SENSOR NODES WITH MULTICAST TRANSMISSIONS IN LIGHTING SENSORY NETWORK

• US 20140293993A1
• Filed: 03/25/2014
• Published: 10/02/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/26/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Sensity Systems, Inc. (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: Ryhorchuk, Kent W.
• Granted Patent: US 9,456,293 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/350
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1895 for short real-time information, e.g. alarms, notifications, alerts, updates
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 Threshold monitoring
• 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 69/28 Timers or timing mechanisms used in protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/38 for collecting sensor information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 56/001 Synchronization between nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/18 Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks

Abstract

An embodiment method for communicating data within a lighting sensory network may include configuring a first plurality of lighting nodes to operate as sensor nodes, configuring a second plurality of lighting nodes to operate as listening nodes, generating, by a sensor node using an encryption key, a sensor message associated with sensor data and including at least a timestamp, calculating an interval for transmitting the sensor message, wherein the interval is randomized and exponentially increasing, determining whether to transmit the sensor message based on the calculated interval, transmitting the sensor message in response to determining to transmit the sensor message based on the calculated interval, receiving, by a listening node, the sensor message at a listening node, determining whether the received sensor message is useful based on the timestamp and a predefined age threshold, and performing a lighting action in response to determining the received sensor message is useful.

Claims

1. A method for a lighting node within a lighting infrastructure to communicate data to other nodes within a lighting sensory network, comprising:

generating, by the lighting node, using an encryption key a sensor message associated with sensor data, wherein the sensor message includes at least a timestamp related to a first time;

calculating, by the lighting node, an interval for transmitting the generated sensor message, wherein the interval is randomized and exponentially increasing;

determining, by the lighting node, whether to transmit the generated sensor message at a second time based on the calculated interval; and

transmitting, by the lighting node, the generated sensor message at the second time in response to determining to transmit the generated sensor message based on the calculated interval.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, at the lighting node, a message from a server that assigns the lighting node to a sensor node group for transmitting sensor messages using transmission parameters, wherein the received message includes at least the encryption key and clock synchronization information;

obtaining, by the lighting node, the sensor data at the first time from one or more sensors coupled to the lighting node; and

synchronizing, by the lighting node, a local clock mechanism based on the clock synchronization information, and

wherein transmitting, by the lighting node, the generated sensor message at the second time in response to determining to transmit the generated sensor message based on the calculated interval comprises transmitting, by the lighting node, the generated sensor message at the second time using the transmission parameters from the received message in response to determining to transmit the generated sensor message based on the calculated interval.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the lighting node is capable of being configured to transmit and/or receive the sensor messages.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein generating, by the lighting node, the sensor message using the encryption key comprises using AES-128-CBC.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the generated sensor message further includes one or more of nonce data, version data, sensor identifier data, debugging identifier data, the sensor data, and position data related to the lighting node.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein calculating, by the lighting node, the interval for transmitting the generated sensor message comprises calculating the interval using an equation, wherein the equation is:

B*2ⁿ*random( )

wherein B is a base retransmission interval, n is one of a number of retransmissions for the generated sensor message or a default number, and random( ) is a function that returns a random number.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein transmitting, by the lighting node, the generated sensor message at the second time using the transmission parameters comprises transmitting the generated sensor message on a UDP port indicated in the transmission parameters.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the lighting sensory network is one of a WiFi wireless network or an ad hoc wireless network.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining, by the lighting node, whether to retransmit the generated sensor message based on at least one of a predefined age threshold and a number of previous transmissions of the generated sensor message.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising discarding, by the lighting node, the generated sensor message in response to determining not to retransmit the generated sensor message based on at least one of the predefined age threshold and the number of previous transmissions of the generated sensor message.

11. A method for a lighting node within a lighting infrastructure to receive data from other nodes within a lighting sensory network, comprising:

receiving, by the lighting node, a sensor message from a sensor node within the lighting sensory network, wherein the sensor message is transmitted by the sensor node using an interval that is randomized and exponentially increasing;

determining, by the lighting node, whether the received sensor message is useful based on a timestamp from the received sensor message and a predefined age threshold; and

performing, by the lighting node, a lighting action based on the received sensor message in response to determining the received sensor message is useful.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

receiving, at the lighting node, a message from a server that assigns the lighting node to a listening node group for receiving sensor data using receiving parameters, wherein the received message includes at least a decryption key and clock synchronization information; and

synchronizing, by the lighting node, a local clock mechanism based on the clock synchronization information, and

wherein receiving, by the lighting node, the sensor message from the sensor node within the lighting sensory network comprises receiving, by the lighting node, the sensor message from the sensor node within the lighting sensory network using the receiving parameters from the received message, and

wherein the predefined age threshold is indicated in the receiving parameters.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising decrypting, by the lighting node, the received sensor message using the decryption key.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein receiving, by the lighting node, the sensor message from the sensor node within the lighting sensory network comprises monitoring a UDP port indicated in the receiving parameters.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the lighting sensory network is one of a WiFi wireless network or an ad hoc wireless network.

16. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

calculating, by the lighting node, a distance based on a first position indicated by the received sensor message and a second position corresponding to the lighting node; and

determining, by the lighting node, whether the received sensor message is within a predefined distance threshold based on the calculated distance, and

wherein performing, by the lighting node, the lighting action based on the received sensor message in response to determining the received sensor message is useful comprises performing, by the lighting node, the lighting action based on the received sensor message in response to determining the received sensor message is useful and in response to determining the calculated distance is within the predefined distance threshold.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein the lighting action includes at least one of dimming a light source, intensifying the light source, deactivating the light source, and activating the light source.

18. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

determining, by the lighting node, whether a maximum number of sensor messages are stored within a local memory;

discarding, by the lighting node, an oldest stored sensor message in response to determining that the maximum number of sensor messages are stored within the local memory; and

storing, by the lighting node, the received sensor message in the local memory.

19. The method of claim 11, wherein the lighting node is capable of being configured to transmit and/or receive sensor messages.

20. A method for communicating data within a lighting sensory network, comprising:

configuring a first plurality of lighting nodes to operate as sensor nodes that transmit messages associated with sensor data;

configuring a second plurality of lighting nodes to operate as listening nodes that receive the messages associated with the sensor data;

generating, by each of one or more of the first plurality of lighting nodes, a sensor message associated with the sensor data, generated using an encryption key, and includes at least a timestamp;

calculating, by each of the one or more of the first plurality of lighting nodes, an interval for transmitting the generated sensor message, wherein the interval is randomized and exponentially increasing;

determining, by each of the one or more of the first plurality of lighting nodes, whether to transmit the generated sensor message based on the calculated interval;

transmitting, by each of the one or more of the first plurality of lighting nodes, the generated sensor message in response to determining to transmit the generated sensor message based on the calculated interval;

receiving, by one or more of the second plurality of lighting nodes, one or more sensor messages transmitted by the one or more of the first plurality of lighting nodes;

determining, by the one or more of the second plurality of lighting nodes, whether the received one or more of the sensor messages transmitted by the one or more of the first plurality of lighting nodes are useful based on timestamp data from the received one or more of the sensor messages and a predefined age threshold; and

performing, by the one or more of the second plurality of lighting nodes, one or more lighting actions in response to determining the received one or more of the sensor messages transmitted by the one or more of the first plurality of lighting nodes are useful.