IP Library › Granted Patent US 12,619,873
Granted Patent B2
US 12,619,873 · App. 18/049,138 · Granted May 5, 2026

Providing unlabelled training data for training a computational model

Inventors: Akhil Mathur (London, GB); Chulhong Min (Cambridge, GB); Fahim Kawsar (Cambridge, GB)
Assignee: NOKIA TECHNOLOGIES OY
G06N3/08G06F18/214G06N3/047
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Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 12,619,873
App. No.
18/049,138
Granted
May 5, 2026
Kind
B2
Abstract

Providing unlabelled training data for training a computational model comprises: obtaining sets of time-aligned unlabelled data, wherein the sets correspond to different ones of a plurality of sensors; marking a first sample, of a first set of the sets, as a positive sample, in dependence on statistical separation information indicating a first statistical similarity of at least a portion of the first set to the at least a portion of the reference set and in dependence on the first sample being time-aligned relative to a reference time; marking a second sample, of a second set of the sets, as a negative sample, in dependence on statistical separation information indicating a second, lower statistical similarity, of at least a portion of the second set to the at least a portion of the reference set, and in dependence on the second sample being time-misaligned relative to the reference time.

Claims (58)

1 . A method comprising:

obtaining one or more sets of time-aligned unlabeled data corresponding to different ones of a plurality of sensors;

obtaining statistical separation information, indicative of statistical separation of at least portions of respective ones of the one or more sets of time-aligned unlabeled data from at least a portion of a reference set associated with a reference class;

marking a first sample, of a first set of the one or more sets of time-aligned unlabeled data, as a positive sample, in dependence on the statistical separation information indicating a first statistical similarity of at least a portion of the first set to the at least a portion of the reference set and in dependence on the first sample being time-aligned relative to a reference time, wherein marking the first sample as the positive sample comprises associating the first sample with a positive label for the reference class;

marking a second sample, of a second set of the one or more sets of time-aligned unlabeled data, as a negative sample, in dependence on the statistical separation information indicating a second, lower statistical similarity, of at least a portion of the second set to the at least a portion of the reference set, and further in dependence on the second sample being time-misaligned relative to the reference time, wherein marking the second sample as the negative sample comprises associating the second sample with a negative label for the reference class; and

providing the positive sample and the negative sample for training a computational model.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein (i) the time-aligned unlabeled data of the sets indicate a time-varying context of a common subject, (ii) the first sample and the second sample are within nonoverlapping time windows, and (iii) the plurality of the sensors comprises sensors having a same sensing modality.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the time-aligned unlabeled data comprises one or more of: motion-dependent data; pressure-dependent data; image frame data; audio data; radio signal data; electricity data; or force-dependent data.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the marking of the second sample as the negative sample comprises assigning a training weight to the second set or sample based on the second, lower statistical similarity.

5 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising training the computational model based on one or more positive samples including the positive sample of claim 1 and based on multiple negative samples including the negative sample of claim 1 .

6 . The method of claim 5 , wherein training the computational model comprises executing a loss function to train a feature extractor, wherein the loss function is configured to determine a loss value based on an aggregate of the positive samples and based on an aggregate of the multiple negative samples and based on the reference set.

7 . The method of claim 5 , wherein training the computational model comprises providing further positive and negative samples based on one or more of: different reference times; or different reference sets, and comprises determining the loss value iteratively, based on the further positive and negative samples, until a convergence criterion is satisfied.

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein training the computational model comprises training a classifier based on a labeled dataset associated with the reference set.

9 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

obtaining the one or more sets of unlabeled data, each set comprising timestamp information; and

time-aligning the sets of unlabeled data based on the timestamp information, to obtain the sets of time-aligned unlabeled data.

10 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

training the computational model based on the positive sample and the negative sample and the reference set; and

associating or sending the trained computational model to a device with which the reference set is associated.

11 . The method of claim 1 , wherein (i) the plurality of sensors are associated with two or more devices, (ii) the one or more sets of time-aligned unlabeled data correspond to two or more devices, (iii) the two or more devices are configured to be time-aligned by a primary reference clock that is synchronizing a network to which the two or more devices are connected, and (iv) the method further comprises:

selecting a reference sample from at least the portion of the reference set;

generating a transformed version of the reference sample by applying a pre-defined rotation; and

providing the positive sample, the negative sample, and the transformed version of the reference sample for training the computational model.

12 . The method of claim 11 , further comprising:

providing the positive sample, the negative sample, and the transformed version of the reference sample to a neural network to determine one or more feature embeddings.

13 . A device comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory including computer program code;

the at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the device at least to:

record data of a sensor associated with the device, wherein the device and one or more other devices associated with a same user are configured to be time-aligned by a primary reference clock that is synchronizing a network to which the device and the one or more other devices are connected;

define a set of the sensor data as a reference set;

send the reference set to an apparatus for training a computational model;

receive from the apparatus a trained computational model, trained based on the sent reference set and one or more of sets of time-aligned unlabeled data from one or more other sensors associated with the one or more other devices;

determine an inference based on applying further data from the sensor to the trained computational model; and

control a function of the device based on the inference.

14 . The device of claim 13 , further cause to

send an indication of a modality of the reference set for training the computational model; and

receive from the apparatus the trained computational model, trained based on the sent reference set, the indication of a modality of the reference set and the plurality of sets of time-aligned unlabeled data from one or more of other sensors.

15 . The device of claim 14 , wherein the modality of the reference set comprises one or more of

one or more measured physical attributes, features or properties relating to an input used by a specific sensor, or

one or more attributes, features or properties relating to a subject being sensed.

16 . The device of claim 15 , wherein the one or more of the other sensors are related to the subject being sensed.

17 . The device of claim 15 , wherein the subject refers to one or more of a device, user, object, space or scene that is being sensed.

18 . The device of claim 13 , further cause to send to the apparatus

a current computational model used in the device; or

an indication of the current computational model used in the device.

19 . The device of claim 13 , wherein the training is based on:

a) a marking of a first sample, of a first set of the one or more of sets, as a positive sample, in dependence on statistical separation information indicating a first statistical similarity of at least a portion of the first set to the at least a portion of the reference set and in dependence on the first sample being time-aligned relative to a reference time; and

b) a marking of a second sample, of a second set of the one or more of sets, as a negative sample, in dependence on statistical separation information indicating a second, lower statistical similarity, of at least a portion of the second set to the at least a portion of the reference set, and further in dependence on the second sample being time-misaligned relative to the reference time.

20 . An apparatus comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory including computer program code;

the at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the device at least to:

obtain one or more sets of time-aligned unlabeled data corresponding to different ones of a plurality of sensors;

obtain statistical separation information, indicative of statistical separation of at least portions of respective ones of the one or more sets of time-aligned unlabeled data from at least a portion of a reference set associated with a reference class;

mark a first sample, of a first set of the one or more sets of time-aligned unlabeled data, as a positive sample, in dependence on the statistical separation information indicating a first statistical similarity of at least a portion of the first set to the at least a portion of the reference set and in dependence on the first sample being time-aligned relative to a reference time, wherein marking the first sample as the positive sample comprises associating the first sample with a positive label for the reference class;

mark a second sample, of a second set of the one or more sets of time-aligned unlabeled data, as a negative sample, in dependence on the statistical separation information indicating a second, lower statistical similarity, of at least a portion of the second set to the at least a portion of the reference set, and further in dependence on the second sample being time-misaligned relative to the reference time, wherein marking the second sample as the negative sample comprises associating the second sample with a negative label for the reference class; and

provide the positive sample and the negative sample for training a computational model.

Assignments (2)
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Oct 30, 2022
From: MATHUR, AKHIL; MIN, CHULHONG; KAWSAR, FAHIM
To: NOKIA UK LIMITED
Reel/Frame 061587/0293 →
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Oct 30, 2022
From: NOKIA UK LIMITED
To: NOKIA TECHNOLOGIES OY
Reel/Frame 061587/0302 →
Priority Claims (1)
FI 20216168 · Nov 12, 2021 · national
Continuity (1)
Related Publication 20230153611A1 · May 18, 2023
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