sources are smartphones associated with persons.

26. The media of claim 24, wherein some of the sensor data from the mobile sources are received over Short Message Service (SMS).

27. The media of claim 24, wherein the sensor data from the mobile sources comprise mobile-source preamble information, the mobile-source preamble information comprising:

caller identification (ID) information identifying the mobile source or the person;

sensor type information identifying a sensor type of each sensor that generated a portion of the sensor data; and

sensor ID information identifying each sensor that generated a portion of the sensor data.

28. The media of claim 15, wherein one or more of the sensors are fixed sources.

29. An apparatus comprising:

one or more communication interfaces;

one or more memory devices containing one or more instructions for execution by one or more processing devices; and

the processing devices, operable when executing the instructions to;

receive a plurality of sensor data from a plurality of sensors associated with a plurality of persons;

for each of the sensors, identify the person associated with the sensor;

determine whether the sensor data are valid; and

for the sensor data that are valid;

aggregate them based on the associations of their sensors with the persons; and

route them to one or more sensor-application-service providers based on associations of the persons with the sensor-application-service providers.

30. The apparatus of claim 29, wherein the sensor data are further associated with a plurality of properties.

31. The apparatus of claim 29, wherein the sensor data are further associated with a plurality of sensor communities.

32. The apparatus of claim 29, wherein one or more primary software processes associated with the person perform the validation, aggregation, and routing.

33. The apparatus of claim 32, wherein one or more secondary software processes are also associated with the person, the secondary software processes providing one or more sensor-brokering services, property-coordination services, community-coordination services, personal-portal services, accounting services, entity-management services, entity-modeling services, or policing services.

34. The apparatus of claim 33, wherein one or more third-party software processes utilizing a service framework and application programming interface (API) extend the primary and secondary software processes.

35. The apparatus of claim 34, wherein the primary, secondary, and third-party processes are independent threads of control.

36. The apparatus of claim 35, wherein the primary, secondary, and third-party processes are distributed across a plurality of networked computing platforms in a unified computing system (UCS) environment.

37. The apparatus of claim 29, wherein adapting the sensor data for communication to the sensor application provider comprises adapting the sensor data from a first data format supported by the community based sensor coordination entity to a second data format supported by the application provider.

38. The apparatus of claim 29, wherein one or more of the sensors are mobile sources.

39. The apparatus of claim 38, wherein one or more of the mobile sources are smartphones associated with persons.

40. The apparatus of claim 38, wherein some of the sensor data from the mobile sources are received over Short Message Service (SMS).

41. The apparatus of claim 38, wherein the sensor data from the mobile sources comprise mobile-source preamble information, the mobile-source preamble information comprising:

caller identification (ID) information identifying the mobile source or the person;

sensor type information identifying a sensor type of each sensor that generated a portion of the sensor data; and

sensor ID information identifying each sensor that generated a portion of the sensor data.

42. The apparatus of claim 29, wherein one or more of the sensors are fixed sources.

43. A system comprising:

means for receiving a plurality of sensor data from a plurality of sensors associated with a plurality of persons;

means for, for each of the sensors, identifying the person associated with the sensor;

means for determining whether the sensor data are valid; and

means for, for the sensor data that are valid;

aggregating them based on the associations of their sensors with the persons; and

routing them to one or more sensor-application-service providers based on associations of the persons with the sensor-application-service providers.

44. The system of claim 43, wherein the sensor data are further associated with a plurality of properties.

45. The system of claim 43 wherein the sensor data are further associated with a plurality of sensor communities.

46. The system of claim 43, wherein one or more primary software processes associated with the person perform the validation, aggregation, and routing.

47. The system of claim 46, wherein one or more secondary software processes are also associated with the person, the secondary software processes providing one or more sensor-brokering services, property-coordination services, community-coordination services, personal-portal services, accounting services, entity-management services, entity-modeling services, or policing services.

48. The system of claim 47, wherein one or more third-party software processes utilizing a service framework and application programming interface (API) extend the primary and secondary software processes.

49. The system of claim 48, wherein the primary, secondary, and third-party processes are independent threads of control.

50. The system of claim 49, wherein the primary, secondary, and third-party processes are distributed across a plurality of networked computing platforms in a unified computing system (UCS) environment.

51. The system of claim 43, wherein adapting the sensor data for communication to the sensor application provider comprises adapting the sensor data from a first data format supported by the community based sensor coordination entity to a second data format supported by the application provider.

52. The system of claim 43, wherein one or more of the sensors are mobile sources.

53. The system of claim 52, wherein one or more of the mobile sources are smartphones associated with persons.

54. The system of claim 52, wherein some of the sensor data from the mobile sources are received over Short Message Service (SMS).

55. The system of claim 52, wherein the sensor data from the mobile sources comprise mobile-source preamble information, the mobile-source preamble information comprising:

caller identification (ID) information identifying the mobile source or the person;

sensor type information identifying a sensor type of each sensor that generated a portion of the sensor data; and

sensor ID information identifying each sensor that generated a portion of the sensor data.

56. The system of claim 43, wherein one or more of the sensors are fixed sources.