Sensor nodes with multicast transmissions in lighting sensory network

• US 9,456,293 B2
• Filed: 03/25/2014
• Issued: 09/27/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 03/26/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Sensity Systems, Inc. (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: Ryhorchuk, Kent W.
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Hanh N
• Assistant Examiner(s): PEREZ, JOSE L
• Application Number:
  US14/224,300
• Publication Number:
  US 20140293993A1
• Time in Patent Office: 917 Days
• Field of Search: 370/328, 370/329, 370/350, 370503-520, 709/203, 709/208, 709/224
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1895 for short real-time information, e.g. alarms, notifications, alerts, updates
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 Threshold monitoring
• 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 69/28 Timers or timing mechanisms used in protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/38 for collecting sensor information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 56/001 Synchronization between nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/18 Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks

Abstract

An embodiment method for communicating data within a lighting sensory network may include configuring a first plurality of lighting nodes to operate as sensor nodes, configuring a second plurality of lighting nodes to operate as listening nodes, generating, by a sensor node using an encryption key, a sensor message associated with sensor data and including at least a timestamp, calculating an interval for transmitting the sensor message, wherein the interval is randomized and exponentially increasing, determining whether to transmit the sensor message based on the calculated interval, transmitting the sensor message in response to determining to transmit the sensor message based on the calculated interval, receiving, by a listening node, the sensor message at a listening node, determining whether the received sensor message is useful based on the timestamp and a predefined age threshold, and performing a lighting action in response to determining the received sensor message is useful.

Claims

1. A method for a lighting node within a lighting infrastructure to communicate data to other nodes within a lighting sensory network, comprising:

receiving, at the lighting node, a first message from a server, instructing the lighting node to enter into a sensor transmit mode associated with a first type of sensor data, the first message including transmission parameters which includes an encryption key for transmitting secure sensor messages associated with the first type of sensor data to the other nodes and a retransmit base interval associated with the first type of sensor data;

storing the transmission parameters for use by the lighting node;

obtaining, at the lighting node, the first type of sensor data;

recording a timestamp associated with a time the first type of sensor data was obtained;

storing, at the lighting node, the obtained first type of sensor data and the recorded timestamp;

generating, by the lighting node, an encrypted sensor message using the encryption key, the encrypted sensor message including the obtained first type of sensor data and the recorded timestamp; and

transmitting, by the lighting node, the encrypted sensor message by broadcasting the encrypted sensor message to the other nodes which are configured to operate in a listening mode, at least some of the other nodes representing authorized listening nodes configured to decrypt the encrypted sensor message with a decryption key provided by the server to the authorized listening nodes that corresponds to the encryption key.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the encryption key provided by the server to the lighting node and the decryption key provided by the server to the authorized listening nodes that corresponds to the encryption key represent symmetric keys that are generated using cryptography symmetric-key algorithms.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the generated encrypted sensor message further includes one or more of nonce data, version data, sensor identifier data, debugging identifier data, the sensor data, and position data related to the lighting node.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting, by the lighting node, the encrypted sensor message by broadcasting the encrypted sensor message to the other nodes further comprises:

broadcasting the encrypted sensor message to the other nodes with user datagram protocol (UDP) packets.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the lighting sensory network is a wireless network from a group of wireless network types that includes at least an ad hoc wireless network.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining, by the lighting node, whether to retransmit the generated encrypted sensor message based on at least one of a predefined age threshold and a number of previous transmissions of the generated sensor message.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising discarding, by the lighting node, the generated sensor message in response to determining not to retransmit the generated encrypted sensor message based on at least one of the predefined age threshold and the number of previous transmissions of the generated sensor message.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

retransmitting, by the lighting node, the encrypted sensor message periodically and repetitively after each broadcast of the encrypted sensor message for use by the other nodes until the lighting node determines the encrypted sensor message is no longer considered relevant to the other nodes.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

determining new retransmission times for the generated sensor message using randomized exponentially increasing retransmit intervals that is based on and larger than the retransmit base interval.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

recalculating the retransmit intervals after each retransmission of the generated sensor message so that the generated sensor message becomes less frequently retransmitted until the lighting node determines the encrypted sensor message is no longer considered relevant to the other nodes.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the retransmit intervals increases up to 2^N times the retransmit base interval after N retransmissions.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the message at the lighting node from the server further comprises:

receiving, at the lighting node, a second message from the server, instructing the lighting node to enter into a sensor transmit mode associated with a second type of sensor data, the second message including transmission parameters which includes an encryption key for transmitting secure sensor messages associated with the second type of sensor data to the other nodes and a retransmit base interval associated with the second type of sensor data.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the lighting node is configured to concurrently operate in the sensor transmit mode associated with the first type of sensor data and the sensor transmit mode associated with the second type of sensor data.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the message at the lighting node from the server further comprises:

receiving, at the lighting node, a third message from the server instructing the lighting node to enter into a listening mode associated with a third type of sensor data.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the lighting node is configured to concurrently operate in the sensor transmit mode associated with the first type of sensor data and the listening mode associated with the third type of sensor data.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining, at the lighting node, the first type of sensor data and recording the timestamp further comprises:

obtaining the first type of sensor data in a regular, periodic manner or in response to an occurrence of an event detected by a sensor associated with the lighting node.

22. The message of claim 1, wherein the generated encrypted sensor message further includes identification information and position information of the lighting node.

8. A method for a lighting node within a lighting infrastructure to receive data from sensor nodes within a lighting sensory network, comprising:

receiving, at the lighting node, a first message from a server instructing the lighting node to enter into a listening mode associated with a first type of sensor data, the first message including receiving parameters which includes a decryption key for decrypting sensor messages associated with the first type of sensor data received by the lighting node and a predefined age threshold, the decryption key is provided by the server to the lighting node and corresponds to an encryption key provided by the server to a sensor node;

storing the receiving parameters for use by the lighting node;

receiving, by the lighting node, an encrypted sensor message associated with the first type of sensor data from the sensor node within the lighting sensory network, the received encrypted sensor message including the first type of sensor data, identification information related to the sensor node, and a timestamp indicating when the first type of sensor data was obtained by the sensor node;

decrypting, at the lighting node, the received encrypted sensor message with the decryption key;

identifying, at the lighting node, from the decrypted sensor message the first type of sensor data, the identification information related to the sensor node, and the timestamp by parsing the decrypted sensor message;

determining, by the lighting node, whether the decrypted sensor message is useful based on at least one of the timestamp from the decrypted sensor message and the predefined age threshold; and

performing, by the lighting node, a lighting action based on the decrypted sensor message in response to determining the decrypted sensor message is useful.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the lighting action includes at least one of dimming a light source, intensifying the light source, deactivating the light source, and activating the light source.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

determining, by the lighting node, whether a maximum number of decrypted sensor messages are stored within a local memory;

discarding, by the lighting node, an oldest stored decrypted sensor message in response to determining that the maximum number of sensor messages are stored within the local memory; and

storing, by the lighting node, the decrypted sensor message in the local memory.

11. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

receiving, by the lighting node, a second encrypted sensor message associated with a second type of sensor data from a second sensor node within the lighting sensory network, the received second encrypted sensor message including the second type of sensor data, identification information related to the second sensor node, and a timestamp indicating when the second type of sensor data was obtained by the sensor node.

23. The method of claim 11, wherein the lighting node is configured to concurrently operate in the listening mode associated with the first type of sensor data and the listening mode of the second type of sensor data.

12. A method for communicating data within a lighting sensory network, comprising:

configuring a first plurality of lighting nodes to operate as sensor nodes that transmit messages associated with sensor data;

configuring a second plurality of lighting nodes to operate as listening nodes that receive the messages associated with the sensor data;

generating, by each of one or more of the first plurality of lighting nodes, an encrypted sensor message associated with a type of sensor data using an encryption key provided by a server to each of the one or more of the first plurality of lighting nodes, the generated encrypted sensor message includes at least a timestamp;

calculating, by each of the one or more of the first plurality of lighting nodes, an interval for retransmitting the generated sensor message, wherein the interval is randomized and recalculated by each of the one or more of the first plurality of lighting nodes after each retransmission of the generated sensor message to be exponentially increasing;

determining, by each of the one or more of the first plurality of lighting nodes, whether to transmit the generated encrypted sensor message based on the calculated interval;

transmitting, by each of the one or more of the first plurality of lighting nodes, the generated encrypted sensor message in response to determining to transmit the generated sensor message based on the calculated interval;

receiving, by one or more of the second plurality of lighting nodes, one or more of the generated encrypted sensor messages transmitted by the one or more of the first plurality of lighting nodes;

decrypting the one or more of the generated encrypted sensor messages received using one or more decrypting keys provided by the server to authorized lighting nodes from the second plurality of lighting nodes;

determining, by the one or more of the second plurality of lighting nodes, whether the received one or more of the sensor messages transmitted by the one or more of the first plurality of lighting nodes are useful based on timestamp data from the received one or more of the sensor messages and a predefined age threshold; and

performing, by the one or more of the second plurality of lighting nodes, one or more lighting actions in response to determining the received one or more of the sensor messages transmitted by the one or more of the first plurality of lighting nodes are useful.