GB2568736A

GB2568736A - Identifying electrical cable connections

Info

Publication number: GB2568736A
Application number: GB1719620.5A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Serrano Fabrice
Original assignee: Eaton Industries France SAS
Current assignee: Eaton Industries France SAS
Priority date: 2017-11-27
Filing date: 2017-11-27
Publication date: 2019-05-29
Also published as: GB201719620D0; GB2568826B; GB201818202D0; GB2568826A

Abstract

A computer-implemented method for identifying electrical cable connections comprises obtaining one or more infrared pictures of the electrical cable connections, detecting thermal signatures of the connections in the images, and using the detected signatures for identifying electrical cable connections. The infrared signature may be passive, i.e. obtained through normal heating of the cable connection by current flow, or it may be dynamically generated, e.g. by changing current to produce a known infrared emission signature. Redundant power supplies may be shut down or the activity of a device attached to the cable may be increased or decreased to produce the signature. The infrared images may be compared to visible light images to assist in identifying the connections. The thermal image may be obtained using a thermal camera connected to a mobile device.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD

This specification relates to identifying electrical cable connections, particularly for application in datacenters with multiple power supplies and identification of electrical cable connections endpoints in datacenters.

BACKGROUND

The identification of cable connections particularly in a datacenter (DC) is usually a complex and time-consuming process. For example, racks housing multiple information technology (IT) equipment such as servers and power distribution units (PDUs) for supplying the IT equipment with electric power often comprise dozens of different electrical cable connections between the IT equipment and the PDUs. Currently, power cable pairing, i.e. cabling the IT equipment with PDUs is done manually. This, however, may be risky because often erroneous cablings. Also, adding new equipment to a rack induces more and more complexity in the task of commissioning the cable connections within the rack.

SUMMARY OF INVENTION

This specification describes technical solutions, which allow to identify electrical cable connections.

According to an aspect of this specification, a computer-implemented method for identifying electrical cable connections is disclosed. The method comprises obtaining one or more infrared pictures comprising one or more electrical cable connections, detecting one or more thermal signatures of the one or more electrical cable connections in the obtained one or more infrared pictures, and using the detected one or more thermal signatures for identifying electrical cable connections. Electrical cable connections between PDUs and devices such as servers usually generate a thermal signature, which may be unique and allow to identify a specific electrical cable connection among others. The thermal signature of an electrical cable connection depends on different aspects such as the load of the device supplied via the connection from a PDU, and the power requirements. Since load and power requirements usually differ from device to device, particularly in a rack with different IT equipment, the thermal signatures produced by the different electrical cable connections of the devices vary and may allow to identify the electrical cable connections by means of an infrared picture.

In some implementations, the computer-implemented method may comprise controlling an electrical cable connection to generate a thermal signature suitable for identifying the electrical cable connection. For example, the controlling of an electrical cable connection may comprise one or more of the following controlling electric current flow through the electrical cable connection; controlling one or more elements of the electrical cable connection for generating a thermal emission. In some implementations, controlling electric current flow through the electrical cable connection may comprise controlling power consumption of a device associated with the electrical cable connection so that a desired thermal signature suitable for identifying the electrical cable connection is generated. In some implementations, controlling power consumption of the device associated with the electrical cable connection may comprise one or more of the following: shutting down one or more redundant power supplies of the device; increasing and/or decreasing activity of the device.

In some implementations, the computer-implemented method may comprise using the detected thermal signatures for retrieving the electrical cable connections from a database containing electrical cable connections and their assigned thermal signatures.

In some implementations, the computer-implemented method may comprise using a mobile device with an infrared imager to obtain one or more infrared pictures comprising the one or more electrical cable connections. In an implementation, the mobile device may be a mobile phone with an infrared imager add-on enabling the mobile phone to obtain infrared pictures and comprising a computer program configuring the mobile phone to process the obtained infrared images according to a method as disclosed in this specification.

A further aspect of this specification relates to a computing device comprising a processor and a storage storing instructions that are operable, when executed by the processor, to cause the computing device to perform the method disclosed in this specification. In some implementations, the device may be a mobile device such as a mobile phone or a tablet computer.

A yet further aspect of this specification relates to a non-transitory computer-readable storage device storing software comprising instructions executable by a processor of a computing device which, upon such execution, cause the computing device to perform the method disclosed in this specification.

The details of one or more embodiments are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below. Other features and advantages will be apparent from the description and drawings, and from the claims.

DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

Fig. 1 is a flowchart of an example of a process for identifying electrical cable connections; and

Fig. 2 shows an example of a computing device for performing a process for identifying electrical cable connections.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following, functionally similar or identical elements may have the same reference numerals. Absolute values are shown below by way of example only and should not be construed as limiting.

Fig. 1 shows a flowchart of a computer program for identifying electrical cable connections for example in a rack housing IT equipment such as servers. The computer program may be stored in a memory of and installed on a computing device, which may be equipped with an infrared imager or may receive infrared pictures taken by an external infrared camera.

The computing device may be a mobile device such as a mobile phone or a tablet computer. The infrared camera may be a camera integrated in the device or an external camera device coupled to the computing device, such as the FLIR® ONE thermal imaging camera attachment from FLIR® Systems Inc., US, http://www.flir.com., for iOS® and Android® operated mobile devices.

The infrared camera is used to take one or more infrared or thermal pictures comprising at least one electrical cable connections. For example, a technician may take with for example a mobile phone equipped with or coupled with an infrared camera at least one infrared pictures from a rack with servers in a datacenter, which shows the electrical cable connections of the servers and PDUs housed in the rack.

The computing device is configured by the computer program to obtain in step 100 the one or more infrared pictures and to process the obtained pictures. The processing comprises step 102 to detect thermal signatures of electrical cable connections in the pictures and step 104 to use the detected thermal signatures for identifying electrical cable connections.

Thermal signatures may be static and/or dynamic. For example, a thermal signature of an electrical cable connection may be for example a specific color in an infrared picture corresponding to a certain temperature of the electrical cable connection. Another example is a time varying color scheme of an electrical cable connection in an infrared picture, for example when the power consumption of one or more devices supplied via the electrical cable connection varies over the time such as the power consumption of a server having a varying load.

In step 102, static and/or dynamic thermal signatures are detected in the infrared pictures. The detection may comprise distinguishing different thermal signatures comprised in the at least one picture and extracting each detected thermal signature.

In step 104, the detected thermal signatures may be compared with information on thermal signatures assigned to known electrical cable connections in order to identify the electrical cable connections. The information may be retrieved from a database containing all known electrical cable connections and their assigned thermal signatures. The database may be generated during a commissioning of the electrical cable connections of a rack. For commissioning, one or more infrared pictures of the rack during typical operation of the IT equipment housed inside the rack may be taken.

In steps 104, the detected thermal signatures may also be compared with each other in order to distinguish electrical cable connections from each other due to their different thermal emission. For example, it is possible to determine as thermal signature a specific temperature profile in the infrared pictures and to assign this profile to a specific electrical cable connection such as power cable with a high electric current flowing through it. This distinguishing process of electrical cable connections in infrared pictures may be relieved if dynamic thermal signatures are detected, for example a specific thermal emission profile of an electrical cable connection of a server with a varying load.

The infrared pictures should provide data on typical thermal signatures of the electrical cable connections. They may be analyzed as in step 102 for detecting thermal signatures of electrical cable connections. Furthermore, one or more visiblelight pictures of the rack may be taken from the same or a similar perspective than the one of the infrared pictures.

In the visible-light pictures, electrical cable connections may be detected and identified. For example, an electrical cable connection from a PDU to a specific server in the rack may be detected and identified as PDU1-SRV1. Detected and identified electrical cable connections are stored in the database.

The visible-light pictures and the infrared pictures may be compared for identifying associations between detected and identified electrical cable connections and their thermal signatures. For example, the comparison may find a specific thermal signature belonging to the PDU1-SRV1 electrical cable connection. The comparison may be applied to single pictures or sequences of pictures in case of dynamic thermal signatures. The recognized associations between electrical cable connections identified in the visible-light pictures and thermal signatures detected in the infrared pictures are stored in the database.

The database containing the associations may be stored either locally in a memory of the device or in a cloud or network storage retrievable by the computer program implementing the method steps of Fig. 1 via a network connection.

The thermal signatures used to identify electrical cable connections may be generated in order to allow their detection in infrared pictures, particularly to make detection easier due to unique thermal signatures. This may be performed by controlling an electrical cable connection, or more specifically to control the thermal emission of an electrical cable connection.

For example, the electric current flow through an electrical cable connection may be controlled such that a characteristic thermal signature of the connection is generated. The current flow may be for example controlled by influencing the power consumption of one or more device associated with the electrical cable connection. One option is for example to shut down one or more redundant power supplies of a device such that the current flow is reduced, and thermal emission is reduced, which can be detected in an infrared picture. This option is particularly suitable for racks housing devices with redundant power supplies, such as rack with several PDUs and server with redundant power supplies. Another option is to increase and/or decrease the activity of a device associated with electrical cable connection. For example, it is possible to increase or decrease the load of a server in a rack by starting or terminating one or more processes, which incur a load increase or decrease of the server and its power supply.

It is also possible to control one or more elements of the electrical cable connections, for example IR-LEDs (Infrared Light Emitting Diodes) integrated in the electrical cables and/or their plugs, for generating a thermal or infrared emission, which can be detected in infrared pictures comprising these cables and/or their plugs. The elements, particularly the IR-LEDs, may be for example controlled by an electronic integrated in the cables, which is configured to control the elements or IR-LEDs such that a specific thermal (emission) signature is generated, which is unique for each cable and can be easily detected in infrared pictures.

The commissioning process may be performed by the computer program. For example, a technician may commission racks in a datacenter with a mobile device such as a mobile phone equipped with an infrared camera attachment and configured by the computer program to commission the electrical cable connections in the racks. After commissioning and generating the database, the electrical cable connections in the rack may be identified.

It is also possible to use a preconfigured database containing preconfigured typical thermal signatures and their assigned electrical cable connections, for example a specific thermal signature for an electrical cable connection of a highly loaded server, another specific thermal signature of a weakly loaded server, a further specific thermal signature of a low power network devices etc.

Fig. 2 shows a block diagram of a mobile computing device 10 comprising a processor 12 and a storage 14. The device 10 may be for example a mobile phone having an integrated visible-light camera 16 for taking visible-light pictures, for example showing the electrical cable connections of racks in DCs. An infrared camera attachment 18 may be coupled to the device 10 for taking infrared pictures, for example showing the electrical cable connections of racks in DCs. Both the visible-light pictures taken with the camera 18 and the infrared pictures obtained from the camera 18 are processed by the processor 12, which is configured by a computer program stored in the storage 14 to perform the method as described above.

For example, the computer program may configure the processor 12 upon execution to take one or more pictures of the electrical cable connections of a rack with the visible-light camera 16, then to take pictures of the electrical cable connections of the rack from the same or a nearly similar perspective with the infrared camera attachment 18 and to obtain the taken infrared pictures from the attachment 18, then to detect thermal signatures in the infrared pictures and to use them for identifying electrical cable connections in the visible-light pictures.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for identifying electrical cable connections comprising

- obtaining (100) one or more infrared pictures comprising one or more electrical cable connections,

- detecting (102) one or more thermal signatures of the one or more electrical cable connections in the one or more obtained infrared pictures, and

- using (104) the detected one or more thermal signatures for identifying electrical cable connections.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, comprising controlling an electrical cable connection to generate a thermal signature suitable for identifying the electrical cable connection.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein the controlling of an electrical cable connection comprises one or more of the following

- controlling electric current flow through the electrical cable connection;

- controlling one or more elements of the electrical cable connection for generating a thermal emission.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, wherein controlling electric current flow through the electrical cable connection comprises controlling power consumption of a device associated with the electrical cable connection so that a desired thermal signature suitable for identifying the electrical cable connection is generated.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein controlling power consumption of the device associated with the electrical cable connection comprises one or more of the following:

- shutting down one or more redundant power supplies of the device;

- increasing and/or decreasing activity of the device.

6. The computer-implemented method of any of the preceding claims, comprising using the detected thermal signatures for retrieving the electrical cable connections from a database containing electrical cable connections and their assigned thermal signatures.

7. The computer-implemented method of any of the preceding claims, comprising using a mobile device with an infrared imager to obtain one or more infrared pictures comprising the one or more electrical cable connections.

8. A computing device (10) comprising a processor (12) and a storage (14) storing instructions that are operable, when executed by the processor, to cause the computing device to perform the method of any preceding claim.

9. A non-transitory computer-readable storage device storing software comprising instructions executable by a processor of a computing device which, upon such execution, cause the computing device to perform the method of any of claims 1 -7.