Energy management by dynamic functionality partitioning

• US 9,785,225 B2
• Filed: 07/16/2015
• Issued: 10/10/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 10/19/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Myrberg, Mats Eric, DeJean, II, Gerald Reuben, Greenwade, Lance Eric, Tremblay, Marc
• Primary Examiner(s): CONNOLLY, MARK A
• Application Number:
  US14/801,490
• Publication Number:
  US 20150323980A1
• Time in Patent Office: 817 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 15/02 electric
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3287 by switching off individual functional units in the computer system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3058 Monitoring arrangements for monitoring environmental properties or parameters of the computing system or of the computing system component, e.g. monitoring of power, currents, temperature, humidity, position, vibrations thermal management in cooling arrangements of a computing system G06F1/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5094 where the allocation takes into account power or heat criteria power management in computers in general G06F1/3203; thermal management in computers in general G06F1/206
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/12 Selection from among a plurality of transforms or standards, e.g. selection between discrete cosine transform [DCT] and sub-band transform or selection between H.263 and H.264
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/127 Prioritisation of hardware or computational resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/156 Availability of hardware or computational resources, e.g. encoding based on power-saving criteria
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 20/30 Smart metering, e.g. specially adapted for remote reading

Abstract

A sensor and processing system dynamically partitions or allocates functionality between various remote sensor nodes and a processing subsystem based on energy management management considerations. Redundant functionality is located at the processing subsystem and each of the various remote sensor nodes, and each sensor node coordinates with the processing subsystem to determine the location (e.g., at the processing subsystem or at the sensor node) at which a particular functionality is executed.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

one or more processors; and

one or more computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed on the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to;

receive, from a sensor node, first processed sensor data via a communications channel;

receive, from the sensor node, an indication to change from a first processing allocation to a second processing allocation based on a detected energy management condition, the second processing allocation for processing sensor data at the system rather than processing the sensor data at the sensor node;

configure, based at least in part on the indication, the second processing allocation;

subsequent to configuring the second processing allocation, receive, from the sensor node, the sensor data; and

process, based at least in part on the second processing allocation, the sensor data to generate second processed sensor data.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the sensor data includes raw data and the first processed sensor data and the second processed sensor data include compressed data.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein before receiving the indication to change from the first processing allocation to the second processing allocation, the instructions further cause the one or more processors to:

detect the detected energy management condition; and

send, to the sensor node, a signal that causes the sensor node to disable a preprocessing block that is used to process the sensor data.

4. The system of claim 1, the system further comprising a preprocessing block, and wherein the instructions further cause the one or more processors to:

enable, based at least in part on receiving the indication, the preprocessing block to accommodate a change in the detected energy management condition.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein processing the sensor data comprises processing the sensor data using the preprocessing block to generate the second processed sensor data.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions further cause the one or more processors to:

receive, in response to the detected energy management condition, third processed sensor data from an additional sensor node, wherein the sensor node and the additional sensor node include overlapping sensing coverage.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the detected energy management condition comprises at least one of power consumption, energy consumption, thermal generation, or energy generation.

8. A device comprising:

one or more processors; and

one or more computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed on the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to;

process first sensor data to generate processed sensor data;

transmit the processed sensor data to a processing subsystem;

detect an energy management condition;

based at least in part on the energy management condition, transmit, to the processing subsystem, an indication to change from a first processing allocation to a second processing allocation; and

transmit second sensor data to the processing subsystem for processing based at least in part on the second processing allocation rather than processing the second sensor data at the device.

9. The device of claim 8, wherein the first sensor data and the second sensor data include raw data and the processed sensor data includes compressed data.

10. The device of claim 8, the device further comprising a preprocessing block, and wherein the instructions further cause the one or more processors to:

disable the preprocessing block to accommodate for a change in the energy management condition.

11. The device of claim 10, wherein processing the first sensor data comprises processing the first sensor data using the preprocessing block to generate the processed sensor data.

12. The device of claim 8, wherein the energy management condition comprises at least one of power consumption, energy consumption, thermal generation, or energy generation.

13. The device of claim 8, wherein transmitting the second sensor data to the processing subsystem causes the processing subsystem to process the second sensor data.

14. A system comprising:

a sensor node configured to;

process first sensor data to generate first processed sensor data;

transmit the first processed sensor data to a processing subsystem;

detect an energy management condition;

based at least in part on the energy management condition, transmit, to the processing subsystem, an indication to change from a first processing allocation to a second processing allocation; and

transmit second sensor data to the processing subsystem for processing based at least in part on the second processing allocation rather than processing the second sensor data at the sensor node; and

the processing subsystem configured to;

receive the first processed sensor data from the sensor node;

receive the indication from the sensor node;

receive the second sensor data from the sensor node; and

process the second sensor data based at least in part on the second processing allocation to generate second processed sensor data.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the processing of the first sensor data and the second sensor data comprises at least one of noise canceling, smoothing, or spatial normalization, and the first processing allocation is changed to the second processing allocation to decrease power consumption or thermal generation of the sensor node.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein the sensor node is further configured to disable a preprocessor block for processing the second sensor data and the processing subsystem is further configured to enable a corresponding preprocessor block for processing the second sensor data.

17. The system of claim 14, wherein the sensor node is further configured to capture sensor data that comprises both the first sensor data and the second sensor data.

18. The system of claim 14, wherein the first sensor data and the second sensor data include raw data, and wherein the first processed sensor data and the second processed sensor data include compressed data.

19. The system of claim 14, wherein the energy management condition comprises at least one of power consumption, energy consumption, thermal generation, or energy generation.

20. The system of claim 14, further comprising an additional sensor node configured to send, to the processing subsystem, third processed sensor data in response to the energy management condition, wherein the sensor node and the additional sensor node include overlapping sensing coverage.