Edge Intelligence Platform, and Internet of Things Sensor Streams System

• US 20170060574A1
• Filed: 08/29/2016
• Published: 03/02/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 08/27/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tyco Fire & Security GmbH (Johnson Controls International plc)
• Original Assignee: Foghorn Systems, Inc. (Johnson Controls International plc)
• Inventors: Malladi, Sastry KM, Reddy, Mohan Komalla, Raghavendra, Kamesh, Ravi, Thirumalai Muppur
• Granted Patent: US 10,007,513 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/70 Software maintenance or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/542 Event management; Broadcasting; Multicasting; Notifications
• 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 4/38 for collecting sensor information
• 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

A method for enabling intelligence at the edge. Features include: triggering by sensor data in a software layer hosted on either a gateway device or an embedded system. Software layer is connected to a local-area network. A repository of services, applications, and data processing engines is made accessible by the software layer. Matching the sensor data with semantic descriptions of occurrence of specific conditions through an expression language made available by the software layer. Automatic discovery of pattern events by continuously executing expressions. Intelligently composing services and applications across the gateway device and embedded systems across the network managed by the software layer for chaining applications and analytics expressions. Optimizing the layout of the applications and analytics based on resource availability. Monitoring the health of the software layer. Storing of raw sensor data or results of expressions in a local time-series database or cloud storage. Services and components can be containerized to ensure smooth running in any gateway environment.

Claims

1. An edge computing platform system comprising:

a plurality of sensor data streams; and

a software layer physically disposed between the plurality of sensors and a communication network, the software layer being configured to perform computations based on raw data received from the sensors.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the software layer includes a programmable virtual sensor from a viewpoint of the data processing layer and communication network.

3. The system of claim 2 where the software includes a data processing layer comprising a complex event processing engine and an expression language for stream processing.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein the data processing layer includes a data enrichment layer and a software development kit to interact with and develop applications.

5. The system of claim 3 where in the software includes a data publication layer to publish the sensor data streams or derived data or metadata from the expressions in at least one of a local time-series database or a cloud storage of choice.

6. The system of claim 1 further comprising:

an application repository, wherein the software layer is configured to store, retrieve, and deploy applications from the application repository, the applications are configured for processing of sensor data on the hardware layer, and the application repository is configured to customize an application container based on resources available on the hardware layer.

7. A sensor system comprising:

a plurality of sensors; and

a hardware layer physically disposed between the plurality of sensors and a communication network, the hardware layer being configured to perform computations based on raw data received from the plurality of sensors.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the hardware layer is configured to be programmable as a virtual sensor from a viewpoint of the communication network.

9. The system of claim 8 wherein the virtual sensor includes an API specified by programming in the hardware layer.

10. The system of claim 7 further comprising:

an application repository, wherein the hardware layer is configured to receive applications from the application repository, the applications being configured for processing of sensor data on the hardware layer, the application repository being configured to customize an application container based on resources available on the hardware layer.

11. A method comprising:

receiving a sensor data stream over a first network connection type at a data ingestion agent of an edge platform system;

from the data ingestion agent, delivering ingested stream data to a data bus of the system;

enriching the ingested data in real time through a data enrichment component and making the ingested data available on the data bus;

processing the ingested stream data at an analytics engine that is subscribing to data from the data bus wherein the processing comprises executing analytic expressions provided in an expression language to generate intelligence information from the ingested stream data; and

publishing the intelligence information on the data bus.

12. The method of claim 11 comprising:

receiving the intelligence information from the data bus at a data publisher component; and

by way of the data publisher component, storing the intelligence information in a time-series database.

13. The method of claim 12 comprising:

by way of the data publisher component, transferring at least a portion of the intelligence information over a second network connection type and storing in a cloud storage.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the second network connection type is different from the first network connection type, and the second network connection type has a lower bandwidth connection than the first network connection type to the sensor data stream data.

15. The method of claim 13 wherein the first network connection type comprises at least one of a MQTT, OPC Unified Architecture, or Modbus protocol.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the second network connection type comprises an Internet protocol.

17. The method of claim 11 wherein the data ingestion agent accesses the sensor stream data over a first network connection type via a push protocol.

18. The method of claim 11 wherein the data ingestion agent accesses the sensor stream data over a first network connection type via a pull protocol.

19. The method of claim 11 comprising:

providing a software development kit that allows a user to develop applications for the edge platform system; and

by way of the software development kit, developing a first containerized application that can access and process the intelligence information available from the data bus.

20. The method of claim 19

receiving the intelligence information from the data bus at a data publisher component;

by way of the data publisher component, storing the intelligence information in a time-series database; and

by way of the software development kit, developing a second containerized application that can access and process the intelligence information stored in the time-series database.

21. The method of claim 20 comprising:

providing an application store of the edge platform system, wherein the first and second containerized applications are available for other users to access through the application store.

22. The method of claim 11 comprising:

using the expression language, creating a first virtual sensor having a first input coupled to a first physical sensor and a first output that is a first function of the first input, wherein the first function is specified in the expression language,

the first virtual sensor receives first stream data from the first physical sensor, and at the first output, the first virtual sensor outputs second stream data that is the first stream data operated on according to the first function, and

the intelligence information comprises the second stream data.

23. The method of claim 11 comprising:

using the expression language, creating a first virtual sensor having a first input coupled to a first physical sensor, a second input coupled to a second physical sensor, and a first output that is a first function of the first and second inputs, wherein the first function is specified in the expression language,

the first virtual sensor receives first stream data from the first physical sensor and second stream data from the second physical sensor, and at the first output, the first virtual sensor outputs third stream data that is the first and second stream data operated on according to the first function, and

the intelligence information comprises the third stream data.

24. A method comprising:

receiving a sensor stream data over a first network connection type at a ingestion agent of an edge computing platform system;

from the data ingestion agent, delivering ingested stream data to a data bus of the system;

enriching the ingested data through a data enrichment component and making the ingested data available on the data bus;

processing the ingested stream data at an analytics engine that is subscribing to data from data bus wherein the processing comprises executing analytic expressions provided in an expression language to generate intelligence information from the ingested stream data;

providing a first virtual sensor having an input coupled to a first physical sensor and an output that is a first function of the input, wherein the first function is specified in the expression language, the first virtual sensor receives first stream data from the first physical sensor, and at the output, the first virtual sensor outputs second stream data that is the first stream data operated on according to the first function, and the intelligence information comprises the second stream data;

providing a second virtual sensor having a first input coupled to a second physical sensor, a second input coupled to the output of the first virtual sensor, and an output that is a second function of the first and second inputs, wherein the second function is specified in the expression language, the second virtual sensor receives third stream data from the second physical sensor and the second stream data from the first virtual sensor, and at the first output, the second virtual sensor outputs fourth stream data that is the second and third stream data operated on according to the second function, and the intelligence information comprises the fourth stream data;

publishing the intelligence information comprising the second and fourth stream data on the data bus;

receiving the intelligence information from the data bus at a data publisher component; and

by way of the data publisher component, storing the intelligence information in a time-series database.

25. The method of claim 24 wherein the second virtual sensor receives the second stream data from the data bus.