System and method to reduce power consumption in a multi-sensor environment

• US 9,367,119 B2
• Filed: 10/22/2012
• Issued: 06/14/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 10/22/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hanking Electronics Hongkong Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Maxim Integrated Products, Inc. (Analog Devices, Inc.)
• Inventors: Sala, Leonardo, Padovani, Igino, Sabatelli, Simone
• Primary Examiner(s): Fureman, Jared
• Assistant Examiner(s): DOMINIQUE, EMMANUEL
• Application Number:
  US13/657,067
• Publication Number:
  US 20150206682A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,331 Days
• Field of Search: 307/116, 706/12
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/325 Power saving in peripheral device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3287 by switching off individual functional units in the computer system
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

Various embodiments of the invention provide for fully-integrated, low-latency power reduction in multi-sensor systems. In certain embodiments, power consumption is minimized by modulating power and mode of operation of gyroscopes, magnetometers, and accelerometers under certain conditions. Certain embodiments provide for reduction of power consumption by the use of emulated gyroscope data.

Claims

1. A method to reduce sensor power consumption, the method comprising:

receiving sensor data from one or more sensors, the sensor data attributable to a rotational movement;

applying a rules-based criterion to the sensor data to determine whether the sensor data satisfies one or more conditions;

in response to the determination, modulating power consumed by at least one of the sensors by switching between a first mode of operation and a second mode of operation; and

using a subset of the sensor data to emulate virtual sensor data.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first mode of operation is a sleep mode and the second mode of operation is a suspend mode.

3. The method according to claim 1, further comprising switching one or more sensors from a first state comprising a first set of modes of operation to a second state comprising a second set of modes of operation in response to the determination.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein a second condition comprises that the sensor data satisfies a reliability criterion.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein a third condition comprises that one sensor has been at rest for a first predetermined period of time.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the determining further comprises comparing a first datum by a first sensor to a second datum of at least a second sensor.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein second mode of operation comprises partially reducing the power consumption.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein second mode of operation comprises turning off one or more sensors.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein a fourth condition is that a bandwidth request is below a second predetermined threshold and a fifth condition is that a detected magnetic inference from magnetic sources is below a predetermined threshold.

10. The method according to claim 1, further comprising generating fused angular data from the sensor data.

11. A fully integrated power management system comprising, the system comprising:

a plurality of sensors configured to detect and output motion-related sensor data;

a power management module coupled to receive the sensor data, the power management module is configured to modulate power provided to at least one of the sensors based on the sensor data; and

a data virtualizer coupled to the power management module, the data virtualizer configured use at least a subset of the sensor data to generate emulated sensor data.

12. The system according to claim 11, wherein the plurality of sensors comprises a gyroscope, an accelerometer, and a magnetometer.

13. The system according to claim 11, wherein the power management module configures at least one of the sensors to operate in a plurality of modes of operation in response to the sensor data.

14. The system according to claim 13, wherein in a first of the plurality of modes of operation comprises both a sleep mode and a suspend mode.

15. The system according to claim 11, wherein the power management module configures at least one of the sensors to operate in a plurality of modes based on a comparison of sensor data obtained from a first sensor and sensor data obtained from a second sensor.

16. The system according to claim 11, wherein the power management module configures at least one of the sensors to operate in one of a plurality of modes in response to receiving information about an external event.

17. The system according to claim 11, wherein the power management module configures at least one of the sensors to operate in a plurality of modes based on the existence of reliability data regarding the plurality of sensors.

18. The system according to claim 11, wherein the power management module configures at least one of the sensors to operate in a plurality of modes based on detecting a movement exceeding a predetermined threshold.

19. The system according to claim 11, further comprising a fusion module to fuse at least a subset of the sensor data.

20. The system according to claim 11, wherein the power management module further comprises a processor to generate a digital sensor control command based on the sensor data.

21. The system according to claim 11, wherein the emulated sensor data comprises virtual gyroscope data.