(12) Patent Application Publication (10) Pub. No.: US 2011/ A1

Transcription

1 (19) United State US A1 (12) Patent Application Publication (10) Pub. No.: US 2011/ A1 Siegman (43) Pub. Date: Dec. 29, 2011 (54) SYSTEMAND METHOD FOR IDENTIFYING ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT USING (52) U.S. Cl /.538 WIRELESS RECEIVERS (57) ABSTRACT (76) Inventor: Craig S. Siegman, Pembroke Pina, By utilizing a tranmitter that plug into a power ocket of a FL (US) piece of electrical equipment, that equipment may be locat able uing a pecialized power ource that interact with the (21) Appl. No.: 12/822,723 tranmitter. The pecialized power ource end a command ignal acro a power cable and caue the tranmitter to end (22) Filed: Jun. 24, 2010 a repone ignal. The repone ignal i received by one or O O more receiver, and the poition of the equipment within it Publication Claification correponding cabinet/rack can be determined. The repone (51) Int. Cl. ignal can be ent uing a number of different technique, G08B I/08 ( ) Such a ultraonic or infrared. 140 c 100a 120

2 Patent Application Publication Dec. 29, 2011 Sheet 1 of 6 US 2011/ A1 S.

3 Patent Application Publication Dec. 29, 2011 Sheet 2 of 6 US 2011/ A1 S. S. S

4 Patent Application Publication Dec. 29, 2011 Sheet 3 of 6 US 2011/ A1 160a 140a 100a-1/ 120a 100a-2/ 12Ob 14Ob Fig

5 Patent Application Publication Dec. 29, 2011 Sheet 4 of 6 US 2011/ A1 120a 160a 100a-1 140a 12Ob 100a-2 14Ob 16Ob 150b 180 Fig. 6

6 Patent Application Publication Dec. 29, 2011 Sheet 5 of 6 US 2011/ A1 120a 160a 100a-1 140a 12Ob 100a-2 14Ob b 180 Fig. 7

7 Patent Application Publication Dec. 29, 2011 Sheet 6 of 6 US 2011/ A1 120a 100a-1 220a 140a 12Ob 100a-2 14Ob 22Ob 16Ob 150b 180 Fig. 8

8 US 2011/ A1 Dec. 29, 2011 SYSTEMAND METHOD FOR IDENTIFYING ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT USING WIRELESS RECEIVERS FIELD OF INVENTION The preent invention i directed to a ytem and method for identifying electrical equipment connected to a pecialized power Supply, and in one embodiment to a ytem and method of identifying electrical equipment connected to a remotely-controllable power ditribution unit (PDU) com municating with at leat one wirele tranmitter and at leat one wirele receiver. DISCUSSION OF THE BACKGROUND Due to change in the location of electrical equip ment in large data center, a ignificant amount of time and effort may be required to track down where any one particular piece of electrical equipment i in the data center. For example, if a erver ha been moved from one rack to another without having had a location log updated, a ytem admin itrator may have trouble locating the erver when the erver automatically report an error. Thi reult in the poibility of wated effort to find the erver and may reult in longer down time for the erver after a erver crah or hardware failure. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The following decription, given with repect to the attached drawing, may be better undertood with reference to the non-limiting example of the drawing, wherein: 0004 FIG. 1 i a implified view of a conventional, detach able electrical power cord for attaching between an electrical outlet (e.g., a connected to or part of a Power Ditribution Unit) and a piece of electrical equipment; 0005 FIG. 2 i a block diagram of a conceptual piece of electrical equipment with variou peripheral connection a well a a connection for the power cord of FIG. 1; 0006 FIG.3 i a block diagram of the electrical equipment of FIG. 2 along with a tranmitter for wirelely tranmitting a repone ignal after receipt of a trigger ignal acro an electrical cord uch a in FIG. 1; and 0007 FIG. 4 i a ide view of an electrical plug of FIG. 1 and the electrical equipment of FIG. 3; 0008 FIG. 5 i a back view of a rack of electrical equip ment including a Power Ditribution Unit and wirele receiver for receiving a repone ignal received from the tranmitter of FIG.3 after receipt of a trigger ignal acro an electrical cord uch a in FIG. 1; 0009 FIG. 6 i a ide view of a rack of electrical equip ment (uch a in FIG. 5) including a Power Ditribution Unit and wirele receiver for receiving a repone ignal received from the tranmitter of FIG. 3 after receipt of a trigger ignal acro an electrical cord Such a in FIG. 1; 0010 FIG. 7 i a ide view of a rack of electrical equip ment (uch a in FIG.5) including a Power Ditribution Unit, a wirele extender and wirele receiver for receiving a repone ignal received from the tranmitter of FIG.3 after receipt of a trigger ignal acro an electrical cord Such a in FIG. 1; and 0011 FIG. 8 i a ide view of a rack of electrical equip ment (uch a in FIG. 5) including a Power Ditribution Unit and individual wirele receiver for receiving a repone ignal received from the tranmitter of FIG.3 after receipt of a trigger ignal acro an electrical cord Such a in FIG. 1. DISCUSSION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A hown in FIG. 1, many piece of electronic equipment are configured to ue a detachable power cord 100 with a female end 100a (that plug into a ocket in the elec tronic equipment) and a male end 100b (that plug into an electrical outlet). A hown in FIG. 2, a generalized piece of electrical equipment 140 include on the back face 115 a ocket 110 with a male connection for interfacing with the female end 100a of the cord 100. Typically the back face 115 further include one or more peripheral connection 117 (e.g., connection for communication tranmitter, keyboard, Video, moue and audio connection, and erial connection (uch a USB connection)) A hown in the rear view of the electrical equip ment 140 in FIG. 3, by utilizing a tranmitter 120 that plug into the ocket 110, the piece of electrical equipment may be locatable uing a pecialized power Source that interact with the tranmitter 120. Preferably the tranmitter 120 i affixed to the electrical equipment Such that a known relationhip between the electrical equipment and the tranmitter lat for the lifetime of the tranmitter and/or electrical equipment. The tranmitter may be affixed uing any fatener (e.g., glue, crew or cable tie attached to mounting plate on the equip ment). The tranmitter may include pecialized mounting feature in the molded part of the plug that extend outide of the ocket. For example, the tranmitter may include a ring Such that a cable tie may be paed through the ring and attached to a mounting clip or bracket on the equipment A hown in the ide view of FIG.4, the tranmitter 120 that i affixed to the electrical equipment 140 receive the female end 100a of the power cord 100a. The male end 100b i plugged into a pecialized power Supply (decribed in greater detail below) Often imilar piece of electrical equipment are grouped together in a common houing. For example, many computer erver and/or keyboard/video/moue (KVM) Switche can be grouped together in a rack a hown in the rear view of FIG. 5. In an exemplary embodiment hown in FIG. 5, a firt piece of electrical equipment 14.0a i coupled to a tranmitter 120a which i in turn coupled to the female end 100a-1 of a firt power cord. The correponding male end i then connected to a correponding outlet 150a of a power ditribution unit 180. Similarly, a econd piece of electrical equipment 140b i coupled to a tranmitter 120b which i in turn coupled to the female end 100a-2 of a econd power cord. The correponding male end i then connected to a corre ponding outlet 150b of the power ditribution unit 180. (0016. In the embodiment of FIG. 5, the power ditribution unit (PDU) 180 i alo coupled to two wirele receiver 160a and 160b. In one embodiment, the wirele receiver 160a and 160b are connected to a controller (e.g., a microproceor or an FPGA) for the power ditribution unit 180 uing wired communication adapter (e.g., erial communication adapt ers Such a a USB-baed communication adapter). In an alternate embodiment, the wirele receiver 160a and 160b may intead (orin addition) contain wirele communication adapter (e.g., a/b/g/n) for tranmitting information back to the controller for the power ditribution unit 180. (0017 FIG. 6 i a ide view of the ytem of FIG. 5 and how that tranmitter 120a and 120b are placed into corre

9 US 2011/ A1 Dec. 29, 2011 ponding ocket of the electrical equipment 140a and 140b. Signal tranmitted from the tranmitter are received by wirele receiver 160a and 160b located at known poition within the ytem (e.g., at the top and bottom of a rack). In the embodiment of FIG. 7, the ytem i upplemented with a wirele reflector 200 in order to direct the wirele ignal from a piece of electrical equipment to the receiver 160a and 160b when electrical equipment may otherwie be blocking the ignal from reaching the receiver Periodically an encoder in the PDU 180 ucce ively end a high frequency, digitally encoded, electrical ignal on each electrical cable 100 that i plugged into it. Thi encoded ignal i deigned not diturb the normal 50 or 60Hz AC frequency of the electrical power. Upon receipt of the high frequency ignal the correponding tranmitter 120 plugged into the electrical equipment 140 repond back acro the cable 100 with it unique ID. Thu, the PDU 180 would be informed of the unique ID of the electrical equipment attached to the pecific power connector Later, the encoder in the PDU 180 would then end on the cable 100 another high frequency digitally encoded ignal (i.e., a trigger ignal) including the unique ID of the correponding tranmitter 120 commanding the tranmitter 120 to end out a preence ignal (e.g., in the form of an ultraonic ignal). The tranmitter 120 would then end the preence ignal (e.g., an ultraonic ignal ent out horizon tally toward the back of the rack and/or up and downtoward the top and bottom of the rack). (In an embodiment uch a in FIG. 7, the ultraonic reflector on the back of the rack reflect the ultraonic wave to the top and bottom of the rack imul taneouly avoiding interference from other equipment in the rack.) The ultraonic receiver 160a and 160b at the top and bottom of the rack would then receive the ultraonic repone ignal and notify the PDU 180 through their connection (wired or wirele) to the PDU180. The PDU180 then would determine the time difference in the notification received from each of the ultraonic receiver 160a and 160b. Baed upon the time difference the PDU 180 would calculate where in the rack the electrical equipment i located. For example, if notification from each receiver wa received at the ame time, then the PDU would determine that the electrical equipment wa located at the middle height of the rack of equipment. If the notification from one ultraonic receiver wa received in one half the time it took to receive notification from the other receiver, then that would indicate that the electrical equip ment wa located at /3 of the rack ditance from the firt receiver, and 2/3 of the rack ditance from the econd receiver. Thee ditance could then be aigned U number which are common for deignating each rack lot. When the PDU wa intalled in the rack it unique ID wa entered in the databae and aociated with the pecific rack of electrical equipment. After determining the unique ID and location of each piece of electrical equipment in the rack, the PDU would then connect to the databae and indicate that the electrical equipment with the known ID i contained within the rack at the location that ha been determined. Thi would allow every piece of equipment that goe in a rack and draw electrical power to be aociated with the rack and to have it location within the rack to be determined It hould be noted that the two function: which rack the equipment i located in, and where in the rack it i located are eparable. The which rack function can be performed without the where in the rack functionality. Similarly, the where in the rack functionality could be performed without the which rack function A hown in FIG. 8, in yet another embodiment, wirele receiver (e.g., IR receiver) 220a and 220b may be placed in location (e.g., behind the tranmitter 120a and 120b) uch that the IR receiver receive an infra-red ignal tranmitted from a part of the correponding tranmitter 120a or 120b when commanded by the PDU 180 uing a trigger ignal. (In Such a configuration, the tranmitter 120 may be made larger than the female end 100a uch that the IR ignal i not blocked by the power cord.) IR receiver in uch a configuration may be deigned to ue hielding to reduce or eliminate the ignal received from tranmitter not aociated with the tranmitter. For example, receiver 220a i deigned to receive a ignal from tranmitter 120a but to block ignal from tranmitter 120b, etc. The IR receiver 220 are con nected (via wire or wirele communication) to the PDU180. Since the receiver 220 are aigned to individual tranmit ter, there i no need for the PDU180 to calculate differential arrival time between multiple receiver In an embodiment uing ultraonic tranmitter and receiver, the tranmitter 120 may be plugged into an adapter rather than directly into the electrical equipment. In Such a configuration, the adapter may move the tranmitter left or right to allow the ultraonic ignal to not be blocked by other tranmitter above or below it While certain configuration of tructure have been illutrated for the purpoe of preenting the baic tructure of the preent invention, one of ordinary kill in the art will appreciate that other variation are poible which would till fall within the cope of the appended claim. 1. A power ditribution unit control ytem, compriing: a wirele tranmitter configured to plug into an electrical cord outlet of a piece of electrical equipment and con figured to receive an electrical cord of the piece of equip ment; an encoder configured to tranmit a trigger ignal to the wirele tranmitter over the electrical cord of the piece of equipment, wherein the wirele tranmitter end out a preence ignal in repone to receiving the trigger ignal; at leat one receiver for receiving the preence ignal from the wirele tranmitter, each receiver of the at leat one receiver including a communication adapter; and a controller for receiving from the at leat one communi cation adapter information correponding to when the preence ignal wa received at the at leat one receiver. 2. The power ditribution control unita claimed in claim 1, wherein at leat one communication adapter comprie a wired communication adapter. 3. The power ditribution control unita claimed in claim 2, wherein the wired communication adapter comprie a erial communication adapter. 4. The power ditribution control unita claimed in claim3, wherein the erial communication adapter comprie a USB baed communication adapter. 5. The power ditribution control unita claimed in claim 1, wherein the controller comprie a microproceor.

10 US 2011/ A1 Dec. 29, The power ditribution control unita claimed in claim 1, wherein the encoder i configured to encode a unique ID a part of the trigger ignal, and wherein the wirele tranmitter end out the preence ignal in repone to receiving the trigger ignal with the unique ID correponding to the wirele tranmitter. 7. The power ditribution control unita claimed in claim 1, wherein the wirele tranmitter comprie an ultraonic tranmitter, and wherein the at leat one receiver comprie at leat two ultraonic receiver. 8. The power ditribution control unita claimed in claim 1, wherein the wirele tranmitter comprie an infrared tran mitter, and wherein the at leat one receiver comprie at leat one infrared receiver. 9. The power ditribution control unita claimed in claim 1, wherein at leat one communication adapter comprie a wirele communication adapter. c c c c c