Integration framework

• US 7,762,459 B2
• Filed: 09/06/2007
• Issued: 07/27/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP AG (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Haller, Stephan
• Primary Examiner(s): Hess; Daniel A
• Application Number:
  US11/851,186
• Publication Number:
  US 20080046463A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,055 Days
• Field of Search: 235/385, 340/572.1
• US Class Current: 235/385
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/08 Logistics, e.g. warehousing, loading or distribution; Inventory or stock management

Abstract

Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, for real-time data transfer between sensor or actuator devices and higher-level applications.

In one aspect, an integration engine receives a set of rules from an external application and receives item data including item identifiers from one or more tag readers, each item identifier being read from a digital tag bound to a physical item. The integration engine uses the rules and item data to determine in real time which subset of the item data to furnish to the external application.

In another aspect, the integration engine receives from the external application configuration data for controlling an actuator device. The integration engine converts the configuration data to a format compatible with the actuator device; and furnishes the converted configuration data in real time to the actuator device.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

storing a set of rules received from an application, a rule of the set of rules, when applied, defining a type of data that is to be transmitted to the application from an engine that receives data from a sensor and that transmits commands to an actuator;

receiving data at the engine from the sensor;

applying the rule to the data based on executing the rule at the engine;

determining that the data corresponds to the type and transmitting the data to the application; and

transmitting a command from the engine to the actuator based on a response provided by the application.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein applying the first rule to the data further comprises:

instantiating an interrogator agent that is responsible for control of the sensor;

instantiating an interrogator agent that is responsible for control of the actuator;

instantiating a processing agent that is responsible for data filtering, aggregation, and transformation; and

instantiating a communication agent that furnishes the data to the application.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

applying another rule of the set of rules to the data,

wherein applying the other rule to the data further comprises detecting whether sensed temperature data drops below a pre-determined threshold, and

wherein transmitting a command from the engine to the actuator further comprises writing a command that controls an actuator associated with an air conditioning unit to an off setting.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the command is transmitted to the actuator in real time to receiving the data at the engine.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the sensor is a Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) reader.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein applying the rule to the data further comprises:

interpreting the data;

generating higher-level data based on interpreting the data; and

applying the rule to the higher-level data.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the rule is formatted as using Unified Modeling Language (UML), Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB), or eXtensible Markup Language (XML).

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

converting the rule into an internally formatted rule,

wherein applying the rule to the data based on executing the rule at the engine further comprises executing the internally formatted rule.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the command from the engine to the actuator further comprises writing data to the actuator.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising time-stamping the data with a date and time of collection.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the command from the engine to the actuator further comprises:

filtering the data to determine whether any of the data satisfies a condition specified by the rule; and

forwarding, as the command, the data that satisfies the condition specified by the rule to the actuator.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein transforming the command from the engine to the actuator further comprises:

storing the data in a buffer until the data required by the rule is received; and

transmitting, as the command, the stored data when the data required by the rule is received.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a request from the application to access the actuator, at the engine; and

providing the application with access to the actuator based on the received request.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a hardware-specific call from the application, at the engine; and

transmitting the received hardware-specific call to the actuator.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving an error message at the engine from the actuator based on transmitting the command;

interpreting the error message at the engine; and

transmitting the interpreted error message to the application.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the error message is a failure-to-initialize error message, a read error message, a write error message, or a no-hardware-support error message.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the command from the engine to the actuator further comprises transmitting the command to a smart conveyer belt that switches between a left belt and a right belt based on the command or to a smart vending machine that receives the command and adjusts a price of an item or adjusts a temperature of the smart vending machine based on the command.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the type of data corresponds to at least one of unique item identifier (UID) data and item location data.

19. An integration engine device comprising:

a rules repository module that stores a set of rules received from an application, a rule of the set of rules, when applied, defining a type of data that is to be transmitted to the application from an engine that receives data from a sensor and that transmits commands to an actuator;

an interrogator agent module that receives data at the engine from the sensor;

a processing agent module that applies the rule to the data based on executing the rule at the engine to determine that the data corresponds to the type and to transmit the data to the application; and

a control manager module that transmits a command from the engine to the actuator based on a response provided by the application.

20. A computer program product, tangibly embodied in a machine-readable medium, the computer program product including instructions that, when read by a machine, operate to cause a computer program product to:

store a set of rules received from an application, a rule of the set of rules, when applied, defining a type of data that is to be transmitted to the application from an engine that receives data from a sensor and that transmits commands to an actuator;

receive data at the engine from the sensor;

apply the rule to the data based on executing the rule at the engine;

determine that the data corresponds to the type and transmitting the data to the application; and

transmit a command from the engine to the actuator based on a response provided by the application.