US-12621244-B2 - Method for providing an efficient communication in a hierarchical network of distributed devices

US12621244B2US 12621244 B2US12621244 B2US 12621244B2US-12621244-B2

Abstract

A method for providing an efficient communication in a hierarchical network of distributed devices includes collecting first data from a first client device sent by a sensor via a second communication interface; storing the first data in a data storage; determining metadata of the first data; receiving a requirement information of the first data; generating classification information of the first data according to the metadata and the requirement information; providing the classification information to a master device and/or to a second client device according to a rule; and updating the classification information when the first data is changed.

Inventors

Jan Christoph SCHLAKE
Santonu Sarkar
Marie Christin Platenius-Mohr
Madapu Amarlingam
Reuben Borrison

Assignees

ABB SCHWEIZ AG

Dates

Publication Date: 20260505
Application Date: 20240228
Priority Date: 20230309

Claims (15)

1 . A method for providing an efficient communication in a hierarchical network of distributed devices comprising at least a master device, at least a first client device, wherein the at least first client device is connected via a first communication interface with the master device, the method comprising: collecting first data by the at least first client device sent by at least one sensor device via a second communication interface; storing the received first data in a data storage of the first client device; determining by the at least first client device metadata of the first data; receiving by the at least first client device a requirement information of the first data; generating a classification information of the received first data by the at least first client device according to the metadata and the requirement information of the first data, wherein the classification information is generated using a prediction model or a machine learning model at the first client device, wherein the classification information is modified based on faulty data information; providing the classification information of the first data by the at least first client device to the master device and/or to at least a second client device according to a rule information; and updating the classification information when the first data is changed, wherein the updating of the classification information is triggered by the requirement information changing.
2 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the classification information comprises at least one of: type or category of first data, cost of providing first data, cost of processing of first data, availability or status of first data, a quality parameter of the first data that defines whether the first data fulfils a predefined quality to be usable by other devices in the network.
3 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the rule information is locally stored in the first client device and shared with any other device in the network upon inquiry or in case of an update of the rule information, or the rule information is generated by the master device and globally distributed to any other device in the network.
4 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein updating the classification information comprises a change of at least one of: metadata of first data, requirement information of first data, a configuration of the network by installing or removing at least a client device or master device and/or at least a sensor device.
5 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the classification information is updated at least partially by the at least one master device.
6 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the requirement information defines a demand and supply of the first data among the distributed network.
7 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the updating of the classification information is triggered by at least one of: additional first data becomes available, or metadata of the first data is changed.
8 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the rule information defines how and to which devices the classification information is provided.
9 . A computer program product comprising instructions stored in tangible non-transitory computer media which, when the computer program is executed by a processor of a computer, causes the computer to perform a method for providing an efficient communication in a hierarchical network of distributed devices comprising at least a master device, at least a first client device, wherein the at least first client device is connected via a first communication interface with the master device, the method comprising: collecting first data by the at least first client device sent by at least one sensor device via a second communication interface; storing the received first data in a data storage of the first client device; determining by the at least first client device metadata of the first data; receiving by the at least first client device a requirement information of the first data; generating a classification information of the received first data by the at least first client device according to the metadata and the requirement information of the first data, wherein the classification information is generated by using a prediction model or a machine learning model at the first client device, wherein the classification information is modified based on faulty data information; providing the classification information of the first data by the at least first client device to the master device and/or to at least a second client device according to a rule information; and updating the classification information when the first data is changed, wherein the updating of the classification information is triggered by the requirement information changing.
10 . The computer program according to claim 9 , wherein the classification information comprises at least one of: type or category of first data, cost of providing first data, cost of processing of first data, availability or status of first data, a quality parameter of the first data that defines whether the first data fulfils a predefined quality to be usable by other devices in the network.
11 . The computer program according to claim 9 , wherein the rule information is locally stored in the first client device and shared with any other device in the network upon inquiry or in case of an update of the rule information, or the rule information is generated by the master device and globally distributed to any other device in the network.
12 . The computer program according to claim 9 , wherein updating the classification information comprises a change of at least one of: metadata of first data, requirement information of first data, a configuration of the network by installing or removing at least a client device or master device and/or at least a sensor device.
13 . The computer program according to claim 9 , wherein the classification information is updated at least partially by the at least one master device.
14 . The computer program according to claim 9 , wherein the requirement information defines a demand and supply of the first data among the distributed network.
15 . The computer program according to claim 9 , wherein the updating of the classification information is triggered by at least one of: additional first data becomes available, metadata of the first data is changed or the requirement information changes.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS The instant application claims priority to European Patent Application No. 23160980.1, filed Mar. 9, 2023, which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference. FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE The present disclosure generally relates to a method for providing an efficient communication in a hierarchical network of distributed devices. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION In a modern automation system, edge nodes, client devices, or edge devices are used to collect data and to run software applications to be used an industrial network process. The collected data are then transferred by the client devices to higher edge devices at a higher level or master devices to be stored in a central storage. Therefore, when specific data is required, one has always to access the central storage to get the data. U.S. Pat. No. 9,525,627 describes a system to transmit packages between a user device and a source network. However, this classical approach to have a centralized data backbone is no longer useful when operating modern industrial processes. This is, as more and more data are made available to applications in the client devices, this data is usually high-frequency data and/or data with only a limited use for non-experts. As a result, a lot of bandwidth is wasted to transfer data which is afterwards not used any more if the classical approach is used by first sending data upward to a master device, e.g., a cloud, or higher edge nodes and then send it back to the lower edge node, where the data is consumed by an application. BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In one general aspect, the present disclosure describes an improved system and method for providing an efficient communication and an efficient data processing in a hierarchical network of distributed devices. In a first aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method of providing an efficient communication in a hierarchical network of distributed devices comprising at least a master device, at least a first client device, wherein the at least first client device is connected via a first communication interface with the master device, comprising the following steps: collecting first data from the at least first client device sent by at least one sensor device via a second communication interface; storing the received first data in a data storage of the at least one client device; determining, by the at least first client device, metadata of the first data; receiving, by the at least first client device, a requirement information of the first data; generating a classification information of the received first data, by the at least first client device, according to the metadata and the requirement information of the first data; providing the classification information of the first data by the at least first client device to the master device and/or to at least a second client device according to a rule information; and updating the classification information, when the first data is changed. In other words, embodiments in accordance with the disclosure improve a dynamic assignment of data types of data locally generated by a client device or lower edge device more efficiently and to provide an overall data overview in a hierarchical network of distributed devices, as data generated locally is not only but now also shared between client devices of the same hierarchical level. Each edge device in the network is now aware where required data is stored and if needed, can be directly enquired from the edge device storing the required data. For this, it is beneficial that data received by a client device are classified or categorized in terms of the importance of the data by generating a classification information based on metadata indicating whether data should be shared with other devices or stored in a device and a requirement information indicating when and where data is needed at a certain time in the network. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWING(S) Exemplary embodiments will be described in the following with reference to the following drawings. FIG. 1 is a flowchart for a method in accordance with the disclosure. FIG. 2 is a flowchart for a method of data processing between a master device and a client device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION FIG. 1 illustrates a schematic flow-diagram of a method 100 of the present disclosure for providing an efficient communication in a hierarchical network 70 of distributed devices 72, 74, 76 comprising at least a master device 72, at least a first client device 74, wherein the at least first client device 74 is connected via a first communication interface 50 with the master device 72. In first step 102, first data 10 is collected from the at least first client device 74 sent by at least one sensor device 78, e.g., a motor, a pump, via a second communication interface 52. In a second step 104, the received first dat