Communication and filtering of events among peer controllers in the same spatial region of a sensor network

• US 8,035,490 B2
• Filed: 12/07/2006
• Issued: 10/11/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/07/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Snap, Inc.
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Palmer, Jake, Hunt, Christian L.
• Primary Examiner(s): Pham; Toan N
• Assistant Examiner(s): GIRMA, FEKADESELASS
• Application Number:
  US11/567,894
• Publication Number:
  US 20080136605A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,769 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 340/286.02
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 17/0022 arrangements or provisious for transferring data to distant stations, e.g. from a sensing device "transfer between computer elements G06F13/00 "; data-transmission H04L

Abstract

In a wireless tag identification and processing architecture and infrastructure, a method and system that eliminates redundant reporting and processing of the same event observed by different reader/sensors. Reader/sensors and their respective connected controllers are configured as peers when they observe or cover the same spatial region. When an event is observed within the spatial region, the first controller to receive the event data reports the electronic tag data and event data to the next higher processing domain and to its peer controllers. Then when the same electronic tag data or other event data indicating that a subsequent event is actually the same event as observed earlier is received by another peer controller, the another peer controller does not report nor process the electronic tag data and other event data to the next higher processing domain or to its peer controllers.

Claims

1. A method of establishing peer controllers in a spatial region of a sensor network, the method comprising the steps of:

a computer recording an assignment of the spatial region to a plurality of electronic controllers;

the computer recording which individual ones of the plurality of electronic controllers in the spatial region are coupled to a respective one of a plurality of reader/sensors in the spatial region;

the computer transmitting an address of each of the plurality of electronic controllers to every other of the plurality of controllers in the spatial region; and

initializing communication among the plurality of electronic controllers in the spatial region thereby establishing peer controllers;

one of the plurality of reader/sensors observing an event in the spatial region;

the observant reader/sensor transmitting tag data and data of the event to its respective peer controller;

the respective peer controller determining that the event is in a list of preexisting events;

the respective peer controller not reporting the event to a higher processing domain; and

the respective peer controller not reporting the event to any other controller.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of initializing communication among the plurality of peer controllers further comprises establishing a direct bidirectional peer-to-peer connection between all of the plurality of peer controllers in the spatial region.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of initializing communication among the plurality of peer controllers further comprises:

establishing communication through a broker application on the computer and each of the plurality of peer controllers subscribes to the broker application, and a subscription topic to which the plurality of peer controllers are subscribed comprises the addresses of the plurality of peer controllers in or a unique identifier of the spatial region.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising reporting an event in the spatial region, wherein the steps of reporting an event further comprises:

one of the plurality of reader/sensors recording an event in the spatial region;

the observant reader/sensor transmitting tag data and data of the event to its respective peer controller;

the respective peer controller determining that the event is a new event;

the respective peer controller transmitting the tag data and the new event data to a higher processing domain;

the respective peer controller transmitting the new event data to all others of the plurality of peer controllers in the spatial region; and

all others of the plurality of peer controllers in the spatial region storing the new event data in its list of preexisting events.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein each of the plurality of peer controllers in the spatial region stores the tag data and the new event data in its local memory.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the list of preexisting events is a subscription topic through a broker application on a computer and each of the plurality of peer controllers subscribes to the broker application.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising the respective peer controller storing the data of the event in its local memory.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the list of preexisting events is a topic stored on a broker application to which the respective peer controller subscribes.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the list of preexisting events is stored in a local memory on the respective peer controller.

10. A computer program product for establishing peer-to-peer communications between a plurality of electronic peer controllers, each electronic peer controller uniquely connected to a respective one of a plurality of reader/sensors in a tagged information network, the computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer usable storage medium having computer usable program code comprising:

first program instructions to assign a spatial region in the tagged information network to a plurality of electronic peer controllers, each of the peer controllers connected to a respective one of a plurality of reader/sensors that senses tagged information in the spatial region;

second program instructions to transmit identifying information of each peer controller in the spatial region to every other of the plurality of peer controllers in the spatial region;

third program instructions to initialize communication among the plurality of peer controllers;

ninth program instructions to determine that an observed event has been reported to a higher processing domain, further comprising;

tenth program instructions to receive tag data and event data from its respective reader/sensor of an event occurring in the spatial region;

eleventh program instructions to determine that the tag data or event data is stored in its list of preexisting events; and

twelfth program instructions to not report the tag data or event data to a higher processing domain or to any other of the plurality of electronic peer controllers in the spatial region.

11. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the computer usable program code executes in processing device in a higher processing domain than a domain of the plurality of peer controllers.

12. The computer program product of claim 10, further comprising:

fourth program instructions to instantiate each of the plurality of electronic peer controllers to receive tag data and event data from its respective reader/sensor of an event occurring in the spatial region;

fifth program instructions to determine that the event is a new event;

sixth program instructions to transmit the tag data and event data of the new event to a higher processing domain;

seventh program instructions to transmit at least the event data of the new event to all other of the plurality of peer controllers in the spatial region; and

eighth program instructions to store the event data of the new event to a list of preexisting events in each of the plurality of peer controllers in the spatial region.