ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITION SURVEILLANCE AND METHODS THEREOF

• US 20150355036A1
• Filed: 06/03/2015
• Published: 12/10/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 06/04/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Magnum Energy Solutions, LLC
• Original Assignee: Magnum Energy Solutions, LLC
• Inventors: Saenz, Jorge E., Giorgi, Michael E.
• Granted Patent: US 9,797,785 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01K 1/022 for recording
• CPC Class Codes: G01K 13/00 Thermometers specially adapted for specific purposes
• CPC Class Codes: G01K 7/22 the element being a non-linear resistance, e.g. thermistor G01K7/26 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 15/02 electric
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2816 Controlling appliance services of a home automation network by calling their functionalities arrangements in telecontrol or telemetry systems for selectively calling a substation from a main station; in which substation desired apparatus is selected for applying a control signal thereto or for obtaining measured values therefrom H04Q9/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2825 Reporting to a device located outside the home and the home network access arrangements H04L12/2856; for remote control or remote monitoring of applications H04L67/025; telephonic communication systems adapted for combination with telemetering systems H04M11/002

Abstract

A surveillance platform for the sensing, measuring, monitoring and controlling equipment and environments, such as food storage and retailing environments, data center environments, and other environments in which equipment performance, operating status, and environmental condition monitoring is desirable, is provided. The surveillance platform can facilitate reporting, visualizing, acknowledging, analyzing, calculating, event generating, notifying, trending, and tracking, of operational events occurring within the environment. Such techniques can be used to protect articles such as food articles, medical articles, computing devices and equipment, artifacts, documents, and the like.

Claims

1. A system for environmental surveillance of a climate-controlled environment, comprising:

a sensor positioned internal to a climate-controlled environment, wherein the sensor provides an output based on a condition within the climate-controlled environment;

a sensor manager positioned external to the climate-controlled environment, wherein the sensor manager is in communication with the sensor to receive the output from the sensor via a first communications link;

an access point in communication with the sensor manager via second communication link, wherein the access point receives environmental data from the sensor manager; and

an environmental surveillance computing system in communication with the access point via a third communication link, wherein the environmental surveillance computing system receives and stores environmental data from the sensor manager and provides a visualization of the environmental data.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the first communications link is a wired communications link and the second communication link is a wireless communications link.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising a plurality of sensors positioned internal to the climate-controlled environment, wherein each of the plurality of sensors is in communication with the sensor manager via one of a wireless communications link or a wireless communications link.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the plurality of sensors comprise at least one temperature sensor.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein each of the plurality of sensors are temperature sensors.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the sensor is any of a pressure sensor, a temperature sensor, a voltage sensor, a current sensor, and a humidity sensor.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the sensor manager comprises a photovoltaic module.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the sensor manager comprises a stored energy source.

9. The system of claim 1, comprising a plurality of sensors each positioned in a separate respective climate-controlled environment, wherein the sensor manager is in communication with each of the plurality of sensors.

10. The system of claim 1, further comprising an actuator, wherein the actuator is activatable by the environmental surveillance computing system when an environment condition is detected.

11. An environmental surveillance system, comprising:

an environmental surveillance computing system, the environmental surveillance computing system comprising at least one processor and non-transitory computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon which when executed by the at least one processor cause the at least one processor to;

receive one or more operational thresholds for an environment;

receive environmental data collected by a plurality of sensor managers, wherein each of the plurality of sensor managers are in communication with one or more sensors deployed within the environment, wherein the one or more sensors provide environmental data to the sensor manager;

based on the environmental data collected by the plurality of sensor managers, determine whether the environmental data indicates an operational condition of the environment exceeds at least one of the operational thresholds for the environment; and

when the operational condition exceeds at least one of the operational thresholds for the environment, cause the transmission of a notification.

12. The environmental surveillance system of claim 11, wherein the environment is a climate-controlled environment.

13. The environmental surveillance system of claim 12, wherein at least one of the plurality of sensor managers is positioned external to the climate-controlled environment.

14. The environmental surveillance system of claim 13, wherein the at least one of the plurality of sensor managers positioned external to the climate-controlled environment is in communication with the one or more sensors via a wireless communication channel, a wired communication channel, or combinations thereof.

15. The environmental surveillance system of claim 12, further comprising an access point, wherein the access point is in communication with each of the plurality of sensor managers via a wireless communication channel.

16. The environmental surveillance system of claim 15, wherein the access point is in communication with the environmental surveillance computing system over an Internet-based communication channel.

17. The environmental surveillance system of claim 16, wherein the access point comprises a data store, and wherein environmental data is stored within the data store when the Internet-based communication channel is non-operative, and wherein the environmental data stored within the data store is provided to the environmental surveillance computing system when the Internet-based communication channel resumes operation.

18. A system for monitoring an environment, comprising:

a sensor manager positioned external to an environment, comprising

a sensor interface,

an energy harvester, and

a network interface; and

a plurality of sensors positioned internal the environment and remote from the sensor manager, wherein the plurality of sensors are communicatively coupled to the sensor manager via the sensor interface.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the energy harvester is a photovoltaic module.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein at least one of the plurality of sensors is a thermistor probe.

21. The system of claim 18, wherein the environment is a climate-controlled environment and the plurality of sensors are positioned in the climate-controlled environment.

22. The system of claim 21 in combination with an environmental surveillance computing system, the environmental surveillance computing system comprising at least one processor and non-transitory computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon which when executed by the at least one processor cause the at least one processor to:

receive environmental data collected by the sensor manager;

based on the environmental data collected by the sensor manager, determine an operational condition of the climate-controlled environment; and

generate a reporting of the operation condition of the climate-controlled environment.

23. A method of surveilling a climate-controlled environment, comprising receiving, at an environmental surveillance computing system, one or more operational thresholds for a climate-controlled environment;

receiving, by the environmental surveillance computing system, environmental data collected by a plurality of sensor managers, wherein each of the plurality of sensor managers are in communication with one or more sensors deployed within the climate-controlled environment, wherein the one or more sensors provide environmental data to the sensor manager;

based on the environmental data collected by the plurality of sensor managers, determining, by the environmental surveillance computing system, whether the environmental data indicates an operational condition of the environment exceeds at least one of the operational thresholds for the environment; and

when the operational condition exceeds at least one of the operational thresholds for the environment, causing, by the environmental surveillance computing system, the transmission of a notification.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the one more sensors are deployed within the climate-controlled environment.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein at least one of the plurality of sensor managers is positioned external to the climate-controlled environment.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein the at least one of the plurality of sensor managers positioned external to the climate-controlled environment is in communication with the one or more sensors via a wireless communication channel, a wired communication channel, or combinations thereof.