Localized weather prediction through utilization of cameras

• US 9,069,103 B2
• Filed: 12/17/2010
• Issued: 06/30/2015
• 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.
• Primary Examiner(s): Ali, Mohammad
• Assistant Examiner(s): Rao, Sheela S
• Application Number:
  US12/970,972
• Publication Number:
  US 20120155704A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,656 Days
• Field of Search: 700/219, 700291-295, 706 45- 48, 348/36, 348/113, 348/122, 348/143, 382/100, 382/103
• 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 method, comprising:

receiving an image pertaining to a geographic region;

based at least in part upon the image, predicting at least one weather condition for the geographic region at a future point in time;

based at least in part upon the at least one weather condition for the geographic region at the future point in time, utilizing a processor to predict an amount of electrical power that will be output at the future point in time by a power source that utilizes renewable energy to generate electrical power, wherein the power source is in the geographic region; and

managing computing resources at a data center based at least in part upon the amount of electrical power that is predicted to be generated by the power source at the future point in time, wherein the data center is in the geographic region.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the image is received from a satellite or an airplane.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the image is received from a camera that is placed proximate to earth and is of sky above the power source and the data center.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising managing computational resources at the data center based at least in part upon a priority assigned to computational tasks executing in the data center.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein managing the computational resources at the data center comprises offloading a computational task to another data center.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the image is a stitched image formed from a plurality of images captured by a plurality of cameras.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the power source is a solar panel, and the at least one weather condition is an amount of solar radiation that is predicted to be received by the power source at the future point in time.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein predicting the at least one weather condition comprises:

predicting a position of the sun at the future point in time based at least in part upon a position of the sun in the image;

predicting a position of a cloud at the future point in time based at least in part upon a position of the cloud in the image; and

predicting the at least one weather condition based at least in part upon the predicting of the position of the sun at the future point in time and the predicting of the position of the cloud at the future point in time.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one weather condition is wind speed.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the point in time in the future is within an hour of a current time.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein predicting the at least one weather condition for the geographic region at the future point in time comprises analyzing the image to determine at least one of size of a cloud, rate of change of size of the cloud, direction of movement of the cloud, or velocity of movement of the cloud.

12. A system comprising a plurality of computer-executable components, the components comprising:

a receiver component that receives an image of the sky above a particular geographic region, wherein the image of the sky is generated by a camera that is pointing upwards from earth;

a weather predictor component that predicts at least one weather condition for the particular geographic region at a future point in time, wherein the weather predictor component predicts the at least one weather condition based at least in part upon the image received by the receiver component;

a power predictor component that predicts an amount of electrical power to be output by a power source at the future point in time based at least in part upon the at least one weather condition predicted by the weather predictor component, wherein the power source utilizes a renewable energy resource go generate electrical power, and wherein the power source is in the particular geographic region; and

a manager component that manages at least one computing resource at a data center based at least in part upon the amount of electrical power predicted by the power predictor component to be output at the future point in time, wherein the data center is powered by the power source.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the at least one weather condition is an amount of solar radiation that is predicted to be received by the power source at the future point in time.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the particular geographic region has an area of less than one square mile.

15. The system of claim 12, wherein the weather predictor component predicts the at least one weather condition for the particular geographic region based at least in part upon a predicted position of the sun at the future point in time.

16. The system of claim 12, wherein the at least one weather condition is wind speed, and wherein the power source is a wind turbine.

17. The system of claim 12, wherein the weather predictor component predicts the at least one weather condition at the future point in time based at least in part upon at least one other image of the sky captured by another camera that is at a different geographic region than the camera.

19. The system of claim 12, wherein the weather predictor component predicts the at least one weather condition for the particular geographic region at the future point in time based upon a location of a cloud in the image of the sky.

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

receiving an image from a camera, wherein the image is of the sky above a particular geographic region captured from earth, wherein the geographic region is less than ten square miles, and wherein the geographic region comprises the camera, a data center, and a power source that provides electrical power to the data center, wherein the power source comprises at least one solar panel;

predicting an amount of solar radiation that will be received by the solar panel at a time in the future based at least in part upon the image received from the camera;

predicting an amount of electrical power that will be output at the time in the future based at least in part upon the predicting of the amount of solar radiation that will be received by the solar panel at the time in the future; and

managing at least one computational resource in the data center based at least in part upon the predicting of the amount of electrical power that will be output by the power source at the time in the future.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 18, wherein predicting the amount of solar radiation that will be received by the solar panel at the time in the future comprises predicting movement of a cloud relative to the sun based upon the image received from the camera.