Battery watchdog system and methodology
地域：
MD
MD Annapolis
摘要
A system incorporating a watchdog and power throttling capability which is implemented to ensure that network devices do not consume their entire battery capacity prior to the minimum expected battery life associated with the battery/device. The system includes capabilities for monitoring predicted remaining battery life in each associated device as well as the ability to control various functionalities within the device and the timing of events so as to guarantee minimum operating life for the device. This watchdog/throttling capability is implemented in such a way as to minimize the impact to device behavior and system operating parameters as much as possible while still enforcing minimum device/battery lifetime.
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Disclosed embodiments relate to wireless communications, and more specifically, to wireless communication systems and low power devices wherein battery longevity is of significant importance.
In the post-2009 evolution of the Internet towards the IoT, a segment that has experienced major growth is that of small, inexpensive, networked processing devices, distributed at all scales throughout everyday life. Of those, many are configured for everyday/commonplace purposes. For the IoT, the end nodes are comprised substantially of such small devices.
Within the small-device segment, the sub-segment that has the greatest growth potential is embedded, low-power, wireless devices. More particularly, most deployments employ large numbers of resource-limited embedded devices, which typically are battery powered, and which are typically connected to the Internet by low-power, low-bandwidth wireless networks (“LoWPANs”).
The BLUETOOTH Special Interest Group devised BLE particularly in consideration of IoT devices and applications which do not require continuous connection(s), but are more interested in extended battery life. One example of such a device is a temperature sensor which intermittently provides temperature readings to a collector device that collects such periodic readings. That is, continuous connection between the sensor and collector is not necessary to obtain, for example, since temperature readings at a series of discrete points in time is sufficient for the applicable use case(s).
權(quán)利要求
What is claimed is:1. A battery watchdog control system for enforcing battery power consumption constraints, the battery watchdog control system comprising:a battery for powering operations on a device; storage comprising a plurality of pre-calculated and pre-stored estimated battery usage values each respectively corresponding to said operations; a remaining battery capacity determination module, said remaining battery capacity determination module operating to determine, for each determination thereof, an estimate of remaining power capacity associated with said battery, based on a difference between (a) a current battery capacity and (b) solely one or more of said pre-calculated and pre-stored estimated battery usage values respectively corresponding to one or more of said operations, wherein said estimate differs from an actual level of remaining power capacity associated with said battery and defines a determined level of prospectively remaining power capacity; a throttled state determination module configured to communicate with said remaining battery capacity determination module, said throttled state determination module operating to selectively place said device in either a throttled state or a non-throttled state, based on a comparison of said estimate of remaining power capacity associated with said battery and a predetermined threshold for said remaining power capacity; an event control module configured to communicate with said remaining battery capacity determination module and said throttled state determination module, said event control module operating to selectively permit or prevent said operations on said device from being carried out; wherein said event control module selectively prevents at least one type of operation from being carried out when said device is in said throttled state and wherein the carrying out of an operation of said at least one operation type would cause battery usage in excess of said predetermined threshold. 2. The system of claim 1 wherein said selective prevention of at least one type of operation from being carried out is dependent upon whether or not the carrying out of an operation of said at least one operation type would cause battery usage in excess of a predetermined value of battery usage during a time window of defined duration. 3. The system of claim 2 wherein said defined duration of said time window is set via an administrative subsystem. 4. The system of claim 2 wherein at least one type of operation is permitted to be carried out during a current time window regardless of whether said device is in said throttled state provided that a predetermined value for battery usage associated with at least one subsequent time window following said current time window is reduced to a value below a predetermined value for battery usage associated with said current time window. 5. The system of claim 2 wherein if an aggregate value for battery usage during a current time window is less than a predetermined value for battery usage associated with said current time window, then a predetermined value for battery usage associated with at least one subsequent time window following said current window is increased to a value above the predetermined value for battery usage associated with said current time window. 6. The system of claim 1 wherein said remaining battery capacity determination module is resident on said device. 7. The system of claim 1 further comprising an administrative subsystem accessed by an administrator and in communication with said device, said administrative subsystem receiving instructions from said administrator which are implemented as one or more parameters associated with battery power consumption constraints. 8. The system of claim 7 wherein said remaining battery capacity determination module is resident on said administrative subsystem. 9. The system of claim 1 wherein said throttled state determination module selectively places said device in said throttled state once said estimate of remaining power capacity associated with said battery falls below said predetermined threshold. 10. The system of claim 1 wherein at least one type of operation is permitted to be carried out regardless of whether said device is in said throttled state. 11. A computer-implemented method of enforcing battery power consumption constraints in a device, the method being implemented in a computer system comprising one or more processors configured to execute computer program modules, the method comprising the steps of:storing at least one pre-calculated, estimated battery usage value associated with an event type, such that the pre-calculated, estimated battery usage value is pre-stored; receiving an indication that an event associated with said event type is planned for execution; determining, for a current time window, an estimated remaining battery capacity defined by a difference between (a) a predetermined aggregate battery usage value and (b) solely said pre-calculated and pre-stored estimated battery usage value, wherein said estimated remaining battery capacity differs from an actual level of battery usage associated with said battery and defines a determined level of prospectively usable power capacity; determining, based upon said battery usage value associated with said event, whether said execution of said event will exceed said predetermined aggregate battery usage value associated with said current time window; and preventing said event from being executed in the event that said execution of said event will exceed any of said estimated remaining battery capacity and said predetermined aggregate battery usage value associated with said current time window. 12. The method of claim 11 wherein any further events planned for execution during said current time window are prevented from being executed in the event that a previous planned event exceeded said predetermined aggregate battery usage value associated with said current time window. 13. The method of claim 12 wherein said device comprises an accelerometer for awakening said device from a sleep mode in which no events are planned for execution. 14. The method of claim 11 wherein further non-critical events planned for execution during said current time window are prevented from being executed in the event that a previous planned event exceeded said predetermined aggregate battery usage value associated with said current time window and wherein critical events planned for execution during said current time window are not prevented from being executed even in the event that a previous planned event exceeded said predetermined aggregate battery usage value associated with said current time window. 15. The method of claim 11 wherein when aggregate battery usage during a current time window is less than said predetermined aggregate battery usage value, said predetermined aggregate battery usage value is increased for at least one time window subsequent to said current time window. 16. The method of claim 11 wherein said device comprises a low energy Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) tag. 17. The method of claim 11 wherein said event type comprises one or more categories of radio frequency transmissions. 18. The method of claim 11 wherein said event type comprises one or more categories of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) location scans.
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