Methods and systems for real-time closed-loop collaborative intelligence

• US 9,959,028 B2
• Filed: 03/25/2015
• Issued: 05/01/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 03/26/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Unanimous A.I., Inc.
• Original Assignee: Unanimous A I Incorporated
• Inventors: Rosenberg, Louis B.
• Primary Examiner(s): Hailu, Tadesse
• Application Number:
  US14/668,970
• Publication Number:
  US 20150277730A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,133 Days
• CPC Class Codes: E21B 44/00 Automatic control systems specially adapted for drilling operations, i.e. self-operating systems which function to carry out or modify a drilling operation without intervention of a human operator, e.g. computer-controlled drilling systems; Systems specially adapted for monitoring a plurality of drilling variables or conditions
• CPC Class Codes: E21B 47/13 by electromagnetic energy, e.g. radio frequency
• CPC Class Codes: E21B 47/18 through the well fluid , e.g. mud pressure pulse telemetry
• CPC Class Codes: E21B 49/00 Testing the nature of borehole walls; Formation testing; Methods or apparatus for obtaining samples of soil or well fluids, specially adapted to earth drilling or wells
• CPC Class Codes: E21B 49/003 by analysing drilling variables or conditions E21B49/005 takes precedence; systems specially adapted for monitoring a plurality of drilling variables or conditions E21B44/00
• CPC Class Codes: G01V 13/00 Manufacturing, calibrating, cleaning, or repairing instruments or devices covered by groups G01V1/00 – G01V11/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04847 Interaction techniques to control parameter settings, e.g. interaction with sliders or dials
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/101 Collaborative creation, e.g. joint development of products or services
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks

Abstract

Systems and methods are for enabling a group of individuals, each using an individual computing device, to collaboratively answer questions or otherwise express a collaborative will/intent in real-time. The collaboration system comprises a plurality of computing devices, each of the devices being used by an individual user, each of the computing devices enabling its user to contribute to the emerging real-time group-wise intent. A collaboration server is disclosed that communicates remotely to the plurality of individual computing devices. Herein, a variety of inventive methods are disclosed for interfacing users in a real-time synchronized group-wise experience, and for deriving a convergent group intent from the collective user input.

Claims

1. A real-time collaborative control system comprising:

a plurality of computing devices each comprising a communications infrastructure coupled to each of a processor, a memory, a timing circuit, and a display interface coupled to a display and configured to receive input from a user;

a collaborative intent application stored on each memory and configured to run on each processor, wherein steps are performed substantially simultaneously on each of the plurality of computing devices, to;

display, using the display interface, information for a group collaboration session, the information including a set of targets and a question associated with the set of targets,

receive, repeatedly in real-time during the session, user input of a user intent vector through the display interface, the user intent vector having a direction in relation to the set of targets and a magnitude,

send, repeatedly in real-time during the session, the user intent vector to a collaboration server,

receive, repeatedly in real-time during the session, a group intent vector from the collaboration server, the group intent vector including a coordinate location in relation to the set of targets, and

present, repeatedly in real-time during the session, a graphical indication of the group intent vector shown in relation to the set of targets, to the user using the display interface; and

the collaboration server in networked communication with the plurality of computing devices, the collaboration server including a processor and a memory, the processor configured to run a collaboration mediation application stored on the memory, the collaboration mediation application configured to;

send the information for the group collaboration session to each of the plurality of computing devices,

receive, repeatedly in real-time during the session, the user intent vector from each of the plurality of computing devices,

responsively determine, repeatedly in real-time during the session, the group intent vector from the plurality of received user intent vectors, and

send, repeatedly in real-time during the session, the group intent vector to the plurality of computing devices;

whereby the coordinate location of the group intent vector in relation to the set of targets is updated each time the group intent vector is received by the plurality of computing devices, whereby a closed-loop system is formed between the collaboration server and each collaborative intent application.

2. The real-time collaborative control system of claim 1, wherein the collaborative intent application is further configured to display a graphical indication of the user intent vector on the display.

3. The real-time collaborative control system of claim 2, wherein the graphical indication of the user intent vector is an updated location of a user controlled graphical pointer on the display.

4. The real-time collaborative control system of claim 3, wherein the direction of the user intent vector is derived at least in part based on relative locations of the user controlled graphical pointer and the graphical indication of the group intent vector.

5. The real-time collaborative control system of claim 1, each of the plurality of computing devices further including a tilt sensor coupled to the processor, wherein the display interface is updated using the tilt sensor, and the collaborative intent application is further configured to receive the user input using the tilt sensor.

6. The real-time collaborative control system of claim 1, wherein the user input is received using a touchscreen display.

7. The real-time collaborative control system of claim 1, wherein the collaboration server is further configured to:

determine when the group intent vector includes selecting of a target input choice from the set of targets; and

send, upon determining that the target input choice is selected, an indication of the target input choice to the plurality of computing devices.

8. The real-time collaborative control system of claim 7, wherein the determining is based at least in part upon whether the graphical indication of the group intent vector is within a proximity of the target input choice.

9. A method for a collaborative control process in real-time, comprising the steps of:

sending of information for a group collaboration session, the information including a set of targets and a question associated with the set of targets, from a collaboration server running a collaboration mediation application, to each of a plurality of computing devices, each of the computing devices running a collaborative intent application, wherein steps are performed substantially simultaneously on each of the plurality of computing devices;

inputting, repeatedly in real-time during the session, by a user of each of the plurality of computing devices, an indication of a user intent vector in response to the group collaboration session information, the user intent vector having a direction in relation to the set of targets and a magnitude;

sending, repeatedly in real-time during the session, to the collaboration server, by each collaborative intent application, of the user intent vector;

determining, repeatedly in real-time during the session, by the collaboration server, of a group intent vector based on the plurality of received user intent vectors;

sending, repeatedly in real-time during the session, by the collaboration server, of the group intent vector to the collaborative intent application of each of the plurality of computing devices, the group intent vector including a coordinate location in relation to the set of targets; and

displaying, repeatedly in real-time during the session, by the collaborative intent application, a graphical indication of the group intent vector shown in relation to the set of targets on a display of the computing device,

whereby the coordinate location of the group intent vector in relation to the set of targets is updated each time the group intent vector is received by the plurality of computing devices, whereby a closed-loop system is formed between the collaboration server and each collaborative intent application running on the plurality of computing devices.

10. The method for the collaborative control process in real-time of claim 9, wherein the graphical indication of the group intent vector is a graphical pointer.

11. The method for the collaborative control process in real-time of claim 9, wherein the collaborative intent application is further configured to display a graphical indication of the user intent vector on the display.

12. The method for the collaborative control process in real-time of claim 11, wherein the graphical indication of the user intent vector is an updated location of a user controlled graphical pointer on the display.

13. The method for the collaborative control process in real-time of claim 12, wherein the direction of the user intent vector is derived at least in part based on relative locations of the user controlled graphical pointer and the graphical indication of the group intent vector.

14. The method for the collaborative control process in real-time of claim 9, further comprising the step of upon determining the group intent vector, determining by the collaboration server that a target input choice has been selected from the set of targets.

15. The method for the collaborative control process in real-time of claim 14, further comprising the steps of:

receiving of the target input choice by the collaborative intent application;

displaying by the collaborative intent application of the target input choice on the display.

16. The method for the collaborative control process in real-time of claim 9, wherein at least one of the targets is selected from the group of:

alphanumeric characters, punctuation, words, and icons.

17. The method for the collaborative control process in real-time of claim 16, wherein at least one of the targets is an icon, and the collaboration server is configured to perform a target action when the icon is the target input choice.

18. A method for determining a real-time group response from a plurality of networked computing devices during a collaborative session, each computing device associated with a user, wherein steps are performed substantially simultaneously on each of the plurality of computing devices, comprising the steps of:

sending across a network, by a collaboration server, of information for the collaborative session, the information including a set of targets and a question associated with the set of targets, to the plurality of computing devices;

displaying, by a collaborative intent application running on each of the plurality of computing devices, of the question, the set of targets, and a collaboratively controlled pointer having a coordinate location in relation to the set of targets;

inputting, repeatedly in real-time during the session, by each user, of a user intent vector representing a desired direction and magnitude of motion of the collaboratively controlled pointer;

sending, repeatedly in real-time during the session, by the collaborative intent application running on each computing device, of the user intent vectors to the collaboration server in communication with the plurality of computing devices;

determining, repeatedly in real-time during the session, by the collaboration server of a group intent vector from the plurality of received user intent vectors, the group intent vector including an updated coordinate location in relation to the set of targets;

sending, repeatedly in real-time during the session, by the collaboration server to the plurality of computing devices of the group intent vector including the updated coordinate location for the collaboratively controlled pointer; and

updating, repeatedly in real-time during the session, by the collaborative intent application of each computing device, of a displayed location of the collaboratively controlled pointer on the target board based upon the received updated coordinate location, whereby the real-time group response to the question is determined.

19. The method for determining the real-time group response during the collaborative session of claim 18, further comprising the steps of:

determining, by the collaboration server, that one of the targets has been selected; and

sending, by the collaboration server, of the selected target to the plurality of computing devices.

20. The method for determining the real-time group response during the collaborative session of claim 19, and further comprising the step of each collaboration intent application displaying the selected input choice target on the display.

21. The method for determining the real-time group response during the collaborative session of claim 20, whereby the steps of selecting the target and displaying the selected target on the display are repeated until a coherent answer is formed.

22. The method for determining the real-time group response during the collaborative session of claim 18, where the collaboratively controlled pointer includes an outer puck whose location is updated based on the group intent vector and an inner puck whose location is updated based on the user intent vector.

23. The method for determining the real-time group response during the collaborative session of claim 20, wherein the user is awarded points when, during the session, the user intent vector received from the user is substantially aligned with the group intent vector.