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US 10,240,861 B2Granted
Cold storage health monitoring system
AssigneeEmanate Wireless, Inc.
InventorsGary L. Sugar, Yohannes Tesfai, Neil R. Diener
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A monitoring system for a cold storage device such as a vapor compression refrigerator or freezer. The monitoring system learns operating characteristics of the cold storage device and issues alarm notifications when abnormal behavior is detected. Such a system can be used as an “early warning system” to flag when a cold storage device is not operating properly. Such a system could be particularly valuable in applications that make mission-critical use of cold storage devices, e.g., biomedical or pharmaceutical research labs, blood or tissue banks, grocery stores, restaurants, and the like.
Claims20
A method for determining the operating state of a cold storage device, comprising:
- monitoring electrical current consumption and temperature inside a cold storage device;
- identifying operational state changes of the cold storage device using detected changes in the electrical current consumption;
- calculating a multi-dimensional feature vector comprising a plurality of electrical and thermal parameters derived from the monitored electrical current consumption and temperature of the cold storage device between consecutive operational state changes;
- performing a learning process that includes:
- accumulating feature vectors over a period of time;
- identifying clusters of accumulated feature vectors;
- associating one or more functional operating states of the cold storage device with one or more of the clusters;
- calculating learning statistics based on one or more of:
- a frequency that the cold storage device enters the one or more functional operating states;
- a variation of a feature vector parameter within one or more of the clusters;
- and
- generating an alarm threshold from the learning statistics;
- performing a monitoring process that includes:
- determining a nearest cluster to the feature vector;
- determining one or more current functional operating states of the cold storage device from the functional operating states associated with the nearest cluster;
- calculating a monitoring statistic based on one or more of:
- the one or more current functional operating states;
- one or more feature vector components;
- and
- sending an alarm notification if the monitoring statistic exceeds the alarm threshold.
17 more elements
A system comprising:
- a monitoring device configured to monitor one or more of electrical current consumption and temperature inside a cold storage device;
- a server coupled to the monitoring device, wherein the server is configured to perform operations including:
- identifying operational state changes of the cold storage device using detected changes in the electrical current consumption;
- calculating a multi-dimensional feature vector comprising a plurality of electrical and thermal parameters derived from the monitored electrical current consumption and temperature of the cold storage device between consecutive operational state changes;
- performing a learning process that includes:
- accumulating feature vectors over a period of time;
- identifying clusters of accumulated feature vectors;
- associating one or more functional operating states of the cold storage device with one or more of the clusters;
- calculating learning statistics based on one or more of:
- a frequency that the cold storage device enters the one or more functional operating states;
- a variation of a feature vector parameter within one or more of the clusters;
- and
- generating an alarm threshold from the learning statistics;
- performing a monitoring process that includes:
- determining a nearest cluster to the feature vector;
- determining one or more current functional operating states of the cold storage device from the functional operating states associated with the nearest cluster;
- calculating a monitoring statistic based on one or more of:
- the one or more current functional operating states;
- one or more feature vector components;
- and
- sending an alarm notification if the monitoring statistic exceeds the alarm threshold.
18 more elements
One or more non-transitory computer readable storage media encoded with instructions, that when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations including:
- monitoring electrical current consumption and temperature inside a cold storage device;
- identifying operational state changes of the cold storage device using detected changes in the electrical current consumption;
- calculating a multi-dimensional feature vector comprising a plurality of electrical and thermal parameters derived from the monitored electrical current consumption and temperature of the cold storage device between consecutive operational state changes;
- performing a learning process that includes:
- accumulating feature vectors over a period of time;
- identifying clusters of accumulated feature vectors;
- associating one or more functional operating states of the cold storage device with one or more of the clusters;
- calculating learning statistics based on one or more of:
- a frequency that the cold storage device enters the one or more functional operating states;
- a variation of a feature vector parameter within one or more of the clusters;
- and
- generating an alarm threshold from the learning statistics;
- performing a monitoring process that includes:
- determining a nearest cluster to the feature vector;
- determining one or more current functional operating states of the cold storage device from the functional operating states associated with the nearest cluster;
- calculating a monitoring statistic based on one or more of:
- the one or more current functional operating states;
- one or more feature vector components;
- and
- sending an alarm notification if the monitoring statistic exceeds the alarm threshold.
17 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.