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Application US20200005403
Published 2020-01-02
Operating Smart Sensors Using Distributed Ledgers
A distributed ledger based utility system architecture may be configured to enable secure payments, data transmission, and meter configuration of smart sensors. The utility system architecture may be a tiered architecture including multiple nodes at different levels of the architecture where each level may contain a different portion of the distributed ledger. As information is added to the distributed ledger, each portion of the distributed ledger may be updated based on whether the information is relevant to that node. The information may include rate contract transactions, meter configuration data transactions, payment transactions, or the like.
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- 1. A method implemented by a smart utility meter, the method comprising:
receiving a first transmission from a broker node; determining that the first transmission indicates a first update to a distributed ledger associated with the smart utility meter, the first update to the distributed ledger including an activity instruction for the smart utility meter; performing an action based on the activity instruction; and sending, to the broker node, a second transmission indicating performance of the action by the smart utility meter, the second transmission causing the broker node to perform a second update to the distributed ledger.
- 11. A smart utility meter comprising:
at least one processor; and performing an action; determining a result of the action; generating a transaction summary including the result; and sending, to a broker node, a transmission including the transaction summary and indicating performance of the action, the transmission causing the broker node to perform an update to a distributed ledger.
- 16. A utility network system comprising:
a master node including a master node distributed ledger, the master node configured to receive a customer transaction and to update the master node distributed ledger indicating occurrence of the customer transaction; a plurality of broker nodes, each broker node including a broker node distributed ledger that is applicable to the respective broker node; and a plurality of smart utility meters configured to:
receive a first transmission including an activity instruction from the plurality of broker nodes;
perform an action based on the activity instruction; and
send, to the plurality of broker nodes, a second transmission indicating performance of the action, the second transmission causing the plurality of broker nodes to perform a second update to their respective distributed ledger.
