WO2013079086A1

WO2013079086A1 - Environment observation system

Info

Publication number: WO2013079086A1
Application number: PCT/EP2011/071174
Authority: WO
Inventors: Timo Pietari SIIPOLA
Original assignee: Nokia Siemens Networks Oy
Priority date: 2011-11-28
Filing date: 2011-11-28
Publication date: 2013-06-06

Abstract

The present invention relates to methods, apparatus and computer program products for implementing an environmental observation system (101) in which environmental measurement information are received from one or more wireless network entities (102, 103), fixed network entities or observation systems, wherein the wireless network entities (102, 103) include mobile devices. One or more predefined policies are applied to one or more of the environmental measurement information, the environmental measurement information is stored and processing of the stored environmental measurement information is enabled.

Description

Environment Observation System

The present invention relates to an environment observation system and, in particular, to an environment observation system utilising mobile communication networks.

Environmental monitoring stations are used to monitor various environmental factors, for example, pollution, wind speed/direction, pressure, humidity, and so on. The environmental monitoring stations are often located at a few discreet geographical locations where each environmental monitoring station may only monitor a limited number of environmental factors. This is primarily due to the cost of building, implementing and maintaining the environmental monitoring stations and due to the requirements and regulations of the owner of the monitoring station. For example, the owner may only be interested in a certain subset of

environmental factors.

Accordingly, as the environmental monitoring stations are typically installed with only a small subset of sensors for monitoring a correspondingly small set of environmental factors then the traditional environmental monitoring station is significantly limited in use. For example, an environmental monitoring station implemented by a weather monitoring organisation may only monitor wind speed/direction, rainfall, humidity and temperature. There is no need for an organisation monitoring weather to further include any sensors to monitor any other environmental factors, such as radiation, pollution, air borne particles, diseases, chemicals, and so on.

Also, environmental monitoring stations are presently installed at discreet geographical locations and as such only provide information regarding the environmental factors that the particular monitoring station is monitoring at that particular discreet geographical location. For example, if the monitoring station is monitoring air pollution then only the air pollution at the exact location of the monitoring station is monitored which is a limitation of the present environmental monitoring stations. Thus, an accurate reflection or indication of the monitored environmental factors in many geographical locations or a wide area and/or in a comprehensive way, is not possible which is detrimental to the purpose of monitoring environmental factors and the reliability or usefulness of the monitoring stations.

The present invention looks to address, at least in part, some or all of the

drawbacks and disadvantages discussed hereinabove.

According to a first aspect of the present invention there is provided a method comprising the steps of: receiving environmental measurement information from one or more wireless network entities wherein the wireless network entities include mobile devices; applying one or more predefined policies to one or more of the environmental measurement information; storing the environmental measurement information; and enabling the stored environmental measurement information to be processed.

The method may be implemented by a server, computing device or similar apparatus. Environmental measurement information is received from one or more wireless entities. The wireless entities may be any entity that is part of a wireless network, for example, wireless mobile devices (which may include mobile

telephones, tablets, laptops, notebooks, wireless sensor apparatus that may communicate with a wireless network, and so on), base stations, and so on.

The environmental measurement information may include an environmental measurement relating to an environmental factor that may be measured today or in the future along with none or one or more information relating to the

environmental measurement. The environmental measurement information may be taken, collected, determined or identified by one or more sensors. For example, sensors may take environmental measurements of environmental factors such as pollution, wind speed, wind direction, airborne particles, chemicals, radiation, and so on. The sensors may be associated with the wireless network entities. The association may include the wireless network entities being the sensors, sensors attached to wireless network entities, sensors being integrated with wireless network entities, sensors being in communication with wireless network entities, and so on.

One or more sensors may be associated with a wireless network entity, where in the case that more than one sensor is associated with the wireless network entity then the sensors may take environmental measurements of the same or different environmental factors.

The environmental measurement information may be received in a pull manner, a push manner or any combination thereof.

For example, the environmental measurement information may be requested and received in response to the request (e.g. in a pull manner). The environmental measurement information may be received directly and from the wireless network entities without a specific request for the environmental measurement information (e.g., in a push manner) where the wireless network entity may autonomously transmit environmental measurement information itself, or in line with a predefined time period or policy, e.g. every hour and so on, or the wireless network entity may be triggered into sending one or more environmental measurement information, e.g. prompted by a user of the wireless network entity such as the user of a mobile telephone.

The environmental measurement information may be received in any combination of the push manner and the pull manner, for example, environmental

measurement information may be received from wireless network entities autonomously, e.g. every hour, and due to a trigger (e.g. a warning, verification required, further measurements required, and so on) one or more of the wireless network entities may be requested to provide particular environmental

measurement information.

The one or more predefined policies that may be applied to the environmental measurement information may be applied to individual environmental measurement information, a set of environmental measurement information and/or when a particular number of environmental measurement information has been received. The predefined policies may include any number of rules, conditions, thresholds, actions to take, and so on.

For example, if the environmental measurement information received relates to the environmental factor of radiation, then a policy may be applied to every received radiation measurement, where the policy may compare the environmental measurement information with a predetermined threshold and, if the radiation measurement is above the predetermined threshold then, for example, perform an action of raising a warning alarm, requesting more radiation measurements from one or more wireless network entities, and requesting one or more wireless network entities to provide environmental measurement information of other environmental factors, such as wind speed and direction. As will be appreciated, the above policy is purely an example and any rules, conditions or actions may be included in a policy as required.

Other predefined policies may be applied, for example, once a predetermined number of pollution measurements have been received then a policy may be applied to identify if the pollution in a geographical area is above a threshold.

As will be appreciated, any number of predefined policies may be applied where the predefined policies may be directed to different types of environmental factors, different geographical locations, different types of environmental measurement information, different wireless network entities, and so on. As will be further appreciated, the predefined policies may include any thresholds, conditions, rules, criteria, and so on that may be applied to, or related to, given environmental measurement information, combination of measurements, groups of

measurements, geographical locations or areas, and so on.

The predefined policies may include one or more actions to take, for example, the actions may include transmitting a warning alarm to another party, another server and/or system, transmitting messages to a wireless network entity (e.g. a text message to a mobile telephone), requesting verification of one or more received environmental measurement information, requesting further environmental measurement information of the same environmental factor or one or more related environmental factors, and so on. As will be appreciated, the predefined polices may include any number of actions to take.

The received environmental measurement information are stored, where the environmental measurement information may be stored on the server, in a database, or any other record system, where the database or other record system may be integrated with ore operatively connected to the server or apparatus performing the method of the present invention.

The method enables the stored environmental measurement information to be processed. For example, the server (or other apparatus performing the method) may process the stored environmental measurement information and thus enables the stored environmental measurement information to be processed. The stored environmental measurement information may be transmitted to a third party for processing, for example, a third party may subscribe to receive one or more types of environmental measurement information. Third parties may be permitted or allowed to access the database (or other record system) of the stored

environmental measurement information in order to process one or more of the environmental measurement information. The environmental measurement information stored may be provided to a cloud computing or distributed processing arrangement in order to enable significant data processing to be performed without affecting the performance of other apparatus, e.g. third party apparatus, the apparatus performing the method of the present invention and so on. As will be appreciated, the stored environmental measurement information may be

processed by one or more parties/entities and in any combination, for example, one, two or more third parties may access, receive or be subscribed to particular environmental measurement information stored by the method, in addition one or more stored environmental measurement information may be processed via distributed processing in order to analyse the environmental measurement information, and so on. The method may further comprise the steps of receiving the one or more predefined policies; and storing the one or more predefined policies such that the predefined policies can be applied to the received environmental measurement information.

The predefined policies may be defined on the apparatus implementing the method of the present invention, or may be defined on another apparatus, e.g. a third party device. The predefined policies may be stored locally or on a device operatively connected to the apparatus implementing the method of the present invention.

The step of storing the received environmental measurement information further includes the steps of identifying one or more additional information to be stored with the environmental measurement information; determining the identified one or more additional information; and storing the determined one or more additional information combined with the environmental measurement information.

One or more additional information may be stored with the environmental measurement information where the additional information may be the same or different for each environmental measurement information.

For example, all environmental measurement information relating to pollution may be stored with the same one or more additional information or may, for example, depending on the purpose, a party requesting the pollution measurements, be stored with different one or more additional information. In this example, the pollution environmental measurement information may be stored with location information and sensor type information as default or as specified by a predefined policy. However, a third party subscribing to or requesting pollution environmental measurement information in a particular geographical location may further wish to have additional information, for example, which sensors and/or wireless network entities took the measurements. Thus, it may be identified that additional information is required and the additional information may be determined and stored with the environmental measurement information received. For example, to determine additional information it may be known, e.g. the additional information such as location, wireless network entity identity, and so on, may be received from the wireless network entity with the received environmental measurement information. The wireless network operator, wireless network entity or other party may be interrogated or the additional information requested. Thus the method may further comprise the steps of requesting the one or more additional

information and receiving the one or more additional information. Also, environmental measurement information relating to different environmental factors may be stored with the same or different one or more additional information.

The step of enabling the stored environmental measurement information to be processed further includes one or more of processing the stored environmental measurement information, transmitting the stored environmental measurement information to a third party, providing a third party to access the stored

environmental measurement information and performing distributed processing of the stored environmental measurement information. The stored environmental measurement information may be processed in one or more different ways in order to analyse and interpret the environmental

measurement information. The processing of the stored environmental

measurement information and/or the additional information may be processed locally or externally depending on the processing power required. Alternatively or additionally, third parties may subscribe to the system and perform the processing of one or more of the stored environmental measurement information and thus it is enabled by the method to allow any type of processing by any party of the stored environmental measurement information. The method may further comprise the steps of identifying one or more wireless network entities to provide environmental measurement information; and

instructing the identified one or more wireless network entities to provide

environmental measurement information. The method may identify that additional environmental measurement information are required, for example, to verify environmental measurement information received and/or to obtain further environmental measurement information if, for example, a predefined policy defines an action to obtain further environmental measurement information of any type of environmental factor. One or more wireless network entities may be instructed directly or via a third party, e.g. a wireless network operator, in order to obtain and transmit the requested

environmental measurement information.

The method may further comprise the steps of identifying one or more

environmental factors to be measured; and requesting environmental

measurement information relating to the identified one or more environmental factors.

The method may further comprise the steps of determining a verification of a received environmental measurement information is required; and requesting verification of the received environmental measurement information from the wireless network entity that provided the environmental measurement information.

Therefore, the wireless network entity may be requested to provide a verification of a previous environmental measurement information, for example, in case the environmental measurement is above a threshold and before any action, e.g. a warning message is transmitted, the accuracy of the environmental measurement may be verified.

The method may further include the steps of determining a verification of a received environmental measurement information is required; and requesting verification of the received environmental measurement information from one or more wireless network entities within a predefined distance from a location of the received environmental measurement information to be verified. The method may further comprise the steps of determining a detrimental environmental factor based on at least the received environmental measurement information; and performing an action if the detrimental environmental factor is determined.

The determination of a detrimental environmental factor may be based on applying a predefined policy (e.g. determining if the corresponding received environmental measurement is above a threshold) or may be based on processing the stored environmental measurement information. Any action may be taken by the method, for example, transmitting a warning or an alert to a third party, a user of a mobile device, enabling users and/or third parties to access maps and representation of the environmental factor being monitored, requesting further environmental measurement information of any type of environmental factor determined by the method.

The actions may be taken within a particular geographical area as defined by a predefined policy or by any other party or mechanism.

The method may further comprise generating a graphical representation of an environmental factor based on the received environmental measurement information. The graphical representation may be, for example, a map. The graphical representation may be based on received environmental measurement information relating to the environmental factor being represented graphically and may further be based on received environmental measurement information relating to other environmental factors. For example, if the environmental factor being represented graphically is radiation then the graphical representation may be based on radiation measurements but may further be based on other environmental measurement information such as wind speed, wind direction, and so on.

According to a second aspect there is provided an apparatus comprising a first input adapted to receive environmental measurement information from one or more wireless network entities wherein said wireless network entities include mobile devices; a first processing unit adapted to apply one or more predefined policies to one or more of said environmental measurement information; a second processing unit adapted to store said environmental measurement information; and a third processing unit adapted to enable said stored environmental

measurement information to be processed.

According to a third aspect of the present invention there is provided an apparatus for: receiving environmental measurement information from one or more wireless network entities wherein said wireless network entities include mobile devices; applying one or more predefined policies to one or more of said environmental measurement information; storing said environmental measurement information; and enabling said stored environmental measurement information to be processed.

The apparatus may be a computing device. The apparatus may be a server.

The apparatus may further comprise a second input adapted to receive said one or more predefined policies; and a storing means adapted to store said one or more predefined policies such that said predefined policies can be applied to said received environmental measurement information.

The first processing unit may be further adapted to identify one or more additional information to be stored with said environmental measurement; determine said identified one or more additional information; and store said determined one or more additional information with said environmental measurement.

The second processing unit may be further adapted to perform one or more of processing the stored environmental measurement information, transmitting said stored environmental measurement information to a third party, providing a third party to access said stored environmental measurement information and

performing distributed processing of said stored environmental measurement information. The apparatus may further comprise a third processing unit adapted to identify one or more wireless network entities to provide environmental measurement information; and an output adapted to instruct said identified one or more wireless network entities to provide environmental measurement information.

The apparatus may further comprise a fourth processing unit adapted to identify one or more environmental factors to be measured; and a fifth processing unit adapted to request environmental measurement information relating to said identified one or more environmental factors.

The apparatus may further comprise a sixth processing unit adapted to determine a verification of a received environmental measurement is required; and a seventh processing unit adapted to request verification of said received

environmental measurement from said wireless network entity that provided said environmental measurement.

The apparatus may further comprise an eighth processing unit adapted to determine a detrimental environmental factor based on at least said received environmental measurement information; and a ninth processing unit adapted to perform an action if said detrimental environmental factor is determined.

The first processing unit through ninth processing unit may be the same

processing unit, different processing units, or any combination thereof. The first input and the second input may be the same input or different inputs.

The apparatus may be adapted by hardware, software or any combination thereof.

The apparatus may be adapted to perform or implement any or all of the features or functions of the present invention.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention there is provided a computer program product comprising computer readable executable code for: receiving environmental measurement information from one or more wireless network entities wherein said wireless network entities include mobile devices; applying one or more predefined policies to one or more of said environmental

measurement information; storing said environmental measurement information; and enabling said stored environmental measurement information to be processed.

The computer program product may comprise any computer readable executable code for implementing any, or all, of the features or functions of the present invention. Embodiments of the present invention will now be described, by way of example only and with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

Figure 1 shows a simplified block diagram of an environment observation system in accordance with many of the embodiments of the present invention.

As discussed hereinabove, the traditional environment measuring stations have several drawbacks which decrease the effectiveness of current monitoring or observation techniques. For example, the present environmental monitoring stations are expensive to install and maintain, provide limited geographical coverage, typically include a limited, inflexible set of sensors (therefore monitor only a limited, inflexible set of environmental factors), thereby reducing the usefulness of the information or data obtained from the environmental monitoring stations.

Figure 1 shows a simplified block diagram of a system 101 of many of the embodiments of the present invention.

System 101 includes one or more measuring sensors 102, 103 where the measuring sensors may be installed or located on or in various wireless network entities 104, 105. For example, measuring sensor 102 may be located at or attached to a base station 104 in a wireless mobile network and measuring sensor 103 may be located in or attached to a mobile device (e.g. mobile telephone, tablet, laptop, notebook, personal digital assistant, mobile wireless electronic sensor, and so on). Any number of sensors 102, 103 may be integrated with, embedded in, or attached to the wireless network entities 104, 105. Measuring sensors 102 and 103 could be understood also as a network of numerous separate sensors.

The wireless network entities 104, 105 are operatively connected to a wireless communication network 106. One or more servers 107, or computer devices, may be operatively connected to the wireless communication network 106. Therefore enabling the sensors 102, 103 to operatively connect to and/or communicate with the one or more servers 107 via the wireless network entities 104, 105 and the wireless communication network 106 and/or any other network, fixed or wireless.

The measuring sensors 102, 103 may measure any number of environmental factors, for example, pollution, wind speed, pressure, chemicals, radiation, air bourn diseases/particles, and so on. As a person skilled in the art will appreciate, the measuring sensors may be able to measure any technically identifiable environmental factor that is required.

As the measuring sensors 102, 103 are implemented at wireless network entities 104, 105 then a wide and varied geographical area can be monitored or observed as presently there are millions of mobile devices 105 located throughout the world and correspondingly hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of base stations are also located throughout the world along with other wireless network entities. Thus, by incorporating the measuring sensors 102, 103 at wireless network entities 104, 105 a vast geographical area can be monitored or observed which was not possible using the traditional monitoring stations at discreet locations.

By utilising the wireless communication network 106, measurements of

environmental factors can be obtained, requested and/or received by server 107 in real time, on demand, and/or any defined time period as required. Also, if, for example, a measurement sensor in one geographical location reads high levels of pollution then the server 107 may request that all wireless network entities 104, 105 in and around that geographical location that are capable to, to report measurements of the pollution where that wireless network entity 104, 105 is currently located. Furthermore, the server 107 may also request wireless network entities 104, 105 in and around the geographical location to report, if capable, other environmental measurement information for related environmental factors.

The server 107 may receive the sensor 102, 103 measurements via at least the wireless network 106. The server 107 may receive the measurements from the sensors 102, 103 connected to the wireless network entities 104, 105 in a push manner (e.g. the sensors transmit the measurements to the server 107 without being requested to do so), in a pull manner (e.g. the sensors transmit the measurements to the server 107 after receiving a request from the server 107), or in any combination of the push and pull mechanisms (e.g. the sensors transmit the measurements to the server 107 automatically or autonomously periodically in a push manner but the server 107 may also request measurements at other times to verify measurements or once a specific measurement from a sensor 102, 103 is of particular interest in a pull manner). Alternatively or additionally the owner of the wireless network entity (e.g. network operator, user of a mobile device, and so on) may trigger or transmit environmental measurement information to the server 107. The server 107 may receive measurements from all sensors 102, 103 that are active at that time or may instruct or receive measurements from a subset of the available sensors 102, 103. For example, in order to reduce the amount of data traffic over the wireless network 106, or any other communication network, the server 107 may instruct only a subset of the active or available sensors 102, 103 to report measurements to the server 107.

The server 107 may also receive measurements from sensors 102, 103 specified or requested by a third party. For example, the system of the present invention may enable third parties to provide the sensors 102, 103 and the server 107 via the wireless network 106 is utilised to receive the measurements from the sensors 102, 103 specified by the third party and to provide the measurement information to the third party or enable the third party to access the measurement information. On receipt of the measurements from the one or more sensors 102, 103, the server 107 may store the measurement information in a database, which for the purpose of many of the embodiments also includes or any other kind of record system or data structure. The database may be integrated with the server 107 or operatively connected to the server 107. The measurements may be stored by the server 107 for processing by the server 107, for providing the measurements to a third party or for a third party to access and process.

The measurement received by the server 107 may include one or more

parameters where the parameters may include one or more pieces of information relating to the sensor 102, 103, wireless network entity 104, 105 and/or the measurement. For example, the parameters may include one or more of a sensor identity, sensor type, measurement type, environmental factor monitored, location of the sensor, and so on.

The server 107 may further store one or more additional measurement information for each received measurement in the database. The one or more additional measurement information may include a time stamp of the measurement, a date of the measurement, a type of measurement, type of environmental factor measured, a record of the sensor 102, 103 providing the measurement, a location of the measurement, and so on. As will be appreciated, any one or more additional measurement information may be any relevant or useful additional measurement information as required. The location of the measurement may be obtained or provided by one or more methods. For example, if the measurement is received from a sensor 102 attached to or integrated with a Base Station or other fixed wireless network entity 104 then the location of the Base Station is known to the server 107 or may be obtained from a database, from a network operator and so on. If the sensor 103 is a wireless sensor 103, e.g. integrated with, embedded in or attached to a mobile wireless network entity 105, e.g. a mobile device, a separate wireless sensor, and so on, then the server 107 may receive or obtain a Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates of the sensor 103. Alternatively, or additionally, the location of the sensor 103 may be determined based on one or more network entities, e.g. a Base Station or other network entity 104, with which the sensor 103 is in communication with using, for example, the base station cell coverage area, triangulation, and so on. Alternatively or additionally, the location information for the sensor 102, 103 may be provided by the sensor 102, 103 and/or the wireless network entity 104, 105 as part of the one or more parameters that may be transmitted to the server 107 with or in relation to the measurement.

Alternatively or additionally, the server 107 may request the location of the sensor 102, 103 from the sensor 102, 103 or the wireless network entity to which the sensor 102, 103 is attached to or integrated with. Alternatively, or additionally, the server 107 may be aware of one or more of the locations, for example, may store in a database the locations of base stations or the geographical area covered by each base station or other wireless network entity. Alternatively, or additionally, the server 107 may request from a third party, e.g. a network operator, the location of the sensor 102, 103 or the wireless network entity to which the sensor 102, 103 is attached to or integrated with.

The one or more additional measurement information stored with each received measurement may be the same or different, for example, may be based on the type of measurement, type of environmental factor, location and so on.

The server 107 may also store predefined policies (which may include one or more of rules, criteria, conditions, and so on) where the server 107 may apply one or more policies to the received measurements from the sensors 102, 103.

One or more policies may be applied depending on one or more of the type of the measurement, the purpose of the monitoring, and so on. As will be appreciated, the server 107 may apply one or more policies based on any number of factors in order to obtain meaningful and useful monitoring of one or more environmental factors. For example, a policy may define the one or more additional information to be stored in the database for each type of measurement or whether a standard or default additional information should be stored. Policies may define when to verify measurements, for example, if a measurement of a particular environmental factor is above or below a particular predefined threshold then the policy may define that the measurement should be re-taken either by the same sensor or a different sensor in the same vicinity. Verification of measurements may be performed in real-time when the measurement is received or at a later time.

Policies may define when to trigger or request further sensors to make

measurements and report them to the server 107. For example, if one sensor measurement is of a predefined value or above or below a predefined threshold then the policy may define that further sensors, of the same type and/or within a predefined geographical area of the sensor making the initial measurement, should be triggered or instructed to provide measurements to the server 107. For example, if the first sensor is a radiation sensor then if the received measurement is above a predefined threshold a policy applied may define that all radiation sensors within, e.g. 50 kilometres, should be instructed or triggered to take measurements and provide them, in either a push or pull manner, to the server 107.

If the server 107 determines that further measurements are required from one or more other sensors, based for example on an applied policy, then the server 107 may trigger or initiate the process to trigger the sensors 102, 103 to provide the required measurements. For example, the server 107 may request mobile devices 105 and base stations 104 to provide measurements of specific or all

environmental factors defined by the server 107 directly by communicating with the relevant wireless network entity, e.g. by Short Message Service (SMS), transmitting a control code, and so on. Alternatively or additionally, the server 107 may operatively interact with the wireless communication network 106 management systems to request measurements from a defined set of wireless network entities 104, 105.

One or more policies may also define a geographical area within which one or more sensors 102, 103 are to provide measurements.

A policy may also define that, depending on the type of measurement received, sensors able to measure further different types of environmental factors related to the first received measurement may be triggered or instructed to provide measurements. For example, if the first measurement received is radiation and it is above a threshold then the policy may define that wind direction and wind speed should be monitored and therefore instruct or trigger related sensors to take and provide measurements of the different environmental factors. Further policies may define a specified number of measurements have to be received before any further analysis is required. For example, if say 50

measurements are received that indicate a high level of pollution then it may indicate that further analysis is required by the environmental observation system. As will be appreciated, any number of policies may be defined which may be applied independently or in any combination thereof. The policy or policies may include any conditions, rules, priorities, and so on as required in order to effectively use the environmental observation system. Thus, the utilisation of policies enables the environmental observation system according to the

embodiments of the present invention to be flexible, efficient and be able to be configured by any party (third party, user, operator, and so on) to fulfil any purpose or perform any functions. Any party (third party, user, operator, and so on) may be permitted to define policies and store those policies in the server 107. It may also be defined when to apply the policies, for example, based on the type of measurement, the purpose of the measurement, the parties involved or requiring the environmental factors to be monitored, and so on. The server 107 receives and stores measurements from sensors 102, 103 attached to or integrated with wireless network entities and, as described hereinabove, may further store additional measurement information with each measurement. The data stored by the server 107 may then be processed by the server 107, processed by a third party, and so on. Also, in order to be able to efficiently and effectively process the measurement data distributed computing or a cloud computing platform may be utilised so as to move the processing load away from the server 107 if needed. In the traditional monitoring stations an environmental factor measurement, e.g. pollution, would be made and various modelling simulations would be performed in order to provide a best guess or estimate of the impact of the monitored

environmental factor, e.g. pollution, in the area based on wind direction, strength, and so on. However, in many of the embodiments measurements of the pollution can be obtained in a significant number of locations in the defined geographical area of interest in order to obtain an accurate map of the pollution strengths.

Moreover, further measurements of, for example, wind speed, wind direction, etc., may also be monitored or triggered to be monitored in the geographical area of concern in order to determine an accurate representation of the dispersion of the pollution.

As many of the embodiments utilise wireless communication networks 106 then the measurement information of environmental factors can be obtained and received in real-time. This has the further advantage that one measurement of an environmental factor that is of concern can be substantially instantly checked, verified and the spread of the environmental factor determined very quickly, which was not possible in the traditional monitoring stations setup especially if the monitoring station was providing a false positive, in other words if the monitoring station was measuring, for example, high pollution this may be a mistake but the traditional modelling and simulation process would determine that widespread pollution was present when in fact it was an error or very specific to the location of the monitoring station. The server 107 may process the received measurements from the wireless network entities 104, 105 in order to determine or identify the extent and spread of the environmental factor(s) being monitored. The server 107 may also perform modelling and simulation on the received measurements in order to predict the extent of the measured environmental factors. For example, a graphical representation of an environmental factor may be generated based on the received environmental measurement information. The graphical representation may be, for example, a map. The graphical representation may be based on received environmental measurement information relating to the environmental factor being represented graphically and may further be based on received environmental measurement information relating to other environmental factors. For example, if the environmental factor being represented graphically is radiation then the graphical representation may be based on radiation measurements but may further be based on other environmental measurement information such as wind speed, wind direction, and so on.

The server 107 alone or in combination with other servers, parallel computing devices or similar perform the processing and modelling of the measure

environmental factors.

Alternatively or additionally, distributed computing systems/platforms and/or cloud computing platforms may be utilised in order to process the measurements due to the processing load that may be required to process the received environmental measurement information.

Alternatively or additionally, third parties may request and/or receive all the measurement information stored by the server 107, or may request and/or receive a specified subset of the stored measurement information that was collected for or on behalf of the third party, or which is relevant to the third party. Thus, third parties may receive measurement information enabling the third party to process the measurement information for their purposes. Alternatively or additionally, the third party may be provided access to the server 107 and/or the database to process any or all of the measurement information. The server 107 or third party may also transmit alerts or updates to mobile devices 105 in order to warn or inform users of the mobile devices of environmental factors in their geographical area or in any area or location useful to the user. The user may be a person or organisation.

For example, if a user of a mobile device 105 is a person that suffers from asthma then the server 107 may transmit an alert to the mobile device 105 of the user to warn them not to enter into a particular geographical location due to high pollution levels which could trigger an asthma attack. Similarly, alerts or information could be provided to people who are pregnant, have young children, are elderly, have medical conditions, and so on where a particular monitored environmental factor, for example, radiation, pollution, and so on, may have a detrimental effect on those population groups.

Mobile devices 105 (those taking environmental measurement information and/or those subscribed to the system) may receive the alert or information in the form of a Short Message Service (SMS) message, a Multimedia Message Service (MMS) message, a map which can be displayed by an application on the mobile device, a link to a web page with the information which can be accessed by the mobile device, and so on. In order to provide the alerts or information to the users of mobile devices 105, the server 107 may operatively interact with the management systems of the wireless communication network 106 in order to identify and transmit the alerts or information to the necessary users.

Organisations may be the emergency services for example, where the measured environmental factor is radiation and the emergency services can receive accurate and up-to-date information on the location and spread of any radiation in the area. Other organisations may include weather organisations, pollution monitoring organisations, and so on. Thus, many of the embodiments of the present invention have several advantages over the traditional monitoring stations. By utilising wireless network devices, such as mobile telephones, wireless sensors that can communicate via a wireless network, base stations, and so on, measurements of environmental factors can be taken over wide and significantly large geographical areas over the world enabling accurate and substantially real-time information on the environmental factors which was not possible using monitoring stations at discreet locations. The utilisation of wireless network entities such as mobile telephones also enables the use of GPS to track and obtain environmental measurement information at required geographical areas.

Also, many more environmental factors may be measured and monitored as wireless network entities, such as mobile devices, can be inbuilt with or provided with sensors to be attached to the mobile devices. In contrast a traditional monitoring station may only contain the sensors required by the organisation installing the monitoring station due to cost and so on.

By utilising wireless communication networks and entities the information based on the monitored environmental factors can be provided to a significant proportion of the population and organisations in real-time. For example, alerts and information may be transmitted to mobile devices. The mobile devices may contain applications enabling the mobile device to display information, such as a real-time or near real-time map of different environmental factors. Also, if a measurement is received that indicates a negative environmental factor, e.g. high pollution, then in many of the embodiments corresponding

measurements of pollution may be requested from the wireless network entities enabling a check or verification of the negative environmental factor along with an accurate and detailed map of the distribution, concentration, direction, spread, and so on of the pollution in that geographical area based on real measurements obtained and processed substantially instantaneously. In contrast, traditional monitoring stations at discreet locations registering a negative environmental factor cannot be verified and the distribution, concentration etc can only be estimated following complex and complicated algorithms, modelling and simulation which is not accurate.

Thus, many of the embodiments enable an accurate and real-time monitoring and processing of environmental factors as well as provide real-time availability of information about the environmental factors based on the corresponding

measurements.

While preferred embodiments of the invention have been shown and described, it will be understood that such embodiments are described by way of example only. Numerous variations, changes and substitutions will occur to those skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims. Accordingly, it is intended that the following claims cover all such variations or equivalents as fall within the spirit and the scope of the invention.

Claims

1. A method comprising the steps of:

receiving environmental measurement information from one or more wireless network entities, fixed network entities or observation systems, wherein said wireless network entities include mobile devices;

applying one or more predefined policies to one or more of said environmental measurement information;

storing said environmental measurement information; and enabling said stored environmental measurement information to be processed.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising the steps of receiving said one or more predefined policies; and

storing said one or more predefined policies such that said predefined policies can be applied to said received environmental measurement information.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1 or 2, in which said step of storing said received environmental measurement information further includes the steps of:

identifying one or more additional information to be stored with said environmental measurement;

determining said identified one or more additional information; and storing said determined one or more additional information combined with said environmental measurement.

4. The method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims in which said step of enabling said stored environmental measurement information to be processed further includes one or more of:

processing the stored environmental measurement information, transmitting said stored environmental measurement information to a third party, providing a third party to access said stored environmental measurement information and performing distributed processing of said stored environmental measurement information.

5. The method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims further comprising the steps of:

identifying one or more wireless network entities to provide environmental measurement information; and

instructing said identified one or more wireless network entities to provide environmental measurement information.

6. The method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims further comprising the steps of:

identifying one or more environmental factors to be measured; and requesting environmental measurement information relating to said identified one or more environmental factors.

7. The method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims further comprising the steps of:

determining a verification of a received environmental measurement is required; and

requesting verification of said received environmental measurement from said wireless network entity that provided said environmental measurement.

8. The method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims further comprising the steps of:

determining a detrimental environmental factor based on at least said received environmental measurement information; and

performing an action if said detrimental environmental factor is determined.

9. An apparatus comprising:

a first input adapted to receive environmental measurement information from one or more wireless network entities, fixed network entities or observation systems, wherein said wireless network entities include mobile devices;

a first processing unit adapted to apply one or more predefined policies to one or more of said environmental measurement information;

a second processing unit adapted to store said environmental measurement information; and

a third processing unit adapted to enable said stored environmental measurement information to be processed.

10. The apparatus as claimed in claim 9, further comprising:

a second input adapted to receive said one or more predefined policies; and

a storing means adapted to store said one or more predefined policies such that said predefined policies can be applied to said received environmental measurement information.

1 1 . The apparatus as claimed in claim 9 or 10, in which said first processing unit is further adapted to:

identify one or more additional information to be stored with said environmental measurement;

determine said identified one or more additional information; and store said determined one or more additional information combined with said environmental measurement.

12. The apparatus as claimed in any one of claims 9 to 1 1 in which said second processing unit is further adapted to perform one or more of:

13. The apparatus as claimed in any one of claims 9 to 12 further comprising:

a third processing unit adapted to identify one or more wireless network entities to provide environmental measurement information; and

an output adapted to instruct said identified one or more wireless network entities to provide environmental measurement information.

14. The apparatus as claimed in any one of claims 9 to 13 further comprising:

a fourth processing unit adapted to identify one or more environmental factors to be measured; and

a fifth processing unit adapted to request environmental measurement information relating to said identified one or more environmental factors.

15. The apparatus as claimed in any one of claims 9 to 14 further comprising:

a sixth processing unit adapted to determine a verification of a received environmental measurement is required; and

a seventh processing unit adapted to request verification of said received environmental measurement from said wireless network entity that provided said environmental measurement.

16. The apparatus as claimed in any one of claims 9 to 15 further comprising:

an eighth processing unit adapted to determine a detrimental environmental factor based on at least said received environmental measurement information; and

a ninth processing unit adapted to perform an action if said detrimental environmental factor is determined.

17. A computer program product comprising computer readable

executable code for: receiving environmental measurement information from one or more wireless network entities, fixed network entities or observation systems, wherein said wireless network entities include mobile devices;