US 12,045,032 B1Granted

Using sensing functions and actuating functions to safely implement actions for IoT devices

AssigneeAmazon Technologies, Inc.

InventorsThibaut Pierre Grandmougin, Bart Schouwenaars-Harms

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Abstract

An IoT gateway at a client site uses sensing functions and actuating functions to safely implement actions for equipment. The client provides, to the IoT service, specifications for a sensing function and one or more actuating functions that are to communicate with the sensing function. The functions are deployed to the IoT gateway at the client site. The sensing function may be assigned read only access to the equipment and the actuating function may be assigned write only access to the equipment. The sensing function may collect data from the equipment and determine that a condition has been met (e.g., temperature is above an upper limit). In response, the sensing function provides an indication of an action to the actuating function (e.g., via a unique topic). If the action is a supported action, then the actuating function causes the equipment to perform the action; otherwise, it ignores the indicated action.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A system, comprising:

one or more processors;
and
one or more memories, wherein the one or more memories have stored thereon instructions, which when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to implement an IoT service for a plurality of clients, wherein the IoT service is configured to, for a given client:
provide an interface configured to:
receive, from the client, a specification of a sensing function associated with equipment at a remote network of the client, wherein the specification of the sensing function indicates at least one condition associated with the equipment and one or more actions associated with the condition;
and
receive, from the client, a specification of an actuating function for the equipment, wherein the specification of the actuating function indicates one or more supported actions for the equipment;
generate the sensing function, wherein the sensing function is configured to:
obtain data from the equipment;
determine, based on the data, whether the condition has been met;
and
in response to a determination that the condition has been met, provide, to the actuating function, an indication of one of the actions;
generate the actuating function, wherein the actuating function is configured to:
receive the indication of the action;
subsequent to the reception, by the actuating function, of the indication of the action provided by the sensing function, determine, by the actuating function, whether the indicated action is one of the supported actions for the equipment;
and
in response to a determination that the indicated action is one of the supported actions for the equipment, cause the equipment to perform the action;
and
deploy the sensing function and the actuating function to the remote network of the client.

16 more elements

A method, comprising:

performing, by one or more computing devices:
provisioning a sensing function to read data from equipment according to a communication protocol of the equipment;
provisioning an actuating function to write commands to the equipment according to the communication protocol;
obtaining, by the sensing function, data from the equipment according to the communication protocol;
based on the data, determining, by the sensing function, whether a condition has been met;
in response to determining, by the sensing function, that the condition has been met, providing, to the actuating function, an indication of an action for the equipment;
receiving, by the actuating function, the indication of the action for the equipment;
subsequent to receiving, by the actuating function, the indication of the action provided by the sensing function, determining, by the actuating function, whether the indicated action is a supported action for the equipment;
and
in response to determining that the indicated action is a supported action for the equipment, causing the equipment to perform the action by writing a command to the equipment according to the communication protocol.

7 more elements

One or more non-transitory computer-accessible storage media storing program instructions that when executed on or across one or more processors of a computing device cause the one or more processors to:

provision a sensing function, received from an IoT service of a provider network, wherein the sensing function is provisioned to:
obtain data from equipment;
determine, based on the data, whether a condition has been met;
and
in response to a determination that the condition has been met, provide, to a topic, an indication of an action;
and
provision the actuating function, received from the IoT service, wherein the actuating function is provisioned to, subsequent to invocation of the actuating function in response to the indication of the action provided to the topic:
determine, based on the providing of the indication of the action to the topic, the indicated action;
subsequent to the determination, by the actuating function, of the indicated action based on the providing of the indication of the action by the sensing function, determine, by the actuating function, whether the determined indicated action is a supported action for the equipment;
and
in response to a determination that the indicated action is a supported action for the equipment, cause the equipment to perform the action.

8 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 17/039,897Filed 30 Sep 2020
Granted: 23 Jul 2024
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification7 codes

G05B 19/4155
Numerical control [NC], i.e. automatically operating machines, in particular machine tools, e.g. in a manufacturing environment, so as to…
G06F 3/0604
Specifically adapted to achieve a particular effect: improving or facilitating administration, e.g. storage management
G06F 3/0655
Making use of a particular technique: vertical data movement, i.e. input-output transfer; data movement between one or more hosts and one or more…
G06F 3/067
Adopting a particular infrastructure: distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]