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Information Bridging

Messaging Technologies


Our team develops the Information Bridging (InfoBridge) messaging technology, which is designed to efficiently deliver information in large hierarchical infrastructures, where massive amounts of sensor data are sent towards a utility control center. One such example is the advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) in the future intelligent power network, known as the smart grid.

Advanced metering devices collect measurements from different appliances and transmit this data upon request, as well as on a predetermined schedule. Transmission to the utility's control system is done through active nodes, also called "intermediate nodes", where different applications may run and process the data. In the smart grid, power applications running on these active nodes provide granular insight into energy consumption, and allow efficient control of energy generation and consumption. InfoBridge is located at each intermediate node, allowing data to be efficiently transmitted towards the utility in a way that ensures delivery of high quality data, while minimizing end-to-end latencies and adhering to the limited bandwidth resources of the network.

InfoBridge performs analytics-based volume reduction of the data that is received and sent onwards by intermediate active nodes. Since data originating from a smart meter device has a known format, it can be efficiently reduced along its path to the destination, resulting in increased network utilization and faster delivery time.

InfoBridge main features:

  1. Pub/Sub - sending and receiving control and metering data
  2. QoS - real time and reliability
  3. Data volume management
    • Flow control
    • Content-aware volume reduction
  4. Monitoring

Infobridge has two main interfaces: A pub/sub interface from which input data as well as control data are received and transmitted onwards, and an interface with the application for analytics-based volume reduction (termed also "conflation").

Features and interfaces are presented in the InfoBridge architecture: