LOCALIZED WEATHER PREDICTION THROUGH UTILIZATION OF CAMERAS

• US 20150261243A1
• Filed: 06/01/2015
• Published: 09/17/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/17/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Williams, Charles Joseph, Kliot, Gabriel, Lin, Chia-Chi, Harris, Shaun L., Belady, Christian L., Peterson, Eric C.
• Granted Patent: US 10,126,771 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01W 1/00 Meteorology
• CPC Class Codes: G05F 1/66 Regulating electric power
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/048 Fuzzy inferencing
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/13 Satellite images

Abstract

Described herein are various technologies pertaining to predicting an amount of electrical power that is to be generated by a power system at a future point in time, wherein the power system utilizes a renewable energy resource to generate electrical power. A camera is positioned to capture an image of sky over a geographic region of interest. The image is analyzed to predict an amount of solar radiation that is to be received by the power source at a future point in time. The predicted solar radiation is used to predict an amount of electrical power that will be output by the power system at the future point in time. A computational resource of a data center that is powered by way of the power source is managed as a function of the predicted amount of power.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

at least one processor; and

memory that comprises instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform acts comprising;

predicting that an amount of electrical energy provided to a data center by an energy source will drop beneath a threshold at a time in the future, the energy source generates electrical energy based upon a renewable energy resource; and

scheduling a computational task at the data center based upon the time in the future when the amount of electrical energy is predicted to drop beneath the threshold.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein predicting that the amount of electrical energy provided to the data center by the energy source will drop beneath the threshold at the time in the future comprises:

receiving an image pertaining to a geographic region, the data center located in the geographic region;

predicting a weather condition for the geographic region based upon the image pertaining to the geographic image; and

predicting the amount of electrical energy provided to the data center at the time in the future based upon the weather condition.

3. The system of claim 2, the image being an image of the sky above the geographic region captured from the ground.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein predicting the weather condition for the geographic region based upon the image pertaining to the geographic region comprises:

computing a size of a cloud captured in the image; and

predicting the weather condition based upon the size of the cloud captured in the image.

5. The system of claim 2, wherein predicting the weather condition for the geographic region based upon the image pertaining to the geographic region comprises:

based upon the image, computing a rate of change of a size of a cloud captured in the image; and

predicting the weather condition based upon the rate of change of the size of the cloud captured in the image.

6. The system of claim 2, wherein predicting the weather condition for the geographic region based upon the image pertaining to the geographic region comprises:

based upon the image, computing a direction of movement of a cloud captured in the image; and

predicting the weather condition based upon the direction of movement of the cloud captured in the image.

7. The system of claim 2, wherein predicting the weather condition for the geographic region based upon the image pertaining to the geographic region comprises:

based upon the image, computing a velocity of a cloud captured in the image; and

predicting the weather condition based upon the velocity of the cloud captured in the image.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein predicting that the amount of electrical energy provided to the data center by the energy source will drop beneath the threshold at the time in the future comprises:

predicting a weather condition for the time in the future at a geographic region, the geographic region includes the energy source; and

predicting that the amount of electrical energy provided to the data center by the energy source will drop beneath the threshold at the time in the future based upon the weather condition predicted for the time in the future.

9. The system of claim 8, the acts further comprising:

preparing a backup power source to provide power to the data center in response to predicting the weather condition for the time in the future.

10. The system of claim 8, the backup power source being a battery backup, wherein preparing the backup power source to provide power to the data center comprises scheduling charging of the battery backup in response to predicting the weather condition for the time in the future.

11. A method comprising:

predicting that, at a point in time in the future, an amount of energy provided to a data center will drop beneath a threshold amount of energy, the energy provided to the data center by an energy source that generates the energy by way of a renewable resource;

based upon the time in the future when the energy provided to the data center is predicted to drop beneath the threshold, scheduling a computational task at the data center, the method executed by at least one computer processor.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein scheduling the computational task at the data center comprises offloading at least a portion of the computational task to another data center.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein scheduling the computational task at the data center comprises scheduling a reduction in processing cycles available for completion of the computational task.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein scheduling the computational task at the data center comprises scheduling the computational task to complete prior to the time in the future when the amount of energy is predicted to drop beneath the threshold.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein predicting that, at the time in the future, the amount of energy provided to the data center will drop beneath the threshold amount of energy comprises:

predicting, for the time in the future, a weather condition for a geographic region that includes the energy source; and

predicting that the amount of energy provided to the data center will drop beneath the threshold amount of energy based upon the weather condition predicted for the time in the future.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein predicting, for the time in the future, the weather condition comprises:

computing depth of a cloud based upon an image pertaining to the geographic region, the image captured by a camera pointed upwards from earth towards sky; and

predicting the weather condition based upon the depth of the cloud.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein predicting, for the time in the future, the weather condition comprises:

computing a rate of change of size of a cloud based upon an image pertaining to the geographic region, the image captured by a camera pointed upwards from earth towards sky; and

predicting the weather condition based upon the rate of change of the size of the cloud.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein predicting, for the time in the future, the weather condition comprises:

computing a direction of travel of a cloud across sky based upon an image pertaining to the geographic region, the image captured by a camera pointed upwards from earth towards the sky; and

predicting the weather condition based upon the direction of travel of the cloud across the sky.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein predicting, for the time in the future, the weather condition comprises:

computing a position of the sun in sky at the time in the future based upon an image pertaining to the geographic image, the image captured by a camera pointed upwards from earth towards the sky; and

predicting the weather condition based upon the position of the sun in the sky at the time in the future.

20. A computer-readable memory comprising instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform acts comprising:

predicting an amount of solar radiation that will be received by a solar system at a time in the future based upon an image generated by a camera, the camera pointed upwards from earth towards sky;

predicting an amount of electrical energy that will be provided to a data center by the solar system at the time in the future, the amount of electrical energy predicted based upon the amount of solar radiation predicted to be received by the solar panel at the time in the future;

determining that the amount of electrical energy is less than a predefined threshold amount of electrical energy; and

scheduling a computational task in response to determining that the amount of electrical energy is less than the predefined threshold amount of electrical energy, the computational task scheduled to complete prior to the time in the future.