METHOD FOR TRANSFERRING DATA FROM A SENSOR OVER A COMPUTER NETWORK, CORRESPONDING DEVICE, AND COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCT THEREFORE

• US 20090240778A1
• Filed: 03/18/2009
• Published: 09/24/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/20/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent SA (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent SA (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Forlivesi, Claudio, Moreels, Johan
• Granted Patent: US 8,423,617 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/08 Protocols for interworking; Protocol conversion
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/085 specially adapted for interworking of IP-based networks with other networks

Abstract

The invention concerns a method for transferring data from a sensor over a computer network, wherein the method comprises the steps of receiving from the sensor a signal representing a physical quantity, encoding the signal, converting the signal into a message, and transmitting the message over the computer network, wherein the conversion of the signal into the message comprises the step of generating the message by combining a first message header with a message body, wherein the first message header comprises the encoded signal and the message body comprises application data. The invention further concerns a device and computer program product therefore.

Claims

1. A method for transferring data from a sensor over a computer network, the method comprising the steps of

receiving from the sensor a signal representing a physical quantity,

encoding the signal,

converting the signal into a message, and

transmitting the message over the computer network, wherein, in order to transfer the data along with application data, the conversion of the signal into the message comprises the step of

generating the message by combining a first message header with a message body,

wherein the first message header comprises the encoded signal and the message body comprises the application data.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the method further comprises combining a second message header with the message body, the second message header comprising a sensor identification.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the sensor identification comprises a Universally Unique Identifier.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the method further comprises combining a third message header with the message body, the third message header comprising at least one of the following:

a description of the physical quantity,

an operational condition of the sensor, and

an indication of a data format of the message.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the method further comprises combining a fourth message header with the message body, the fourth message header comprising a comment on the message for use by a recipient of the message.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first message header after encoding comprises an absolute measure and at least one of the following:

a unit of measurement,

a precision,

a margin of error,

a confidence level,

a resolution, and

a full scale range.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the method further comprises encrypting at least one of the message headers.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the message is a text message and the method further comprises converting the signal into a textual representation of the physical quantity.

9. A device for transferring data from a sensor over a computer network, the device comprising

means for receiving from the sensor a signal representing a physical quantity,

means for converting the signal into a message, and

means for transmitting the message over the computer network,

wherein the means for converting the signal into a message comprises

means for encoding the signal into a first message header and

means for generating the message by combining the first message header with a message body.

10. A computer program product comprising a computer usable medium including a computer readable program, wherein the computer readable program when executed on a computer causes the computer to

receive from a sensor a signal representing a physical quantity,

encode the signal,

convert the signal into a message, and

transmit the message over a computer network,

wherein, to convert the signal into the message, the computer readable program causes the computer to

generate the message by combining a first message header with a message body,

wherein the first message header comprises the encoded signal and the message body comprises the application data.