Granted Patent B2

US 12,367,464 · App. 17/009,290 · Granted Jul 22, 2025

Inventors: Adam Lee Griffin (Dubuque, IA); Shikhar Kwatra (San Jose, CA); Matthew Alzamora (Poughkeepsie, NY); Patricia Wynne Mchann (Hernando, MS); Christopher Denis Hardt (Hyde Park, NY); David Beltran (Beacon, NY)

Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation

G06Q10/20G06F16/93G06F16/951G06F40/205G06N5/02G06Q30/0282G16Y10/75G16Y40/20

Abstract

Claims (53)

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

utilizing a trusted circle of Internet of Things (IoT) devices to support a circle of trust containing IoT devices by exchanging information within the circle of trust, wherein the IoT devices within the circle of trust function as peers in a blockchain environment such that they are able to acquire software images from the trusted circle of IoT devices, share software images to and from other IoT devices within the circle of trust, and protect software images from being divulged to an unauthorized party using a blockchain protocol;

periodically polling each of the Internet of things (IoT) devices that is registered to be utilized in the trusted circle of IoT devices to determine the operational status;

in response to determining that the IoT device is working correctly, collecting input data about the working device;

generating a risk score as a weighted measure of the collected input data and a frequency of failure of the IoT device, wherein the risk score indicates an estimate of future loss of function of the IoT device, wherein the risk score is generated by the following:

performing a Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) analysis for topic modeling and extracting features from a document;

using a Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) model to extract a start and stop end span from a paragraph of the document;

using the BERT model to generate a sentiment from an output of the LDA analysis by computing measures or characterizations of input text using the extracted start and stop end span, wherein one or more measures or characterizations have a singular or multi-response which is associated with hidden topics and/or categories forming a data set; and

splitting the data set into a training set and a test set, wherein the training set is used train a model to calculate an initial risk score for a failure mode of the IoT device and/or components thereof, wherein the test set is used to update the initial risk score;

determining an optimal time to trigger a predictive notification pertaining to the IoT device using the risk score; and

at the determined optimal time, issuing the predictive notification about the working devices.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the input data comprises a plurality of unstructured comments on a public web site directed to the IoT device.

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising crawling the public web site to obtain the unstructured comments from owners of the IoT device.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein the input data comprises customer reviews of the IoT device.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the input data further comprises internal maintenance records for the IoT device.

6. The method of claim 2 , wherein the input data further comprises manufacturer data and build information, wherein the manufacturer data includes one or more notices, recalls, and advisories associated with the IoT device.

7. The method of claim 2 , further comprising using natural language processing (NLP) with GaussianNB Classifier to parse the plurality of unstructured comments.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising aggregating one or more predictive notifications in a dashboard.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein each of the IoT devices in the circle of trust has a same copy of data held in ledgers stored within blockchains associated with the respective IoT device in the circle of trust.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein a first IoT device within the circle of trust sends a transaction to the trusted circle of IoT devices, wherein the trusted circle of IoT devices sends the transaction to a second IoT device within the circle of trust, wherein the second IoT device sends the transaction to ledgers of blockchains that are associated with other IoT devices within the circle of trust, wherein the transaction is stored in a block of the respective blockchain, wherein the block includes a hash of data from an older block.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the registering of the IoT device in the trusted circle of IoT devices comprises:

capturing an image of the IoT device; and

extracting information about the IoT device from the image, wherein the extracted information comprises a manufacturer name, a model number, and a serial number.

12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising retrieving the input data using the extracted information.

13. The method of claim 1 , further comprising periodically poll the IoT device to determine an operational status.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the predictive notification recommends changing a filter of the IoT device.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein the predictive notification indicates that a warranty of the IoT device is about to expire.

16. A computer program product, the computer program product comprising:

one or more computer readable storage media, and program instructions collectively stored on the one or more computer readable storage media, the program instructions comprising:

program instructions to utilize a trusted circle of Internet of Things (IoT) devices to support a circle of trust containing IoT devices by exchanging information within the circle of trust, wherein the IoT devices within the circle of trust function as peers in a blockchain environment such that they are able to acquire software images from the trusted circle of IoT devices, share software images to and from other IoT devices within the circle of trust, and protect software images from being divulged to an unauthorized party using a blockchain protocol;

program instructions to periodically poll each of the Internet of things (IoT) devices that is registered to be utilized in the trusted circle of IoT devices to determine the operational status;

in response to determining that the IoT device is working correctly, program instructions to collect input data about the working device;

program instructions to generate a risk score as a weighted measure of the collected input data and a frequency of failure of the IoT device, wherein the risk score indicates an estimate of future loss of function of the IoT device, wherein the risk score is generated by the following:

performing a Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) analysis for topic modeling and extracting features from a document;

using a Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) model to extract a start and stop end span from a paragraph of the document;

using the BERT model to generate a sentiment from an output of the LDA analysis by computing measures or characterizations of input text using the extracted start and stop end span, wherein one or more measures or characterizations have a singular or multi-response which is associated with hidden topics and/or categories forming a data set; and

splitting the data set into a training set and a test set, wherein the training set is used train a model to calculate an initial risk score for a failure mode of the IoT device and/or components thereof, wherein the test set is used to update the initial risk score;

program instructions to determine an optimal to trigger a predictive notification pertaining to the IoT device using the risk score; and

program instructions to issue the predictive notification about the working devices at the determined optimal time.

17. A system for a plurality of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, comprising one or more processors operably connected to a memory, the memory containing program instructions to, when executed on the one or more processors:

utilizing a trusted circle of Internet of Things (IoT) devices to support a circle of trust containing IoT devices by exchanging information within the circle of trust, wherein the IoT devices within the circle of trust function as peers in a blockchain environment such that they are able to acquire software images from the trusted circle of IoT devices, share software images to and from other IoT devices within the circle of trust, and protect software images from being divulged to an unauthorized party using a blockchain protocol;

periodically polling each of the Internet of things (IoT) devices that is registered to be utilized in the trusted circle of IoT devices to determine the operational status;

in response to determining that the IoT device is working correctly, collecting input data about the working device;

generating a risk score as a weighted measure of the collected input data and a frequency of failure of the IoT device, wherein the risk score indicates an estimate of future loss of function of the IoT device, wherein the risk score is generated by the following:

performing a Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) analysis for topic modeling and extracting features from a document;

using a Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) model to extract a start and stop end span from a paragraph of the document;

using the BERT model to generate a sentiment from an output of the LDA analysis by computing measures or characterizations of input text using the extracted start and stop end span, wherein one or more measures or characterizations have a singular or multi-response which is associated with hidden topics and/or categories forming a data set; and

splitting the data set into a training set and a test set, wherein the training set is used train a model to calculate an initial risk score for a failure mode of the IoT device and/or components thereof, wherein the test set is used to update the initial risk score;

determining an optimal time to trigger a predictive notification pertaining to the IoT device using the risk score; and

at the determined optimal time, issuing the predictive notification about the working devices.

18. The system of claim 17 , wherein the input data comprises customer reviews of the IoT device.

19. The system of claim 18 , further comprising program instructions to use natural language processing (NLP) to parse the customer reviews of the IoT device.

20. The system of claim 17 , further comprising program instructions to aggregate one or more predictive notifications in a dashboard.

Assignments (1)

Continuity (1)

References Cited (58)