Invented by Raghavendra Kulkarni, Sharath Narahari, Ravindar Roopreddy, Cloudleaf Inc

The market for events-based asset location and management system is growing at a rapid pace. This system is designed to track and manage assets in real-time, providing businesses with a comprehensive view of their assets and their location. The system uses a combination of technologies such as GPS, RFID, and sensors to provide accurate and timely information about the location and condition of assets. The events-based asset location and management system is particularly useful for businesses that have a large number of assets spread across multiple locations. It allows businesses to track the movement of assets, monitor their condition, and optimize their use. This system is used in a variety of industries such as logistics, healthcare, manufacturing, and retail. One of the key drivers of the market for events-based asset location and management system is the increasing demand for real-time asset tracking. Businesses are looking for ways to improve their operational efficiency and reduce costs. The events-based asset location and management system provides businesses with the ability to track assets in real-time, allowing them to make informed decisions about their use and allocation. Another driver of the market is the increasing adoption of IoT (Internet of Things) technology. The events-based asset location and management system is part of the IoT ecosystem, which is growing at a rapid pace. The system is designed to work seamlessly with other IoT devices, providing businesses with a comprehensive view of their operations. The market for events-based asset location and management system is also being driven by the increasing use of cloud-based solutions. Cloud-based solutions provide businesses with a cost-effective way to manage their assets. They also provide businesses with the flexibility to scale their operations as needed. The events-based asset location and management system market is highly competitive, with a large number of players offering similar solutions. However, there are a few key players that dominate the market. These players offer a comprehensive suite of solutions that are designed to meet the needs of businesses in a variety of industries. In conclusion, the market for events-based asset location and management system is growing at a rapid pace. The system is designed to provide businesses with a comprehensive view of their assets and their location, allowing them to make informed decisions about their use and allocation. The market is being driven by the increasing demand for real-time asset tracking, the adoption of IoT technology, and the increasing use of cloud-based solutions. As the market continues to grow, we can expect to see more innovative solutions that are designed to meet the needs of businesses in a variety of industries.

The Cloudleaf Inc invention works as follows

The system includes a communication module on the cloud server, as well as a process flow library to describe how peripheral devices are expected to move through a facility, a rules library describing trigger events associated with one or more peripheral devices and identifying a corresponding action for each trigger event, and a real-time compute engine that generates a sequence of events based on data from the peripheral devices and the process flow library. The system also includes a cloud server with a communication module. It has a process library that describes how peripheral devices should move around a facility. A rules library identifies trigger events for one or more peripheral devices.

Background for Events-based Asset Location and Management System

The asset management system is software that continuously inputs real-time data, where each node is associated with a specific asset. It organizes the data in a coherent manner; offers methods for extracting useful information and knowledge; and provides potential methods to direct these nodes.

Asset management systems can be used to manage the manufacturing, storage, delivery, and other logistical aspects of physical goods.

The tracking of such goods is critical. It provides crucial information to controlling industrial entities, such as the current and historical location, the current and historical rate at which they are moving, the current and past state of those goods (such as humidity, temperature and shock), the current and previous state data regarding these goods.

Within the field of enterprise asset management, physical asset management includes various methods and systems that help various types of enterprises manage various physical and infrastructure assets, including in relation to design, construction, commissioning, operating, maintaining, repairing, modifying, replacing and decommissioning/disposal of such physical and infrastructure assets, which may include equipment, tools, structures, production and service plants, power generating assets, water and waste treatment assets, facilities, distribution networks, transport systems, buildings, inventory, supplies, vehicles, products, information technology systems, and a wide range of other physical assets. There are now information technology systems that help manage and catalog physical assets. These include systems for recording the locations of assets and systems that use networking technologies such as RFID and WiFi to collect and store certain data about assets.

The prior art in asset management systems fails to provide continuous, instantaneous access of all tracked states or to instantly inform operators of events requiring their attention.

The challenges of prior art systems using WiFi and RFID include: “Range, real time access to data, interference potential, physical constraints and centralized control. Power consumption is also a challenge.” WiFi is a great choice for its decent range, and it has the right protocols in place at every level of the software stack. However, WiFi requires a lot of power, making a system that relies on battery-powered devices impossible. RFID is limited by its range, as a reader has to be within range of the asset in order for it to provide information. “Provisioning assets with WiFi or RFID tags can be cumbersome. It requires a secure data connection for WiFi, or a printer to write an ID on a tag, and physical access to the asset for passive RFID tags.

The above list is not exhaustive of all the shortcomings that an asset management system with BLE (hereinafter “BLEATS”) can address. The BLE enabled asset management system (hereinafter?BLEATS?) can be used to address the shortcomings of the prior art. “In embodiments, BLE-enabled asset management systems may consist of a software system which continuously inputs real-time current data, for example, from a collection of computationally intelligent tags where each tag is physically associated with certain assets, coherently organizes this data, provides methods to extract valuable information and knowledge from this data and provides potential methods to direct these tags.

This disclosure assumes that those with the necessary knowledge and expertise have a thorough understanding of Bluetooth Low Energy devices and protocols as well as Internet Physical Devices and Protocols.

The following advantages of the asset management system with BLE are described in this invention:

The present disclosure describes a real-time location and condition monitoring system. According to one disclosed nonlimiting embodiment, the system may include: A plurality leaf node units, some of which have sensor tags associated, each leaf device being associated with at lease one asset; a processing unit located on a remote cloud server from the plurality leaf devices; and, at least, one gateway node unit for collecting data related to at least a leaf device. A human or another physical object can be an asset. The BLE-enabled device is also called asset tag. The asset tag can be physically found inside or attached to an asset. “Tracking an asset means tracking the asset tag attached to it.

The physical assets can have a virtualization in the cloud server. This may include a reference initial at setup and different state changes over time. The customer can set up different location hierarchies and/or sites, using the gateway node and other BLE-enabled devices, such as POIs. This will provide a reference system through which leaf node devices can move. The leaf node devices are moving, and the associated data (including sensor information) is being read and processed through a multi-stage pipeline (tiered). This data can be used to determine the location or condition of assets. Data triggers and aggregations can be set up to produce the desired data in response to different industrial workflows. Multi-stage data pipelines allow processing and logic to spread across multiple tiers, allowing for the optimal use of cloud and network resources. Some data processing can be done on the leaf node (such a detecting different sensory thresholds), others on the gateway node (such a determining a location exit/entry event for an asset/leaf device, for example), while some are performed on a cloud (such a determining handover type events across multiple gateway node devices). Cloud server may maintain a representation of the entire tiered system, including its device registry, processes components, and locations/conditions of devices, as a connected network of components within a reference library. Devices can be connected via duplex protocol to the server, where data is sent upstream and commands are sent downstream using domain-specific message structures. The bi-directional data events can be stitched together into higher-level tasks containing trigger and action pairs by using a process flow designer, as described below.

The system is able to harness the power of BLE sensors, as leaf node devices and BLE technology. It can also use tiered computing and mobile applications, to create a flexible and easy-to-use asset management system that is highly scalable. Cloud resources are used to process and store data, which provides flexibility and scalability. Computing and storage resources can be considered infinite and provided on demand. Cloud platforms can provide end-to-end protection and centralized management of devices in addition to providing a scalable architecture. Leaf node sensors and low-power devices allow for a variety of parameters to be monitored. For example, parameters such as microtracking indoors, GPS outdoors, shock, temperature and battery life. This data storage is useful if connectivity is lost to other devices or the cloud. The use of a tiered logic and processing system allows millions of assets be monitored in bi-directional communication. Certain logic is applied at each level (e.g. event processing at the cloud) and limited data can be transferred to the following tier. This is beneficial for the number of leaf node device that can be supported. Mobile devices (including wearables) can communicate with leaf node device in real-time. An intuitive application allows for easy provisioning of leaf node devices and sending workflow logic, rules and alerts to other devices.

The present disclosure describes a system that allows for the real-time location of a leaf node. According to one non-limiting embodiment, this system may include a location processor located on a remote server (such as a cloud) and at least a beam forming gateway for collecting sectorized information relating to the leaf node.

Another embodiment of any of these foregoing embodiments may include situations in which the leaf node can be adapted to use Bluetooth Low Energy and deployed as an asset label on a physical item.

Another embodiment of any one of the above embodiments may include situations in which the beam-forming gateway node, and the leaf node, can communicate at a distance of not more than 20 feet with no more than 10mW of energy.

The present disclosure describes a management system for information related to a leaf-node device. According to a disclosed non-limiting version of the disclosure, the system can include at least one Bluetooth low energy-enabled device that is adapted to communicate through a Gateway node, and a processing-engine located on a remote server for managing the information relating the leaf-node. The gateway node can be connected to the cloud through WiFi or a cell connection and be able to manage thousands of leaf devices individually.

Another embodiment of any one of the above embodiments of the disclosure may include situations in which the gateway node forms a beam.

A further embodiment of one or more of the previous embodiments may include situations in which the managed information contains at least one of location information for the node leaf, event information about the node leaf, state information regarding the node leaf, and sensor information collected by the node leaf.

The present disclosure describes a method for asset tagging. According to one non-limiting embodiment, the system can include at least one leaf communication node, which is adapted to attach to a physical asset. This leaf communication node has been configured to communicate continuously in real time, using the Bluetooth Low Energy Protocol, with at least a receiver node, which collects information in real time about the location of multiple assets.

A further embodiment of one or more of the previous embodiments may include situations in which the assets are at least human assets, manufacturing assets, and inventory assets.

The present disclosure describes a real-time location management system of at lease one leaf-node device. According to a disclosed non-limiting version of the present disclosure, the system can include a remote location processor facility located on a remote server for determining location; at the least, one beam-forming receiver hardware device for collecting and transmitting sectorized data related to the leaf-node; and, at the least, one Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE-enabled) user device with an application to communicate with the beam-forming receiver hardware a

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