NL2015517B1 - Method for commissioning a wireless network and corresponding communication device. - Google Patents
Method for commissioning a wireless network and corresponding communication device. Download PDFInfo
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- NL2015517B1 NL2015517B1 NL2015517A NL2015517A NL2015517B1 NL 2015517 B1 NL2015517 B1 NL 2015517B1 NL 2015517 A NL2015517 A NL 2015517A NL 2015517 A NL2015517 A NL 2015517A NL 2015517 B1 NL2015517 B1 NL 2015517B1
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- G—PHYSICS
- G01—MEASURING; TESTING
- G01S—RADIO DIRECTION-FINDING; RADIO NAVIGATION; DETERMINING DISTANCE OR VELOCITY BY USE OF RADIO WAVES; LOCATING OR PRESENCE-DETECTING BY USE OF THE REFLECTION OR RERADIATION OF RADIO WAVES; ANALOGOUS ARRANGEMENTS USING OTHER WAVES
- G01S5/00—Position-fixing by co-ordinating two or more direction or position line determinations; Position-fixing by co-ordinating two or more distance determinations
- G01S5/02—Position-fixing by co-ordinating two or more direction or position line determinations; Position-fixing by co-ordinating two or more distance determinations using radio waves
- G01S5/0284—Relative positioning
- G01S5/0289—Relative positioning of multiple transceivers, e.g. in ad hoc networks
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- G—PHYSICS
- G01—MEASURING; TESTING
- G01S—RADIO DIRECTION-FINDING; RADIO NAVIGATION; DETERMINING DISTANCE OR VELOCITY BY USE OF RADIO WAVES; LOCATING OR PRESENCE-DETECTING BY USE OF THE REFLECTION OR RERADIATION OF RADIO WAVES; ANALOGOUS ARRANGEMENTS USING OTHER WAVES
- G01S2205/00—Position-fixing by co-ordinating two or more direction or position line determinations; Position-fixing by co-ordinating two or more distance determinations
- G01S2205/01—Position-fixing by co-ordinating two or more direction or position line determinations; Position-fixing by co-ordinating two or more distance determinations specially adapted for specific applications
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Abstract
The invention relates te a methad for commissioninga wireless netwerk of multiple nodes placed in accordance with an intended physicallay-out, comprising the following steps: a. obtaining intermation about identification codes of all nodes and relativa distances between nodes by carrying out the following sub-steps two er more times: i. powering up a subset of nodes te farm a wireless netwerk; i i. obtaining the identification codes of the subset of nodes within the netwerk: iii. obtaining data substantially representative for relativa distances between nodes: iv. storing the identification codes of the nodes and the data in a database: wherein each time the sub-steps are carried out, the subset of nodes is varied, b. determining the actuallocation of all nodes using the intended physical lay-out and the intermation in the database.
Description
Title: Method for commissioning a wireless network and corresponding communication device
The invention relates to a method for commissioning a wireless network of multiple nodes and further relates to a communication device to be used in the wireless network of multiple nodes and configured to assist during the commissioning phase.
With the current trend of embedding all kind of physical objects with electronics, software, sensors and connectivity, the number of nodes within a wireless network increases dramatically. For instance, in a so-called ‘smart’ building, thousands of devices, such as HVAC controllers as well as other sensors and actuators, e.g. light sensors and light sources, are used and form a wireless network for building management systems.
The installation and commissioning phase can last up to a year for a large building, because after installation each device must be manually configured by giving it an identification, e.g. a name, code or tag, associating it to devices in the same room or zone, and programming the application(s). This process is costly, time consuming, and introduces errors. A key issue in this process is the position or location determination of each device.
However, due to new developments that occur after the installation of the network, they are considered to be smart only for a limited amount of time. This can be solved by adding, updating or replacing devices in the network, which requires the same process for the installation and commissioning phase. As a result, updating of networks in buildings is hardly ever done.
In an attempt to solve the abovementioned problems, it is proposed in US 2009/0066473 A1 to automate the commissioning of wireless network devices according to an installation plan. In the disclosed method, at least three devices having a known location send this known location to a device having an unknown location, which device is then able to determine its position using well-known triangulation techniques. Details about the type and identity of the device along with the determined location is subsequently send to a business management system which compares the obtained data with the building service plan for configuration of the devices.
However, a drawback of this solution is that the wireless network devices itself will have to be specifically configured for the commissioning phase to allow the devices to obtain location information from at least three other devices in order to determine its own location and to subsequently send the information to the business management system. Hence, network devices which do not have this ability cannot be commissioned according to this method. Hence, the number of suitable devices is limited or devices have to be specifically adapted to the method before commissioning.
Hence, it is an object of the invention to improve the commissioning of a wireless network of multiple nodes.
This object is achieved by providing a method for commissioning a wireless network of multiple nodes placed in accordance with an intended physical lay-out, comprising the following steps: a. obtaining information about identification codes of all nodes and relative distances between nodes by carrying out the following sub-steps two or more times: i. powering up a subset of nodes to form a wireless network; ii. obtaining the identification codes of the subset of nodes within the network; iii. obtaining data substantially representative for relative distances between nodes; and iv. storing the identification codes of the nodes and the data in a database, wherein each time the sub-steps are carried out, the subset of nodes is varied, and b. determining the actual location of all nodes using the intended physical lay-out and the information in the database.
An advantage is that installation of the nodes can be done more quickly as it is no longer required to (manually) record the identification code of the node and corresponding location. The nodes can be more or less placed randomly in accordance with a predefined physical layout.
Commissioning can also be done more quickly as the steps a) and b) can be automated using suitable control systems and algorithms. A further advantage may be that devices forming the nodes do not have to be adapted for this method. It is common in a wireless network to exchange identification codes and the relative distance may for instance be determined from the signal strength, which is also readily available.
An advantage of using different subsets of nodes each time the sub-steps are carried out is that the network is forced to create different communication routes for the nodes thereby obtaining more information about the network itself and the relative positions of nodes then in case of powering up all devices at the same time as is common in the prior art. The additional information may be necessary as the relative distances based on signal strengths may be good, but may not be sufficiently accurate information.
Determining the relative distances based on signal strengths may for instance provide advantages over methods using the time of flight principle, in case the clock frequency of the nodes is not sufficiently quick to determine the required time differences.
In an embodiment, the method further comprises the following steps: - selecting a number of anchor nodes from the multiple nodes, which number is lower than the total number of nodes; and - obtaining and storing the identification codes and corresponding actual location of the anchor nodes, wherein determining the actual location of all nodes also makes use of the identification codes and actual location of the anchor nodes.
By providing the identification codes and corresponding actual location of a limited number of nodes, the so-called anchor nodes, the process of determining the actual location of all nodes can be carried out more quickly as there is reliable information available to start from.
In an embodiment, the actual location of the nodes is determined using a statistical process, e.g. using a regression analysis. A statistical process provides significant advantages due to the fact that the obtained information about the relative distances may not be sufficiently accurate and/or contains noise. This may result in inconsistencies in the determination.
In a statistical process, the output may be a matrix containing for each location and each node the chance that a node is at a certain location. If there is a unique match between node and location for all nodes and locations, then the actual location of all nodes can be determined without inconsistencies. However, in case a node according to the ‘chance matrix’ corresponds to two locations, this creates an inconsistency in the output. An advantage of the invention is that the nodes are powered up multiple times, wherein each time a different subset of nodes is powered up resulting in additional information about the network. This additional information can be used to solve the inconsistencies, e.g. by using an iterative process.
It will be apparent for the skilled person that the ‘chance matrix’ is not essential and may not be present at all, or that the ‘chance matrix’ is an intermediate result in the location determination process and that the final output is a matrix with coordinates for each device corresponding to the determined location of the device.
In an embodiment, the identified inconsistencies may allow to determine which additional information could help in solving the inconsistencies. Hence, after identifying an inconsistency, step a) of the method according to the invention may be carried out one or more times, wherein the subset of nodes to be powered up is chosen based on the required additional information. In other words, steps a) and b) of the method according to the invention may be carried out substantially in parallel, wherein the chosen subset of nodes during at least one repetition of steps i. to iv. is dependent on the iterative process of determining the actual location of all nodes.
In an embodiment, at least two anchor nodes are selected, wherein determining the actual location of all nodes comprises: determining a first estimation of the actual location of the nodes relative to one of the at least two anchor nodes; - determining a second estimation of the actual location of the nodes relative to another one of the at least two anchor nodes; and - comparing the first and second estimation to determine the actual location of the nodes.
The advantage of this embodiment is that it helps in determining inconsistencies in case the first and second estimation do not result in similar results. On the other hand, in case the first and second estimations lead to similar results, the first and second estimation can be used to confirm each other.
It will be apparent for the skilled person that additional estimates can also be determined and compared with other estimates. Hence, a third and fourth, etc., estimate can be determined based on other anchor nodes, which in turn can be compared to other estimates.
It is preferred that if more than one anchor node is selected, the selected anchor nodes are at a minimum distance to each other, more preferably distributed through the network.
In an embodiment, it is accepted that there is no determination of the actual location of all nodes possible without inconsistencies. In that case, additional information may also be provided in the form of adding anchor nodes to the solution and performing the algorithm again. It is also possible that the solution with the least inconsistencies is chosen and the inconsistencies are solved manually.
The invention also relates to a communication device for a wireless network of multiple nodes, wherein the device is configured to perform the following steps: a. sending information to the multiple nodes allowing the nodes to determine if they need to power up or not; b. receiving identification codes from the powered up nodes; c. receiving data from powered up nodes that is substantially representative for the relative distances between nodes; d. storing the identification codes and data in a database; and e. repeating steps a) to d), wherein each time a different subset of nodes is powered up. An example of such a communication device is a gateway.
The invention will now be described in a non-limiting way by reference to the accompanying drawings in which like parts are indicated by like reference numerals, and in which:
Figure 1 depicts a physical lay-out of a building with a wireless network of nodes;
Figure 2 depicts distances of possible network paths;
Figure 3 depicts network topology when all nodes are powered on;
Figure 4 depicts network topology when a first subset of nodes is powered on; and
Figure 5 depicts network topology when a second subset of nodes is powered on.
Figure 1 schematically depicts a physical lay-out of a building B with a wireless network of nodes P1-P8 positioned at locations denoted by reference numerals 1-8.
An advantage of the invention is that the nodes have been installed randomly, meaning that during installation it was only relevant that the correct type of device was installed as node, but that the identification code of the device and/or its exact location are not relevant. This results in a time-efficient installation of all the devices.
The random installation is reflected in the random order of the reference symbols associated with the nodes P1-P8 compared to the reference numerals 1-8.
The only thing known so far is that the nodes P1-P8 have been placed in accordance with an intended physical lay-out. For the remainder of the description it is assumed that the actual position and the intended position are identical. Each skilled person will recognize that this is rarely the case, and that deviations may exist, but this is not relevant for explaining the invention and its merits. An advantage of the method according to the invention may even be that the deviations between the intended physical lay-out and the actual lay-out are determined allowing to correct the intended physical lay-out to more closely reflect the actual situation.
When powering up the network, the nodes P1-P8 will start connecting to each other for communication. Wireless communication may be established using any protocol, e.g. Bluetooth.
Communication between nodes depends on the relative distance between nodes and is reflected in the signal strength. Fig. 2 schematically depicts relative distances between nodes. Equal distances have been denoted by equal reference symbols. The smallest distance is designated by the letter “a” and the largest distance has been designated by the letter “e” the letters “b\ “c" and “d” denote corresponding intermediate distances. In the current example, it is assumed that communication between nodes is not possible for distances above distance e. Hence, Fig. 2 also provides an overview of possible communication paths between nodes.
Fig. 3 depicts network topology when all nodes are powered on. The result is a partially connected mesh network in which all nodes are directly or indirectly via other nodes connected to each other. For the invention, all nodes may also be considered to be a subset of the multiple nodes.
The nodes will start exchanging data including their identification code, e.g. a MAC address. For simplicity reasons, we will use the reference symbols P1 to P8 as identification codes. Hence, upon powering up, a list is obtained with all the identification codes.
The data exchange also contains information about the relative distance between nodes, for instance in the form of time of flight or signal strength. This data can be collected in a database. Hence, the database will contain a table of identification codes and relative distances between them, e.g. as shown below for the situation in Fig. 3, where the same letters are used to indicate the relative distance, but with an apostrophe (1) to indicate that the obtained relative distance is not equal to the actual relative distance due to for instance obstacles in between nodes, orientation of antennas, etc. A ‘°°’ (infinity sign) means that no information about the relative distance was obtained.
Table 1: relative distance information obtained from the network from Fig. 3
Fig. 4 depicts network topology in case the nodes are powered down and subsequently a first subset of nodes is powered up. The first subset of nodes in this embodiment are all nodes except nodes P1 and P6. Because nodes P1 and P6 are not participating in the network, different connections will be made as shown in Fig. 4 compared to the network in Fig. 3. As a result thereof, additional information about relative distances will be obtained. In fact, the following data can be obtained from the network and stored in a database:
Table 2: relative distance information obtained from the network from Fig. 4
Fig. 5 depicts a network topology in case the nodes are powered down and subsequently a second subset of nodes is powered up. The second subset of nodes in this embodiment are all nodes except nodes P2 and P7. Because nodes P2 and P7 are not participating in the network, different connections will be made as shown in Fig. 5 compared to the networks in Fig. 3 and 4. As a result thereof, additional information about relative distances will be obtained. The following data can be obtained from the network and stored in a database:
Table 3: relative distance information obtained from the network from Fig. 5
Combining the data obtained from the networks in Fig. 3, 4 and 5 results in the following table:
Table 4: cumulative data
For this exemplary embodiment, the obtained data is sufficient to match the identification codes of the nodes to the possible locations in the lay-out of the building using an appropriate algorithm. The algorithm preferably takes into account that some of the data could be imprecise.
To aid the algorithm in matching the nodes to the lay-out of the building or to minimize the amount of data required for the matching algorithm, a number of nodes may be selected from the multiple nodes, which number is lower than the total number of nodes. These nodes may be called anchor nodes, because subsequently the identification codes and actual location within the lay-out of the building are determined and provided to the algorithm as known parameters.
An example of an algorithm is a statistical process calculating the chance that a node is located at a certain location. An example of an output of the statistical process is depicted below in Table 5 in which chances are depicted that a node P1-P8 is located at a location 1-8.
Table 5: output algorithm
In grey, the largest percentage in a column has been indicated. This shows that for the locations 1-6 it is clear which nodes are located there, but that for locations 7 and 8, there is an inconsistency, as it seems that node P7 provides the highest chance to be located in both locations. However, looking at the rows and finding the highest percentages clearly shows that it is reasonable to estimate that node P4 is located at location 8 and that node P7 is located at location 7. However, if this assessment is not that clear, additional information may need to be obtained by carrying out additional experiments with a further subset of nodes different from the other subsets, or the algorithm should be repeated but from a different starting point.
Although the example above has been described for a 2D situation with a limited number of nodes, it will be apparent to the skilled person in the art that the invention can be expanded to a 3D situation as well with many more nodes.
The above described process to determine the location may use a communication device to control the nodes during the commissioning phase and to gather the data and information. In this example it is assumed that one of the nodes acts as a gateway, e.g. node P3, P5 or P8.
The communication device sends information to the other nodes allowing the nodes to determine whether they need to power up or not during the commissioning phase, received identification codes and data bout the relative distances between nodes, stores the codes and data and repeats this process for different subsets of powered up nodes.
Software to determine the locations from the stored data and codes may be implemented in the communication device, but it may well be that the data and codes are send to another device, which is temporarily or permanently available to determine the locations of nodes.
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NL2015517A NL2015517B1 (en) | 2015-09-28 | 2015-09-28 | Method for commissioning a wireless network and corresponding communication device. |
PCT/NL2016/050663 WO2017058010A1 (en) | 2015-09-28 | 2016-09-27 | Method for commissioning a wireless network and corresponding communication device |
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GB2460406A (en) * | 2008-05-27 | 2009-12-02 | Thales Holdings Uk Plc | Determining the geometry of sensor node network using a mass spring model |
US20100035546A1 (en) * | 2006-09-06 | 2010-02-11 | Koninklijke Philips Electronics N V | Locating reference nodes for positioning devices in a wireless network |
US8102784B1 (en) * | 2009-02-18 | 2012-01-24 | Dust Networks, Inc. | Localization in a network |
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US20100035546A1 (en) * | 2006-09-06 | 2010-02-11 | Koninklijke Philips Electronics N V | Locating reference nodes for positioning devices in a wireless network |
GB2460406A (en) * | 2008-05-27 | 2009-12-02 | Thales Holdings Uk Plc | Determining the geometry of sensor node network using a mass spring model |
US8102784B1 (en) * | 2009-02-18 | 2012-01-24 | Dust Networks, Inc. | Localization in a network |
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