Sensor Detection Architecture for Multi-Location Fault Isolation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing computing systems face challenges in simultaneously detecting failures and abnormalities across multiple locations within a physical system, such as a computing system, due to limitations in sensor configurations that prevent comprehensive monitoring and timely notification of issues, potentially leading to overheating, system failure, or physical damage from undetected leaks in liquid cooling systems.
Innovation Solution
A sensor detection architecture that utilizes a plurality of sensors coupled together to allow a controller to determine system faults at multiple locations simultaneously, with sensors activated and deactivated in specific loops and time periods to identify and isolate abnormalities, including environmental features like liquid presence or temperature, enabling simultaneous detection and location identification of failures across a computing system.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If sensors are coupled in-line (series configuration), then the system can detect abnormalities at one location, but it cannot simultaneously detect failures at multiple locations
Solution Approach 1:
The sensor network is divided into multiple independent loops, where each loop can detect abnormalities at specific locations. This segmentation allows the system to monitor multiple locations simultaneously by dividing the monitoring task across separate sensor loops, resolving the limitation of single-location detection in series configurations.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent transitions from a one-dimensional series sensor arrangement to a two-dimensional loop-based sensor network. By organizing sensors into closed loops with multiple connection paths, the system gains the ability to detect abnormalities at multiple locations simultaneously, adding spatial dimensionality to the detection capability.
2Reliability
If a sensor detects a failure, then the controller can respond to that specific failure, but other sensors further from the controller may not be able to notify the controller of their failures
Solution Approach 1:
The loop configuration establishes multiple feedback paths from sensors to the controller. When a sensor detects a failure, it can notify the controller through its direct connection path. Other sensors on the same loop can also detect and report their failures independently through alternative paths, ensuring that failure information from all locations reaches the controller without being blocked by failures at other points.
Solution Approach 2:
Each sensor in the loop is equipped with local intelligence to independently detect abnormalities and generate notifications. This local quality ensures that each sensor can autonomously communicate its status to the controller, preventing information loss even when other parts of the system fail.
3Productivity
If multiple sensors are deployed to monitor multiple locations, then simultaneous detection capability improves, but the system complexity and sensor interconnections increase
Solution Approach 1:
The loop-based sensor configuration serves multiple functions simultaneously: it enables multi-location detection, provides redundant notification paths, and allows individual sensor isolation. This universal architecture achieves high detection productivity without proportionally increasing complexity, as the same loop structure fulfills multiple monitoring and communication roles.
Data Source
AI summary
In one example, a system for a sensor detection architecture includes a plurality of sensors coupled to a controller to simultaneously detect abnormalities of a physical system at more than one location of the physical system, wherein each of the plurality of sensors are coupled to at least three other sensors of the plurality of sensors.