Sensor web
AssigneeCalifornia Institute of Technology
InventorsKevin A. Delin, Shannon P. Jackson
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A Sensor Web formed of a number of different sensor pods. Each of the sensor pods include a clock which is synchronized with a master clock so that all of the sensor pods in the Web have a synchronized clock. The synchronization is carried out by first using a coarse synchronization which takes less power, and subsequently carrying out a fine synchronization to make a fine sync of all the pods on the Web. After the synchronization, the pods ping their neighbors to determine which pods are listening and responded, and then only listen during time slots corresponding to those pods which respond.
Claims14
A method, comprising:
- deploying a plurality of sensor pods to a plurality of separated locations, and wherein each of said sensor pods have an internal time base, to measure a specified parameter;
- synchronizing said time bases among said plurality of sensor pods by wirelessly transmitting a synchronization pattern that includes a data sync header, followed by actual real time clock information from a master clock, wherein said synchronizing comprises synchronizing to said synchronization pattern in order to sync each said sensor pod coarsely to the real time clock information from the master clock, and subsequently carrying out a second, fine synchronization, and where said fine synchronization provides the actual real time clock information;
- using the synchronized time bases in each of said plurality of sensor pods to measure said specified parameter in each of said plurality of separate location sensor pods, at a synchronized first time in each of said sensor pods, and to report said specified parameter, where there are first and second sensor pods, and neither of said first and second sensor pods report said specified parameter at non-synchronized times;
- and
- communicating between said sensor pods by communicating from a first sensor pod to a second sensor pod, and from said second sensor pod to a third sensor pod.
A method, comprising:
- first, coarsely synchronizing a sensor pod to a master clock, using a coarse synchronization operation which looks for a wirelessly transmitted synchronization pattern that includes actual data real time clock information, where said synchronization pattern includes a data synchronization header, followed by the actual real time clock information from the master clock, and wherein said coarse synchronization information synchronizes to said synchronization pattern in order to sync the sensor pod coarsely to the actual real time clock information to provide the same real time clock information as in said master clock;
- second, after said coarsely synchronizing, finely synchronizing said sensor pod to said master clock using a fine synchronization operation, where said fine synchronization takes more power then said coarse synchronization, and where said fine synchronization provides further synchronization to said actual real time clock information than said coarse synchronization.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.