US 11,748,825 B2
Operating smart sensors using distributed ledgers
Tim Patterson, Baltimore, MD (US); and Lucas Scheidler, Oakland, CA (US)
Assigned to Itron, Inc., Liberty Lake, WA (US)
Filed by Itron, Inc., Liberty Lake, WA (US)
Filed on Jun. 29, 2018, as Appl. No. 16/24,652.
Prior Publication US 2020/0005404 A1, Jan. 2, 2020
Int. Cl. G06Q 50/06 (2012.01); G06Q 20/10 (2012.01); G06F 8/65 (2018.01)
CPC G06Q 50/06 (2013.01) [G06F 8/65 (2013.01); G06Q 20/10 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. 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 an instance of the master node distributed ledger indicating occurrence of the customer transaction;
a plurality of broker nodes configured to receive an activity instruction including a demand response instruction and meter configuration data for a plurality of smart utility meters located within an autonomous routing area, each broker node comprising an edge node of the autonomous routing area and including a broker node distributed ledger that is applicable to the respective broker node; and
the plurality of smart utility meters located within the autonomous routing area configured to:
receive the activity instruction including the demand response instruction and the meter configuration data,
wherein the demand response instruction includes an indication of which loads of a plurality of loads are needed to be altered in order to fulfill an amount of a resource indicated in the demand response instruction;
alter an amount of resource provided to at least one load of the plurality of loads; and
set a signal strength used by at least one smart utility meter of the plurality of smart utility meters based at least in part on the meter configuration data.