APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR GENERATING VIRTUAL SENSOR IN SENSOR NETWORK

• US 20140013339A1
• Filed: 07/09/2013
• Published: 01/09/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 07/09/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Original Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Inventors: LEE, Byung Bog, Pyo, Cheol Sig, Yu, Jae Hak, Kim, Nae-soo
• Granted Patent: US 9,225,781 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/328
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/54 Interprogram communication
• 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 67/59 Providing operational support to end devices by off-loading in the network or by emulation, e.g. when they are unavailable

Abstract

A virtual sensor generation apparatus of a sensor network sets a communication connection to a sensor node at a periphery of a smart device, generates a logical sensor corresponding to a physical sensor that is connected to the sensor node, generates a virtual sensor with the logical sensor, and provides an application service to a user using the virtual sensor.

Claims

1. A virtual sensor generation apparatus in a sensor network, comprising:

a sensor node coordinator that sets a communication connection to a sensor node at a periphery of a smart device;

a logic sensor manager that generates at least one logical sensor corresponding to at least one physical sensor of a plurality of physical sensors of the sensor node;

a virtual sensor manager that generates a virtual sensor using the at least one logical sensor and at least one of previously generated virtual sensors; and

a service manager that generates an application service using an application programming interface (API) of at least one of the logical sensor and the virtual sensor and that provides the application service to a user.

2. The virtual sensor generation apparatus of claim 1, further comprising an identifier manager that allocates a layer identifier representing a hierarchical location of the logical sensor and the virtual sensor to the logical sensor and the virtual sensor.

3. The virtual sensor generation apparatus of claim 2, wherein the layer identifier of the at least one logical sensor is the same as a layer identifier of the at least one physical sensor, and

the layer identifier of the virtual sensor is distinguished from the layer identifier of the at least one logical sensor.

4. The virtual sensor generation apparatus of claim 1, wherein the sensor node coordinator receives a profile of the sensor node and the plurality of physical sensors through the sensor node, and

the logic sensor manager sets a profile of the at least one physical sensor to the at least one logical sensor.

5. The virtual sensor generation apparatus of claim 1, wherein the virtual sensor generation apparatus is embodied on the smart device.

6. A method of generating a virtual sensor in a virtual sensor generation apparatus of a sensor network, the method comprising:

setting a communication connection to a sensor node at a periphery of a smart device;

generating a plurality of logical sensors corresponding to a plurality of physical sensors, respectively, that are connected to the found sensor node;

generating a virtual sensor using at least one logical sensor of the plurality of logical sensors; and

generating an application service using the generated virtual sensors and providing the application service to the user.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the generating of a plurality of logical sensors comprises allocating a layer identifier representing a hierarchical location of the plurality of logical sensors to the plurality of logical sensors, and

wherein the generating of a virtual sensor comprises allocating a layer identifier representing a hierarchical location of the virtual sensor to the virtual sensor.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the layer identifier of the plurality of logical sensors is the same as a layer identifier of a corresponding physical sensor, and

the layer identifier of the virtual sensor is distinguished from the layer identifier of the plurality of logical sensors.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the generating of a plurality of logical sensors comprises setting a profile of the plurality of physical sensors to the plurality of logical sensors.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein the providing of the application service comprises activating at least one physical sensor that is connected to the at least one logical sensor using an application programming interface (API) of the at least one logical sensor.