Patent ID: 7130805

Claim:
A method usable in an apparatus for sensing parameters and controlling the transfer of data representing such sensed parameters, the apparatus having limited data computation and storage capability, located remotely from a base computing station having substantially greater data computation and storage capability, the apparatus including a data acquisition controller which controls the operation of one or more physical parameter sensors and a data transmitter which transmits data representing parameters sensed by the one or more parameter sensors to the base station, the method comprising: determining an initial relative utility of parameter data from the physical parameter sensors that is sensed by the apparatus; directing the data acquisition controller to sense data describing one or more physical parameters determined to have relatively highest utility; assigning a transmission priority to the sensed data; directing the data transmitter to transmit the sensed data to the base station given the assigned priority; determining, in response to feedback from the base station, a subsequent relative utility of parameter data usable in subsequent data sensing and transmission; and wherein the determination of an initial relative utility of parameter data is based on a model describing the utility of such data to a decision maker; and wherein the determination of an initial relative utility is performed by taking the first order derivative of the model and ranking the result; and transmitting by the data transmitter subsequent sensed data describing the one or more physical parameters according to the subsequent relative utility.