System and method for beacon fleet management

• US 9,942,706 B2
• Filed: 10/16/2017
• Issued: 04/10/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 09/02/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Estimote Polska Sp. z o.o.
• Original Assignee: Estimote Polska Sp. z o.o.
• Inventors: Klimek, Marcin, Kostka, Lukasz, Krzych, Jakub
• Primary Examiner(s): PATEL, MAHENDRA R
• Application Number:
  US15/784,774
• Publication Number:
  US 20180054701A1
• Time in Patent Office: 176 Days
• Field of Search: 4554561, 4554563, 4554621, 701457
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0226 Transmitters
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/02529 not involving signal parameters, i.e. only involving identifiers
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0294 Trajectory determination or predictive filtering, e.g. target tracking or Kalman filtering
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0295 Proximity-based methods, e.g. position inferred from reception of particular signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 17/27 for locating or positioning the transmitter
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 17/318 Received signal strength
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/027 using movement velocity, acceleration information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/50 Service provisioning or reconfiguring
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/322 Power control of broadcast channels
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/18 Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks

Abstract

A method for distributed beacon management, including: broadcasting a packet from the beacon; receiving the packet at an application executing on a plurality of user devices; and transmitting beacon information extracted from the packet to the management system from the application.

Claims

1. A method for distributed beacon management, comprising:

at a physical beacon;

sampling sensor signals with sensors on-board the physical beacon; and

generating beacon telemetry based on the sensor signals;

broadcasting, from the physical beacon, beacon packets comprising a common broadcast identifier and the beacon telemetry;

receiving the beacon packets, from a plurality of user devices, at the remote computing system, wherein each user device receives the respective beacon packet from the physical beacon;

storing the beacon telemetry in association with a beacon identifier at the remote computing system, the beacon identifier determined based on the common broadcast identifier;

monitoring the stored beacon telemetry for occurrence of a predetermined event; and

in response to occurrence of the predetermined event;

generating a notification comprising an event identifier for the predetermined event and identifying information for the physical beacon; and

transmitting the notification to a management account associated with the physical beacon.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining a device location for each user device of the plurality based on a signal strength of the respective beacon packet received by the user device and a known geographic location of the physical beacon.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein each beacon packet is received by an instance of a client executing on each user device of the plurality of user devices, wherein the beacon packet is received at the remote computing system, from the user device, with a client designator for the client, the method further comprising:

facilitating transfer of data, associated with the physical beacon, to the client instance in response to validation of the client designator for the beacon identifier; and

storing the beacon telemetry in association with the beacon identifier when the client designator is invalid.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

at the remote computing system, determining a settings update associated with the beacon identifier after receiving the beacon packet; and

transmitting the settings update to the user device in response to determining the settings update, wherein the user device transmits the settings update to the physical beacon.

5. A method for distributed beacon management, comprising:

receiving beacon telemetry for a physical beacon at a remote computing system from a user device, wherein the beacon telemetry is generated by the physical beacon based on sensor signals sampled with sensors on-board the physical beacon, is broadcast by the physical beacon, and is received by the user device;

storing the beacon telemetry in association with an identifier for the physical beacon at the remote computing system;

monitoring the stored beacon telemetry for occurrence of a predetermined event; and

in response to occurrence of the predetermined event;

generating a notification comprising an event identifier for the predetermined event and identifying information for the physical beacon; and

transmitting the notification to a management client associated with the identifier for the physical beacon.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the user device comprises a mobile device, the method further comprising determining a device location for the mobile device based on a signal strength of a beacon packet broadcast by the physical beacon and a known geographic location of the physical beacon, wherein the beacon telemetry is determined from the beacon packet.

7. The method of claim 5, further comprising, at the physical beacon:

sampling the sensor signals with the sensors on-board the physical beacon; and

generating the beacon telemetry based on the sensor signals.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the sensors automatically periodically sample the sensor signals.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the beacon telemetry comprises a beacon notification, the method further comprising:

monitoring the sensor signals at the physical beacon; and

generating the beacon notification, at the physical beacon, in response to the sensor signals satisfying a predetermined condition.

10. The method of claim 5, wherein the beacon telemetry is extracted from a beacon packet broadcast by the physical beacon, the beacon packet comprising a broadcast identifier for the physical beacon and telemetry data for the physical beacon, wherein the identifier for the physical beacon is determined based on the broadcast identifier.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the beacon packet consists essentially of the identifier and telemetry data generated from sensor signals sampled by a single sensor on- board the physical beacon.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

determining a settings update associated with the identifier for the physical beacon at the remote computing system; and

transmitting the settings update to the user device, wherein the user device transmits the settings update to the physical beacon.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the settings update is transmitted to the user device from the remote computing system after receiving the identifier for the physical beacon from the user device at the remote computing system.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

receiving a second beacon packet at the remote computing system from a second user device, different from the user device, wherein the second beacon packet is different from the beacon packet and comprises a firmware identifier; and

marking the identifier for the physical beacon as updated in response to the firmware identifier matching an identifier associated with the settings update.

15. The method of claim 5, wherein receiving the beacon telemetry comprises receiving the beacon telemetry from a plurality of user devices over a period of time.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the beacon telemetry is determined from beacon packets broadcast by the physical beacon and received by the plurality of user devices, wherein each packet is received by an instance of a client executing on each user device of the plurality, wherein the beacon telemetry is received at the remote computing system with a client designator for the client, the method further comprising:

authorizing transfer of data associated with the physical beacon to the client instance in response to validation of the client designator for the beacon identifier; and

storing the beacon telemetry in association with the beacon identifier when the client designator is invalid.

17. The method of claim 5, wherein the notification is generated by an event- specific module executing in the remote computing system.

18. The method of claim 5, wherein the event identifier comprises an event classification, wherein the notification is determined based on the event classification.

19. The method of claim 5, wherein the beacon telemetry is monitored in near-real time.