TWI782630B - Iot gateway with configurable data transmission mode - Google Patents

Abstract

An IoT gateway with configurable data transmission mode includes a data collector, a data capturer and a data uploader. The data collector is configured to collect the data provided by a data provider based on a first data policy. The data capturer is configured to capture the data collected by the data collector based on a second data policy. The data uploader is configured to handle the data captured by the data capturer based on a third data policy. The first data policy, the second data policy and the third data policy may be configured separately according to different IoT applicantions.

Description

IoT gateway with adjustable data transfer mode

The present invention relates to an Internet of Things gateway, in particular to an Internet of Things gateway with an adjustable data transmission mode.

The Internet of Things (Internet of Things) generally refers to a network connected by physical "things". These "things" are generally accompanied by sensors, software and other technologies, and are transmitted to each other through the Internet data or send data to the server.

The Internet of Things gateway (IoT Gateway) is an important member of the Internet of Things application, which usually includes a data gateway, a network gateway and a security gateway, which can provide communication between devices and the cloud. The data gateway can collect the data detected by the sensors without network capability on the ground, and then transmit the collected data to the cloud for subsequent data processing and analysis. A network gateway can be used in a closed network to provide interoperability, and it usually includes a protocol translator, an impedance matcher, a rate converter, an error isolator, or a signal translator. For example, a network gateway can allow IoT gateways to provide Internet access services by accessing 4G mobile networks. Since traditional data collection terminals usually do not have authentication and security mechanisms, in order to prevent these traditional devices from being exposed to cyber hackers, IoT gateways can be A gateway isolates it.

The transmission of local data to the cloud is one of the most important functions of the IoT gateway. Therefore, depending on the application scenarios, data types, network transmission bandwidth limitations, or network transmission cost considerations, the IoT gateway The controller needs to have corresponding planning and design, such as deciding the time point to collect data from the ground and the time point to transmit the collected data to the cloud. The following tables 1 to 4 show the project content of several IoT applications. There will be different data collection and data upload settings based on application requirements, data types, transmission bandwidth limitations, or transmission costs.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an IoT gateway 100 in the prior art. The Internet of Things gateway 100 includes a data processor 20, coupled between the data provider 10 and the data receiver 80, used to collect data from the data provider 10 according to a predetermined time setting, and immediately transmit the collected data To the data receiving end 80.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of another IoT gateway 200 in the prior art. The IoT gateway 200 includes a data collector 30 and a data uploader 50 , which are coupled between the data provider 10 and the data receiver 80 . The data collector 30 and the data uploader 50 can perform data transmission according to a specific communication protocol, wherein the collection time of the data collector 30 and the uploading time of the data uploader 50 can be set individually.

IoT gateways often need to handle different application scenarios, such as including emergency Urgent long-term data collection and emergency data reporting, and IoT gateways deployed in different regions may have different data collection and transmission requirements. When the application requirements change, the Internet of Things gateways 100 and 200 of the prior art need to modify the source code of the program (such as the program of the data collector 30 or the program of the data uploader 50), and the source code can only be released after compilation, verification and testing. The on-site Internet of Things gateways 100 and 200 are deployed to adjust the data collection time and data upload time, making it difficult to develop and maintain the Internet of Things application system. Therefore, there is a need for an IoT gateway with an adjustable data transmission mode to adapt to different applications without modifying the source code of the program.

The present invention also provides an IoT gateway with an adjustable data transmission mode, which includes a data collector, a data retriever and a data uploader. The data collector is used to collect data provided by a data provider according to a first data policy. The data collector is used to retrieve the data collected by the data collector according to a second data policy. The data uploader is used to process the data captured by the data retriever according to a third data policy, wherein the first to the third data policies are individually adjusted according to different application requirements of the Internet of Things.

The present invention also provides an IoT gateway with an adjustable data transmission mode, which includes a data collector, a first data collector, a second data collector, a first data uploader and a first 2. The uploader of the data. The data collector is used to collect data provided by at least two data providers. The first data collector is used to retrieve the data collected by the data collector according to a first data policy, and the second data collector is used to retrieve the data collector according to a second data policy the data collected. on the first data The uploader is used to process the data captured by the first data capturer according to a third data policy, and the fourth data uploader is used to process the data captured by the second data capturer according to a fourth data policy The retrieved data. Wherein, the first data policy and the third data policy are individually adjusted according to the application requirements of a first Internet of Things, and the second data policy and the fourth data policy are adjusted according to the application requirements of a second Internet of Things to adjust individually.

10, 10_1, 10_2, 10_3: data provider

20: Data Processor

30: Data Collector

40, 40_1, 40_2: data collector

50, 50_1, 50_2: data uploader

60: data storage area

70, 70_1, 70_2: data buffer

80: data receiver

S1, S2, S3: Data Policy

S31, S32, S33, S34: Upload Guidelines

100, 200, 300, 400: IoT gateway

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an IoT gateway in the prior art.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of another IoT gateway in the prior art.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of an IoT gateway with an adjustable data transmission mode in an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of the detailed data flow between the data collector and the data receiver in the IoT gateway according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of an IoT gateway with an adjustable data transmission mode in an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of an IoT gateway 300 with an adjustable data transmission mode in an embodiment of the present invention. The IoT gateway 300 includes a data collector 30, a data retriever 40, a data uploader 50, a data storage area 60, and a data buffer 70, coupled to a data provider 10 and a data Between the receiving end 80. The data collector 30 can collect the data provided by the data provider 10 according to the data policy S1 and use a predetermined communication protocol, and transmit the collected data to the data storage area 60 for storage. data retrieval The uploader 40 can retrieve the data stored in the data storage area 60 according to the data policy S2, and transmit the retrieved data to the data uploader 50 using a predetermined communication protocol. The data uploader 50 can receive the data sent by the data fetcher 40, and judge whether the transmission condition is met according to the data policy S3. When judging that the transmission conditions are not met, the data uploader 50 will transmit the data received from the data fetcher 40 to the data buffer 70 for storage; The data in the buffer zone 70, and use a predetermined communication protocol to transmit the read data to the data receiving end 80.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the data collector 30 can use the Modbus communication protocol to collect the data provided by the data provider 10 . The Modbus communication protocol is a communication protocol based on a master/slave (master/slave) device or a client/server architecture, which is the industry standard of the most widely used communication protocol in the industrial field. In other embodiments of the present invention, the data collector 30 can use Open Platform Communication Unified Architecture (Open Platform Communication Unified Architecture, OPC-UA), Ethernet/Internet Protocol (EtherNet/IP), automatic control technology B Ethernet (EtherNet for control automation technology, EtherCAT), distributed network protocol (Distributed Network Protocol, DNP3) or building automation and control network (Building Automation and Control Networks, BACNet) and other communication protocols to collect data from 10 providers information provided. However, the communication protocol used by the data collector 30 when collecting data does not limit the scope of the present invention.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the data retriever 40 may use Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) to transmit the retrieved data to the data uploader 50 . In other embodiments of the present invention, the data collector 40 can use inter process communication (inter process communication, IPC), remote procedure call (Remote Procedure Call, RPC), endpoint connection (socket connection) or messaging protocol (messaging protocol) and other communication protocols to transmit the retrieved data to the data uploader 50 . However, the communication protocol used by the data collector 40 does not limit the scope of the present invention.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the data uploader 50 can use the Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) message service to transmit the read data to the data receiving end 80 . MQTT is a lightweight message publish and subscribe service (Publish & Subscribe), which is currently the most commonly used message transmission technology in IoT applications. In other embodiments of the present invention, the data uploader 50 may use Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (Advanced Message Queuing Protocol, AMQP), Constrained Application Protocol (Constrained Application Protocol, CoAP) or Hypertext Transfer Protocol (Hypertext Transfer Protocol, HTTP) Wait for the communication protocol to transmit the accessed data to the data uploader 50 . However, the communication protocol used by the data uploader 50 does not limit the scope of the present invention.

In the present invention, the data provider 10 can be an electric meter or a Modbus slave device, the data collector 30 can be a Modbus master device, and the data uploader 50 can be a message queue telemetry transmission publisher (MQTT Publisher), and The data receiving end 80 can be a cloud server or an MQTT Broker. However, the types of the data provider 10 , the data collector 30 , the data uploader 50 and the data receiver 80 do not limit the scope of the present invention.

In the embodiment shown in FIG. 3, the data policy S1 represents the collection policy that the data collector 30 follows when collecting data from the data provider 10, and the data policy S2 represents the collection policy that the data collector 40 uses to collect data from the data storage area 60. The retrieval policy under which the data is stored, and the data The policy S3 represents the processing policy according to which the data uploader 50 processes the data captured by the data retriever 40 . In the present invention, the IoT gateway 300 will put adjustable variables (such as data policies S1-S3) in different nodes (such as data collectors 30, data retrievers 40, and data uploaders 50) to respond to The application needs to adjust the different data transmission modes. In this way, the data transmission mode of the IoT gateway 300 can be flexibly controlled by adjusting variables without modifying the original code.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the data policy S1 may include one or more collection criteria, such as address/length of data collection, frequency of data collection, and conditions of data collection. For example, for the data provided by the data provider 10, the data collector 30 can collect data with a specific address (for example, the address is 0200) and a specific length (for example, the length is 2 bits) according to the data policy S1. group), collect data at a specific frequency (for example, every second), when a specific environmental condition is met (for example, when the temperature is higher than 38 degrees Celsius, or when the temperature is higher than 20 degrees Celsius and the wind speed is greater than 2000 revolutions per minute time) to collect data. Then, the data collector 30 will store the data collected according to the data policy S1 into the data storage area 60 . The collection criteria mentioned above are only examples, and the quantity and content of the collection criteria included in the data policy S1 do not limit the scope of the present invention.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the data policy S2 may include one or more retrieval criteria, such as the name of the data to be retrieved, the frequency of data retrieval, and the conditions of the data retrieval. For example, for the data stored in the data storage area 60, the data retriever 40 can retrieve data containing a specific name (such as "temperature" and/or "wind speed" in the name) according to the data policy S2, so as to Acquire data at a specific frequency (eg, every 30 seconds), acquire data when a specific environmental condition is met (eg, when the temperature is higher than 60 degrees Celsius), or at a specific environmental frequency Fetch data when it is updated (for example, every time the temperature is updated). Then, the data retriever 40 will send the data retrieved according to the data policy S2 to the data uploader 50 . The above extraction criteria are only for illustration, and the number and content of the extraction criteria included in the data policy S2 do not limit the scope of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of detailed data flow between the data collector 40 and the data receiver 80 in the IoT gateway 300 according to the embodiment of the present invention. The data policy S3 can include one or more uploading criteria S31-S34, and the data uploader 50 can process the data stored in the data buffer 70 accordingly. The following upload guidelines are for illustration only, and the quantity and content of the upload guidelines included in Data Policy S3 do not limit the scope of the present invention.

The upload criterion S31 is related to data screening, and is used to determine whether to store the data sent by the data collector 40 into the data buffer 70 . The data filtering condition can be related data value or data sequence. For example, among the multiple pieces of data sent by the data collector 40, the data uploader 50 can, according to the upload criteria S31 in the data policy S3, combine a piece of data with a maximum value, a piece of data with a minimum value, and a piece of data with a specific value. A piece of data with a value, one or more pieces of data within a specific range, or data with a specific ratio (such as the last piece of data) are stored in the data buffer 70 .

The upload criterion S32 is related to data format conversion. When the data sent by the data collector 40 has a first format, the data uploader 50 can convert it into a second format compatible with the data receiver 80 . For example, the data uploader 50 can convert the data sent by the data retriever 40 from JSON format to XML format, or from JSON array format to JSON object format.

The upload criterion S33 is related to data buffering. When one or more transmission conditions are not met, the data uploader 50 can upload the existing data to the data buffer 70 and merge it with the existing data. The upload criterion S34 is related to data sending operation and sending control. When one or more sending conditions are met, the data uploader 50 can upload the existing data to the data receiving terminal 80 .

In the upload criteria S33 and S34, one or more transmission conditions may include "when there is data stored in the data buffer 70", "when the amount of data stored in the data buffer 70 is greater than a predetermined value", "when When there is data stored in the data buffer 70 and the data storage time does not exceed a predetermined value", or "when there is data stored in the data buffer 70 and a data transmission instruction is received". For example, when there is data stored in the data buffer 70, when the amount of data stored in the data buffer 70 is greater than 4KB, when there is data stored in the data buffer 70 and the storage time of the data is not more than 10 minutes, or When there is data stored in the data buffer 70 and a data transmission command is received, the data uploader 50 can immediately upload the data stored in the data buffer 70 to the data receiving end 80 . Conversely, when it is determined that any of the above transmission conditions is not met, the data uploader 50 will first upload the data sent by the existing data fetcher 40 to the data buffer 70, and merge with the existing data until any of the above transmission conditions is met When uploading to the data receiving end 80 together.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of an IoT gateway 400 in an embodiment of the present invention. The IoT gateway 400 includes a data collector 30, first to Nth data collectors 40_1-40_N, first to Nth data uploaders 50_1-50_N, a data storage area 60, and first to Nth The data buffers 70_1-70_N are coupled between the data provider 10_1-10_M and the data receiver 80, wherein M and N are integers greater than 1. For illustrative purposes, Figure 5 shows The embodiment of M=3 and N=2 is shown, but the values of M and N do not limit the scope of the present invention.

The data provider 10_1 may include one or more electric meters or Modbus slave devices, the data provider 10_2 may include one or more machine tools or servers, and the data provider 10_3 may include one or more BACNet fire alarms system. The Internet of Things gateway 400 can use two message groups to handle different Internet of Things applications: the first data collector 40_1, the first data uploader 50_1 and the first data buffer 70_1 form a first message group, which is aimed at The first Internet of Things application project is set in consideration of the application requirements, data types, transmission bandwidth limitations or transmission costs; the second data collector 40_2, the second data uploader 50_2 and the second data buffer 70_2 form a second The message group is set according to the application requirements, data type, transmission bandwidth limitation or transmission cost of the second IoT application project.

For example, when customers want to analyze the differences in power consumption of different products using machine tools, and whether the machine tools have abnormal power consumption, they need to collect product production and power consumption data for a long time, and establish normal product and power consumption data. You can check the table, and now you can set the first message group. The data policies that the data collector 40_1 and the data uploader 50_1 of the first message group follow can be set according to the needs of analyzing long-term changes. For example, the first data collector 40_1 obtains the machine tool model from the peripheral system of the data provider 10_2 every minute , product number, production batch number, production time and/or quantity, and obtain the power consumption of the meter from the data provider 10_1 every minute, and the data uploader 50_1 uploads the data to the data receiving end 80 once a day.

For example, the data policy that the data collector 40_2 and the data uploader 50_2 of the second message group are based on can be set according to the needs of disaster monitoring, such as the second data collector The 40_2 will obtain the alarm message from the data provider 10_3 in real time, and the data uploader 50_2 will upload the data to the data receiver 80 immediately when the event occurs.

To sum up, in the IoT gateway of the present invention, data collectors, data retrievers, and data uploaders will operate according to individual data policies, and each data policy can be flexible according to the needs of the application program Adjusted to provide different data transfer modes without modifying the source code.

The above descriptions are only preferred embodiments of the present invention, and all equivalent changes and modifications made according to the scope of the patent application of the present invention shall fall within the scope of the present invention.

10: Data provider

20: Data Processor

30: Data Collector

40: Data Extractor

50: Data uploader

60: data storage area

70: data buffer

80: data receiver

S1, S2, S3: Data Policy

300: IoT Gateway

Claims (20)

An IoT Gateway with an adjustable data transmission mode, which includes: a data collector for collecting data provided by a data provider according to a first data policy; a data collector , used to retrieve the data collected by the data collector in accordance with a second data policy; and a data uploader, used to process the data collected by the data collector in accordance with a third data policy, wherein the The first to the third data policies are individually adjusted according to the application requirements of different Internet of Things, wherein the second data policy includes at least one retrieval criterion, and the data collector is used to base the at least one retrieval criterion To extract data containing a specific name from the data collected by the data collector, to retrieve the data collected by the data collector at a first specific frequency, to retrieve the data when a first specific environmental condition is met The data collected by the collector, or the data collected by the data collector when a specific environmental data is updated. The Internet of Things gateway as described in claim 1, wherein the first data policy includes at least one collection criterion, and the data collector is also used to extract from the data provided by the data provider according to the at least one collection criterion Collect data with a specific address, collect data with a specific length from the data provided by the data provider, collect data provided by the data provider with a second specific frequency, or meet a second specific Collect the data provided by the data provider when the environmental conditions are met. The Internet of Things gateway as described in claim 1, wherein the third data policy includes Contains a first upload criterion, and the data uploader is also used to upload a piece of data with a maximum value, a piece of data with a minimum value, and a piece of data with a minimum value among the data captured by the data extractor according to the first upload criterion A piece of data with a specific value, one or more data within a specific range, or data with a specific ratio. The Internet of Things gateway as described in claim 3, wherein the third data policy further includes a second upload criterion, and the data uploader is used to retrieve the data retriever according to the second upload criterion The data obtained with a first format are converted into data with a second format. The Internet of Things gateway as described in claim 3, which further includes a data buffer, wherein the third data policy further includes a third upload criterion, and the data uploader is also used to upload according to the third upload criterion Upload the data captured by the data capturer to the data buffer. The Internet of Things gateway device as described in claim 5, wherein: the third upload criterion includes at least one transmission condition, and the at least one transmission condition includes when there is stored data in the data buffer, when all data in the data buffer When the amount of stored data is greater than a predetermined value, when there is data stored in the data buffer and the data storage time does not exceed a predetermined value, or when there is data stored in the data buffer and a data transmission instruction is received; and When it is determined that the at least one transmission condition is not met, the data uploader is further used to upload the data captured by the data retriever to the data buffer. The Internet of Things gateway as described in claim 5, wherein the third data policy further includes a fourth upload criterion, and the data uploader uploads the data placed in the data buffer according to the fourth upload criterion to a data receiving end. The Internet of Things gateway device as described in claim 7, wherein: the fourth upload criterion includes at least one transmission condition, and the at least one transmission condition includes when there is stored data in the data buffer, when the data in the data buffer When the amount of stored data is greater than a predetermined value, when there is data stored in the data buffer and the data storage time does not exceed a predetermined value, or when there is data stored in the data buffer and a data transmission instruction is received; and And when it is determined that the at least one transmission condition is met, the data uploader is also used to upload the data stored in the data buffer to the data receiving end. The Internet of Things gateway as described in claim 1 further includes: a data storage area for storing the data collected by the data collector from the data provider. An IoT gateway with an adjustable data transmission mode, which includes: a data collector, used to collect data provided by at least two data providers; a first data collector, used to collect data based on a first data policy to retrieve the data collected by the data collector; a second data collector to retrieve the data collected by the data collector according to a second data policy; a first data uploader to process the primary data in accordance with a third data policy the data captured by the capturer; and a fourth data uploader for processing the data captured by the second data capturer in accordance with a fourth data policy, wherein the first data policy and the third The data policy is individually adjusted according to the application requirements of a first Internet of Things, and the second data policy and the fourth data policy are individually adjusted according to the application requirements of a second Internet of Things. A method for adjusting a data transmission mode of an Internet of Things gateway, which includes: a data collector in the Internet of Things gateway collects data provided by a data provider according to a first data policy; the Internet of Things gateway A first data collector in the gateway retrieves the data collected by the data collector according to a second data policy; and a first data uploader in the IoT gateway processes according to a third data policy The data captured by the first data capturer, wherein the first to the third data policies are individually adjusted according to the application requirements of different Internet of Things, wherein the second data policy includes at least one extraction criterion, and The method further includes: the first data collector extracts data including a specific name from the data collected by the data collector according to the at least one retrieval criterion, and retrieves the data collection at a first specific frequency The data collected by the data collector, the data collected by the data collector is retrieved when a first specific environmental condition is met, or the data collected by the data collector is retrieved when a specific environmental data is updated. The method of claim 11, wherein the first data policy includes at least A collection criterion, and the method further includes: the data collector collects data with a specific address from the data provided by the data provider according to the at least one collection criterion, and collects data with a specific address from the data provided by the data provider Collecting data with a specific length, collecting data provided by the data provider at a second specific frequency, or collecting data provided by the data provider when a second specific environmental condition is met. The method as described in claim 11, wherein the third data policy includes a first upload criterion, and the method further includes: the first data uploader uploads the first data retriever according to the first upload criterion A piece of data with a maximum value, a piece of data with a minimum value, a piece of data with a specific value, one or more pieces of data within a specific range, or data with a specific ratio among the retrieved data. The method as described in claim 13, wherein the third data policy further includes a second upload criterion, and the method further includes: the first data uploader retrieves the data retriever according to the second upload criterion The data obtained with a first format are converted into data with a second format. The method as described in claim 13, wherein the third data policy further includes a third upload criterion, and the method further includes: the first data uploader retrieves the data retriever according to the third upload criterion The retrieved data is uploaded to a data buffer. The method as described in claim 15, wherein: the third upload criterion includes at least one transmission condition, and the at least one transmission condition includes when there is data stored in the data buffer, when the amount of data stored in the data buffer When it is greater than a predetermined value, when there is data stored in the data buffer and the data storage time does not exceed a predetermined value, or when there is data stored in the data buffer and a data transmission instruction is received; and the method further includes When it is determined that the at least one transmission condition is not met, the first data uploader uploads the data captured by the first data retriever to the data buffer. The method as described in claim 15, wherein the third data policy further includes a fourth upload criterion, and the method further includes: the first data uploader puts the data in the data buffer according to the fourth upload criterion The data is uploaded to a data receiving end. The method as described in claim 17, wherein: the fourth upload criterion includes at least one transmission condition, and the at least one transmission condition includes when there is data stored in the data buffer, when the amount of data stored in the data buffer When it is greater than a predetermined value, when there is data stored in the data buffer and the data storage time does not exceed a predetermined value, or when there is data stored in the data buffer and a data transmission instruction is received; and the method further includes When it is determined that the at least one transmission condition is met, the data uploader uploads the data stored in the data buffer to the data receiving end. The method as described in Claim 11, further comprising: the data collector storing the data collected from the data provider in a data storage area. The method as described in claim 11, which includes: the data collector collects data provided by at least two data providers; a second data collector in the Internet of Things gateway collects data according to a fourth data policy The data collected by the data collector; a second data uploader in the Internet of Things gateway processes the data collected by the second data collector according to a fifth data policy, wherein the second data policy and The fourth data policy is individually adjusted according to the application requirements of a first Internet of Things, and the third data policy and the fifth data policy are individually adjusted according to the application requirements of a second Internet of Things.

Images