Internet of things electronic signal aggregator and repeater

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9961478-B2
Application number	US-201414450482-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 4, 2014
Priority date	Jun 28, 2014
Publication date	May 1, 2018
Grant date	May 1, 2018

Abstract

The present disclosure is directed to logging random “chirps” of IoT devices and rebroadcasting these chirps to other devices on demand. An apparatus consistent with the present disclosure includes a transmitter to communicate with a network of wireless-communication-enabled devices. The apparatus also includes a receiver to detect communications transmitted from the wireless-communication-enabled device. Further, the apparatus includes control unit logic to tally the number of electrical signals emitted from each wireless-communication-enabled device. In addition, the apparatus includes memory to store the number of emitted electrical signals. The apparatus further includes a power unit electrically coupled to the transmitter, receiver, and memory.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus, comprising:
a master aggregator, comprising:
a transmitter to communicate with a network of slave aggregator devices, wherein the network of slave aggregator devices includes multiple slave aggregator devices that monitor a network of wireless-communication-enabled devices;
a receiver to receive detected communications transmitted from the network of slave aggregator devices;
control unit logic to tally a number of electrical signals emitted from the network of wireless-communication-enabled devices;
aggregator logic communicatively coupled to the network of slave aggregator devices, the aggregator logic to execute instructions to aggregate a number of communication occurrences from each wireless-communication-enabled device of the network of wireless-communication-enabled devices;
memory to store the number of emitted electrical signals; and
a power unit electrically coupled to the transmitter, receiver, and memory.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising logic to execute instructions to record each occurrence of an emitted electrical signal from the wireless-communication-enabled devices.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising logic to execute instructions to respond to a request.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the transmitter is to transmit the number of communication occurrences to an external device via a wireless transmission.

5. The apparatus of claim 4 , wherein the external device includes at least one of a mobile phone, computing tablet, or personal computer (PC).

6. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the network of wireless-communication-enabled devices includes sensors.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising a housing to enclose the transmitter, receiver, logic, memory and power unit.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the power unit is coupled to an alternating current (AC) power supply.

9. A system, comprising:
a network of sensors, each sensor comprising:
an energy collection sub-module to collect ambient energy;
an energy conversion sub-module to transform the ambient energy into electrical form; and
a wireless transmission sub-module to transmit a signal according to a predetermined frequency or in response to an event; and
an aggregator module communicatively coupled to a network of slave aggregator devices, wherein the aggregator module is to execute instructions to aggregate a number of signal occurrences from each sensor, wherein the network of slave aggregator devices includes multiple slave aggregator devices that monitor the network of sensors.

10. The system of claim 9 , wherein the ambient energy collected by the energy collection module includes at least one of thermal energy, mechanical energy, light energy, and natural energy.

11. The system of claim 9 , wherein the energy conversion module includes a piezoelectric element to translate the ambient energy into electrical form.

12. The system of claim 9 , wherein at least one of the network of sensors transmits a signal when the at least one sensor detects at least one of vibration, motion, light, and thermal energy.

13. The system of claim 9 , wherein the network of sensors are distributed throughout a building.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein at least one of the network of sensors are coupled to a window, coupled to a door, or embedded within a wall of the building.

15. The system of claim 9 further comprising a super-capacitor, coupled to each sensor, to collect the ambient energy.

16. A non-transitory computer readable medium including code, when executed, to cause a machine to:
use a network of slave aggregators devices to detect a wireless communication transmitted from a network of sensors, wherein the network of slave aggregator devices includes multiple slave aggregator devices that monitor the network of sensors;
send the wireless communication from the network of slave aggregators devices to a master aggregator;
use the master aggregator to tally a number of wireless communications transmitted from each sensor of the network of sensors; and
report the number of wireless communications tallied based upon a request.

17. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16 further comprising code, when executed, to cause a machine to log each occurrence of a wireless communication from each sensor of the network of sensors.

18. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16 further comprising code, when executed, to cause a machine to report the number of wireless communications based on a predetermined frequency.

19. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16 , wherein the number of wireless communications are tallied for a predetermined time period.

20. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16 , wherein the number of wireless communications tallied are reported to a mobile device via a Wi-Fi network.

Assignees

• Intel Corp

Inventors

• Browning David W
• Fleming Kristoffer D
• Gough Robert E
• Sotomayor Guy G
• Bibikar Vasudev
• Varma Ankush

Classifications

• H04W84/20

  Leader-follower arrangements · CPC title

• H04W4/005 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04W4/70 Primary

  Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC] · CPC title