METHOD, DEVICE AND SYSTEM FOR ENERGY MANAGEMENT

• US 20140359325A1
• Filed: 03/16/2011
• Published: 12/04/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/16/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nokia Technologies Oy (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nokia Corporation
• Inventors: Saarinen, Jukka
• Granted Patent: US 9,471,127 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/320
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3206 Monitoring of events, devices or parameters that trigger a change in power modality
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3234 Power saving characterised by the action undertaken

Abstract

The present application relates to carrying out energy management based on context information. In the method, apparatus and system according to the application, a context vector (820) is used to select a operational state plurality of operational state vectors (825, 835). The plurality of operational state vectors are indicative of the state and/or energy consumption of different operational units in the corresponding context. The selected operational state vectors are then used together in adapting an operational state of the operational units according to the needs in the context (855). There is also a method and devices for forming a data structure (810) that can be used in the selection of the operational state vectors. The method can be used in the energy management of mobile devices, where the operational units are components of these devices and the context can include data from sensors. The method may use an associative memory such as a sparse distributed memory in storing operational state vectors.

Claims

1-51. -51. (canceled)

52. A method comprising:

providing a data structure comprising context vectors and operational state vectors and having an association between said context vectors and said operational state vectors;

receiving a context vector;

using said context vector to select a plurality of operational state vectors, the plurality of operational state vectors being indicative of operational state of operational units; and

modifying the selected operational state vectors using a teaching operational state vector associated with said context vector.

53. A method according to claim 52, wherein

said selected operational state vectors are modified by increasing a value of an element corresponding to an active operational unit in said teaching operational state vector.

54. A method according to claim 52, wherein

said selected operational state vectors are modified by decreasing a value of an element corresponding to an inactive operational unit in said teaching operational state vector.

55. A method according to claim 52, further comprising

using a distance measure in said selecting, and

modifying said selected operational state vectors according to said distance measure.

56. A method according to claim 52, comprising

thresholding said teaching operational state vector, and

modifying said selected operational state vectors using said thresholded teaching operational state vector.

60. A method according to claim 52, wherein operational state vectors have an associated context address, the method comprising:

carrying out said selection by comparing said context vector to said context addresses.

64. A method according to claim 52, wherein carrying out the selection comprises forming a distance measure between said received context vector and another vector.

65. A method according to claim 52, further comprising:

forming said context vector by combining data from at least two time instances.

57. A method comprising:

receiving a context vector,

using said context vector to select a plurality of operational state vectors, the plurality of operational state vectors being indicative of operational states of operational units,

using said selected operational state vectors together in energy management of said operational units.

58. A method according to claim 57, wherein said operational state vectors reside in an associative memory such as a sparse distributed memory, the method comprising

inputting said context vector as a single memory address input to said associative memory, and

selecting a plurality of data vectors from the associative memory based on said input address.

59. A method according to claim 58, comprising

choosing said associative memory among a group of associative memories based on said received context vector, and

selecting said plurality of data vectors in said selected associative memory using said context vector.

61. A method according to claim 58, wherein a possible address space of context addresses comprises more entries than the total number of context addresses associated to operational state vectors, and the addresses of the memory locations having been assigned to the operational state vectors using a function.

62. A method according to claim 61, wherein the function is a random function.

63. A method according to claim 61, wherein the function corresponds to a statistical distribution of context vectors.

66. A data structure comprising context vectors and operational state vectors and an association between said context vectors and said operational state vectors, said data structure being suitable for obtaining control data for controlling an operation of an apparatus by

using an input context vector to select a plurality of operational state vectors from said data structure, the plurality of operational state vectors being indicative of operational states of operational units,

controlling operation of an apparatus using said selected operational state vectors together to carry out energy management for said operational units.

67. An apparatus comprising at least one processor, memory, operational units, and computer program code in said memory, said computer program code being configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to:

receive a context vector,

use said context vector to select a plurality of operational state vectors, the plurality of operational state vectors being indicative of the operational state of said operational units,

use said selected operational state vectors together in energy management of said operational units.

68. An apparatus according to claim 67, further comprising an associative memory such as a sparse distributed memory, operational state vectors residing in said associative memory, and computer program code configured to cause the apparatus at least to:

input said context vector as a single memory address input to said associative memory, and

select a plurality of data vectors from the memory base on said input address.

69. An apparatus according to claim 67, further comprising a processor for producing said context vector.

70. An apparatus according to claim 67 further comprising different sub-units of said operational units, and a processor for enabling and disabling or setting the operational state of said sub-units for managing energy consumption.

71. A computer program product stored on a non-transitory computer readable medium and executable in a data processing apparatus, the computer program product comprising:

a computer program code section for providing a data structure comprising context vectors and operational state vectors and having an association between said context vectors and said operational state vectors,

a computer program code section for receiving a context vector,

a computer program code section for using said context vector to select a plurality of operational state vectors, the plurality of operational state vectors being indicative of operational states of operational units, and

a computer program code section for modifying the selected operational state vectors using a teaching operational state vector associated with said context vector.