Determining a power main of a smart plug

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10878343-B2
Application number	US-201816179567-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 2, 2018
Priority date	Oct 2, 2018
Publication date	Dec 29, 2020
Grant date	Dec 29, 2020

Abstract

A smart plug may provide a smart-plug power monitoring signal that includes information about power consumption of devices connected to the smart plug. The smart-plug power monitoring signal may be used in conjunction with power monitoring signals from the electrical mains of the building for providing information about the operation of devices in the building. For example, the power monitoring signals may be used to (i) determine the main of the house that provides power to the smart plug, (ii) identify devices receiving power from the smart plug, (iii) improve the accuracy of identifying device state changes, and (iv) train mathematical models for identifying devices and device state changes.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method for determining a power main associated with a smart plug, the method comprising:
establishing a network connection with the smart plug, wherein the smart plug receives power from an electrical main of a building and provides power to one or more devices;
receiving a smart-plug power monitoring signal via the network connection, wherein the smart-plug power monitoring signal indicates an amount of power provided by the smart plug to the one or more devices;
obtaining a first-main power monitoring signal using measurements from a first sensor that measures an electrical property of a first electrical main of the building;
obtaining a second-main power monitoring signal using measurements from a second sensor that measures an electrical property of a second electrical main of the building;
identifying a plurality of event times corresponding to events in the smart-plug power monitoring signal;
collecting smart plug portions of the smart-plug power monitoring signal corresponding to each event time of the plurality of event times;
collecting first main portions of the first-main power monitoring signal corresponding to each event time of the plurality of event times;
collecting second main portions of the second-main power monitoring signal corresponding to each event time of the plurality of event times;
determining that the smart plug receives power from the first electrical main by comparing the smart plug portions with the first main portions and by comparing the smart plug portions with the second main portions; and
updating an entry in a data store to indicate that the smart plug receives power from the first electrical main.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the events correspond to the smart plug transitioning from providing zero power to providing non-zero power.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , the method further comprising:
computing a plurality of first baseline power consumptions for the first-main power monitoring signal, wherein each first baseline power consumption corresponds to an event time of the plurality of event times;
computing a plurality of second baseline power consumptions for the second-main power monitoring signal, wherein each second baseline power consumption corresponds to an event time of the plurality of event times; and
wherein determining that the smart plug receives power from the first electrical main comprises using the plurality of first baseline power consumptions and the plurality of second baseline power consumptions.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3 , wherein computing a first baseline power consumption comprises computing an average of the first-main power monitoring signal over a period of time prior to a corresponding event time.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , comprising modifying a first main portion by down sampling the first main portion to match a sampling rate of the smart plug portions.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , comprising translating a first main portion or a smart plug portion before comparing the first main portion and the smart plug portion.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein comparing a first main portion and a smart plug portion comprises computing a distance between the first main portion and the smart plug portion.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein comparing a first main portion and a smart plug portion comprises:
computing a first feature vector for the first main portion;
computing a second feature vector for the smart plug portion; and
computing a distance between the first feature vector and the second feature vector.

9. A system for determining a power main associated with a smart plug, the system comprising:
at least one computer comprising at least one processor and at least one memory, the at least one computer configured to:
establish a network connection with the smart plug, wherein the smart plug receives power from an electrical main of a building and provides power to one or more devices;
receive a smart-plug power monitoring signal via the network connection, wherein the smart-plug power monitoring signal indicates an amount of power provided by the smart plug to the one or more devices;
obtain a first-main power monitoring signal using measurements from a first sensor that measures an electrical property of a first electrical main of the building;
obtain a second-main power monitoring signal using measurements from a second sensor that measures an electrical property of a second electrical main of the building;
identify a plurality of event times corresponding to events in the smart-plug power monitoring signal;
collect smart plug portions of the smart-plug power monitoring signal corresponding to each event time of the plurality of event times;
collect first main portions of the first-main power monitoring signal corresponding to each event time of the plurality of event times;
collect second main portions of the second-main power monitoring signal corresponding to each event time of the plurality of event times;
determine that the smart plug receives power from the first electrical main by comparing the smart plug portions with the first main portions and by comparing the smart plug portions with the second main portions; and
update an entry in a data store to indicate that the smart plug receives power from the first electrical main.

10. The system of claim 9 , wherein the at least one computer is configured to compare a first main portion and a smart plug portion by computing a distance between the first main portion and the smart plug portion.

11. The system of claim 9 , wherein the at least one computer is configured to:
compare the smart plug portions with the first main portions by computing a first plurality of distances between the first main portions and the smart plug portions; and
compare the smart plug portions with the second main portions by computing a second plurality of distances between the second main portions and the smart plug portions.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the at least one computer is configured to determine that the smart plug receives power from the first electrical main by:
computing a first value from the first plurality of distances;
computing a second value from the second plurality of distances; and
comparing the first value and the second value.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein the first value is a mean or a median of the first plurality of distances.

14. The system of claim 9 , wherein the at least one computer is configured to scale an amplitude of a first main portion or a smart plug portion before comparing the first main portion and the smart plug portion.

15. One or more non-transitory, computer-readable media comprising computer executable instructions that, when executed, cause at least one processor to perform actions comprising:
establishing a network connection with a smart plug, wherein the smart plug receives power from an electrical main of a building and provides power to one or more devices;
receiving a smart-plug power monitoring signal via the network connection, wherein the smart-plug power monitoring signal indicates an amount of power provided by the smart plug to the one or more devices;
obtaining a first-main power monitoring signal using measurements from a first sensor that measures an electrical property of a first electrical main of the building;
obtaining a second-main power monitoring signal using measurements from a second sensor t

Assignees

• Sense Labs Inc

Inventors

• Choueiter Ghinwa Fakhri
• Petri Jonah Wyman

Classifications

• G05B15/02 Primary

  electric · CPC title

• H02J13/1311

  using the power network as support for the transmission · CPC title

• H02J13/34

  the equipment being switches, relays or circuit breakers · CPC title

• G06N5/01

  Dynamic search techniques; Heuristics; Dynamic trees; Branch-and-bound · CPC title

• G06N7/01

  Probabilistic graphical models, e.g. probabilistic networks · CPC title