COLLABORATIVE INTELLIGENCE AND DECISION-MAKING IN AN IOT DEVICE GROUP

• US 20140244568A1
• Filed: 02/24/2014
• Published: 08/28/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 02/25/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Inventors: GOEL, Amit, SHUMAN, Mohammed Ataur Rahman, GUPTA, Binita, AGGARWAL, Ashutosh, SHARMA, Sandeep
• Granted Patent: US 9,292,832 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 706/52
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/04 Inference or reasoning models
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/101 Collaborative creation, e.g. joint development of products or services
• 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: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/08 User group management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 for social networking applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/70 Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication

Abstract

The disclosure relates to collaborative intelligence and decision-making in an Internet of Things (IoT) device group. In particular, various IoT devices in the group may be interdependent, whereby a decision that one IoT device plans may impact other IoT devices in the group. Accordingly, in response to an IoT device planning a certain decision (e.g., to transition state or initiate another action), the IoT devices in the group may collaborate using distributed intelligence prior to taking action on the planned decision. For example, a recommendation request may be sent to other IoT devices in the group, which may then analyze relationships within the group to assess potential impacts associated with the planned decision and respond to approve or disapprove the planned decision. Based on the responses received from the other IoT devices, the IoT device may then determine whether to take action on the planned decision.

Claims

1. A method for collaborative decision-making among Internet of Things (IoT) devices in an IoT group, comprising:

transmitting a recommendation request message to one or more member IoT devices in the IoT group, wherein the recommendation request message indicates a planned state transition;

receiving one or more responses to the recommendation request message, wherein the one or more responses include feedback about the planned state transition from the one or more member IoT devices responding to the recommendation request message; and

determining whether to initiate the planned state transition based on the one or more responses to the recommendation request message.

2. The method recited in claim 1, further comprising:

aggregating the responses to the recommendation request message until a predefined time period expires and analyzing the responses that are received during the predefined time period to determine whether to initiate the planned state transition.

3. The method recited in claim 1, further comprising:

planning the state transition based on a local decision-making algorithm.

4. The method recited in claim 1, wherein the one or more responses to the recommendation request message include a Boolean value to indicate whether the responding member IoT devices approve or disapprove the planned state transition.

5. The method recited in claim 1, wherein the one or more responses to the recommendation request message include a fuzzy logic value to indicate a degree to which the responding member IoT devices approve or disapprove the planned state transition.

6. The method recited in claim 1, wherein the one or more member IoT devices analyze a potential impact associated with the planned state transition based on a dependency tree that describes relationships among the member IoT devices in the IoT group and determine whether to approve or disapprove the planned state transition based on the potential impact.

7. The method recited in claim 6, wherein at least one member IoT device in the IoT group ignores the recommendation request message in response to having no opinion about whether to approve or disapprove the planned state transition.

8. The method recited in claim 6, wherein at least one member IoT device in the IoT group designates a proxy member IoT device that determines whether to approve or disapprove the planned state transition on behalf of the at least one member IoT device.

9. The method recited in claim 1, further comprising:

advertising a final decision indicating that the planned state transition will be initiated to the one or more member IoT devices in the IoT group; and

initiating the planned state transition subsequent to advertising the final decision.

10. The method recited in claim 1, further comprising:

advertising a final decision indicating that the planned state transition will not be initiated to the one or more member IoT devices in the IoT group.

11. The method recited in claim 10, further comprising:

receiving an unsolicited recommendation from at least one member IoT device in the IoT group, wherein the unsolicited recommendation indicates an operational state associated with the at least one member IoT device; and

deciding to not initiate the planned state transition in response to determining that the planned state transition has a potential adverse impact on the operational state associated with the at least one member IoT device that sent the unsolicited recommendation.

12. An apparatus, comprising:

means for transmitting a recommendation request message to one or more member Internet of Things (IoT) devices in an IoT group, wherein the recommendation request message indicates a planned state transition;

means for receiving one or more responses to the recommendation request message, wherein the one or more responses include feedback about the planned state transition from the one or more member IoT devices responding to the recommendation request message; and

means for determining whether to initiate the planned state transition based on the one or more responses to the recommendation request message.

13. The apparatus recited in claim 12, wherein the means for determining whether to initiate the planned state transition further comprises:

means for aggregating the responses to the recommendation request message until a predefined time period expires; and

means for analyzing the responses that are received during the predefined time period to determine whether to initiate the planned state transition.

14. The apparatus recited in claim 12, wherein the means for determining whether to initiate the planned state transition further comprises means for planning the state transition based on a local decision-making algorithm.

15. The apparatus recited in claim 12, further comprising:

means for advertising a final decision indicating that the planned state transition will be initiated to the one or more member IoT devices in the IoT group; and

means for initiating the planned state transition subsequent to advertising the final decision.

16. The apparatus recited in claim 12, further comprising:

means for advertising a final decision indicating that the planned state transition will not be initiated to the one or more member IoT devices in the IoT group.

17. The apparatus recited in claim 12, further comprising:

means for receiving an unsolicited recommendation from at least one member IoT device in the IoT group, wherein the unsolicited recommendation indicates an operational state associated with the at least one member IoT device; and

means for deciding to not initiate the planned state transition in response to determining that the planned state transition has a potential adverse impact on the operational state associated with the at least one member IoT device that sent the unsolicited recommendation.

18. A computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions for collaborative group-based decision-making recorded thereon, wherein executing the computer-executable instructions on an Internet of Things (IoT) device causes the IoT device to:

transmit a recommendation request message to one or more member IoT devices in an IoT group that includes the IoT device, wherein the recommendation request message indicates a planned state transition;

receive one or more responses to the recommendation request message, wherein the one or more responses include feedback about the planned state transition from the member IoT devices responding to the recommendation request message; and

determine whether to initiate the planned state transition based on the responses to the recommendation request message.

19. A method for collaborative decision-making among Internet of Things (IoT) devices in an IoT group, comprising:

receiving a recommendation request message from at least one member IoT device in the IoT group, wherein the recommendation request message indicates a planned state transition associated with the at least one member IoT device;

determining a response to the recommendation request message based at least in part on feedback about the planned state transition; and

receiving an advertised final decision indicating whether the planned state transition will be initiated from the at least one member IoT device, wherein the at least one member IoT device generates the final decision based at least in part on the feedback about the planned state transition.

20. The method recited in claim 19, wherein the response to the recommendation request message includes a Boolean value to indicate whether the planned state transition is approved or disapproved.

21. The method recited in claim 19, wherein the response to the recommendation request message includes a fuzzy logic value to indicate a degree to which the planned state transition is approved or disapproved.

22. The method recited in claim 19, wherein determining the response to the recommendation request message comprises:

analyzing a potential impact associated with the planned state transition based on a dependency tree that describes relationships among the member IoT devices in the IoT group; and

determining the response to the recommendation request message based at least in part on the potential impact, wherein the determined response indicates whether the planned state transition is approved or disapproved.

23. The method recited in claim 19, wherein determining the response to the recommendation request message comprises:

ignoring the recommendation request message without transmitting the feedback to the at least one member IoT device in response to having no opinion about whether to approve or disapprove the planned state transition.

24. The method recited in claim 19, wherein determining the response to the recommendation request message comprises:

designating a proxy member IoT device to determine whether to approve or disapprove the planned state transition and transmit the response to the recommendation request message to the at least one member IoT device.

25. The method recited in claim 19, further comprising:

receiving an unsolicited recommendation from the at least one member IoT device, wherein the unsolicited recommendation indicates an operational state associated with the at least one member IoT device; and

planning one or more state transitions using a local decision-making algorithm to avoid a potential adverse impact on the operational state associated with the at least one member IoT device that sent the unsolicited recommendation.