Patent Application
20240311123
Disclosed embodiments are directed to firmware updating of hardware devices, and specifically to providing selective firmware update packages for devices networked in a dental operatory.
Dental clinics use a variety of specialized equipment, necessary to the dentistry profession. Equipment may include adjustable chairs, dental lights, sterilizers, a variety of dental implements such as rotary handpieces, ultrasonic scalers, lasers, intraoral cameras, digital scanners, suction instruments, and cuspidors, and supporting mechanical equipment such as dental units, vacuum pumps, compressors and air purifiers. These various pieces of equipment may include both mechanical components and electronic components, which may be used to control and coordinate function of the various components and other dental equipment. Increasingly, electronic components include one or more central processors, such as microcontrollers, that execute software.
As is typical with systems that are controlled by a combination of hardware and software, the software—in the context of a microcontroller, typically a form of firmware—may require updating on a periodic basis. Updates may provide fixes to identified bugs, improvements in functionality, expanded capabilities, and enhance compatibility. The manufacturer of a given piece of equipment is usually responsible for developing and distributing firmware updates. Depending upon the implementation of a given piece of hardware, the firmware updates may comprise a binary image file that is written to non-volatile memory associated with a microcontroller or central processor.
The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Embodiments will be readily understood by the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. To facilitate this description, like reference numerals designate like structural elements. Embodiments are illustrated by way of example, and not by way of limitation, in the figures of the accompanying drawings.
In the following detailed description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings which form a part hereof wherein like numerals designate like parts throughout, and in which is shown by way of illustration embodiments that may be practiced. It is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and structural or logical changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present disclosure. Therefore, the following detailed description is not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of embodiments is defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.
Aspects of the disclosure are disclosed in the accompanying description. Alternate embodiments of the present disclosure and their equivalents may be devised without parting from the spirit or scope of the present disclosure. It should be noted that like elements disclosed below are indicated by like reference numbers in the drawings.
Various operations may be described as multiple discrete actions or operations in turn, in a manner that is most helpful in understanding the claimed subject matter. However, the order of description should not be construed as to imply that these operations are necessarily order dependent. In particular, these operations may not be performed in the order of presentation. Operations described may be performed in a different order than the described embodiment. Various additional operations may be performed and/or described operations may be omitted in additional embodiments.
For the purposes of the present disclosure, the phrase “A and/or B” means (A), (B), or (A and B). For the purposes of the present disclosure, the phrase “A, B, and/or C” means (A), (B), (C), (A and B), (A and C), (B and C), or (A, B and C).
The description may use the phrases “in an embodiment,” or “in embodiments,” which may each refer to one or more of the same or different embodiments. Furthermore, the terms “comprising,” “including,” “having,” and the like, as used with respect to embodiments of the present disclosure, are synonymous.
In some figures, multiples of a same or similar type of element may be designated with a, b, c, etc., such as 100a, 100b, 100c. Such elements may be collectively or generically referred to by just the call-out number, e.g. 100, with a letter added when a specific one of the element is intended.
As used herein, the term “circuitry” may refer to, be part of, or include an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), an electronic circuit, a processor (shared, dedicated, or group) and/or memory (shared, dedicated, or group) that execute one or more software or firmware programs, a combinational logic circuit, and/or other suitable components that provide the described functionality.
Various devices in a modern dental clinic may be controlled by microcontrollers or similar processors that execute software. Such software, when intended for a dedicated piece of hardware, may be considered firmware, as it frequently is written to a non-volatile memory associated with a microcontroller. As with any type of software, firmware may be updated on a periodic basis for various reasons, such as bug fixes, security patches, improvements to functionality, etc. As microcontroller circuits are typically designed to work with a specific piece of hardware as opposed to a general purpose computer, the firmware is likewise specifically written for a specific hardware environment. Thus, a given firmware is tied to its hardware environment, in contrast to a general purpose operating system that may run on an array of different hardware environments by loading appropriate device drivers.
Because of the typical close integration between a microcontroller and its hardware environment, firmware images are often unique to a given device. A dental clinic may have dozens of different devices with microcontrollers that may require updating. Processes for updating have varied; some existing processes require going to each device individually and manually updating the firmware. Obviating this hassle, modern equipment increasingly supports online or network updating, where a firmware image is pushed to a device over a network, allowing the device to be updated remotely. The firmware images may be transferred to a dental clinic over a network from a remote update service.
Firmware updates for various devices may be developed and released at different intervals. It is unlikely that, for a given clinic, firmware images for all devices will be updated simultaneously. Furthermore, devices may not be timely updated each time a firmware update is released for various reasons, such as when a piece of hardware needs to be replaced, with the replacement being shipped prior to release of a more current firmware. As a result, some devices in a clinic may have a current firmware, while other devices may be in need of an update. Thus, an update service, which may have an inventory list of devices for a given clinic, may not know which devices actually need an update. An update service accordingly may generate a file that includes firmware images for all devices in a clinic, regardless of whether a given device actually needs to be updated. For clinics with significant numbers of devices, the image size for an update package may become significant, with downloads consuming significant amounts of time and network bandwidth. Similarly, where an update service provides images for a relatively large number of clinics, the update service may require significant network bandwidth.
Disclosed embodiments include systems and methods for providing selective updates for devices in a dental operatory. By first querying the devices in an operatory for each device's present firmware revision, the firmware revisions can be used to determine which devices are out of date. Once determined, an update service can build an update package that includes only the firmware images for those devices determined to be out of date. This can result in savings in network bandwidth and download time, as well as ease the burden on the operatory equipment in not having to deal with an excessively large update image. Other possible variations and embodiments will be disclosed below.
For purposes of this disclosure, “dental operatory” is a communicative rather than physical association and should be understood to mean any number of devices that are in network connection to a given gateway, as discussed below, regardless of whether a given device is actually within a physical dental operatory. Devices may be located within a physical room, such as a dental treatment room, and/or may be located in another physical area or room, such as a mechanical room, cleaning/sterilization area, etc. The gateway may be located in the same or a different physical location from some or all of its associated devices. In some embodiments, a single room (such as a server room) may house multiple gateways, such as some or all gateways for a given dental clinic. In other embodiments, a gateway may be connected to devices that are located in disparate physical locations, such as different dental clinics. In still other embodiments, a dental operatory may be equipped with multiple gateways. Where multiple gateways are connected to the same collection of devices, they may jointly coordinate firmware updates in any suitable fashion, e.g. a subset of the devices may be assigned to each gateway, or each gateway may be capable of updating all devices, with whichever device contacts an update service first handling updates, etc.
Gateway 102, in embodiments, acts as a central point of communication between the dental equipment devices 104 and update service 108. The various devices 104, as can be seen in
Gateway 102 may be implemented as a type of computer device 1500 (
In addition to firmware updates, gateway 102 may further perform data collection from the various devices 104, such as obtaining performance metrics, diagnostics, system status, error codes, statistical data, etc., and providing such data to a remote service for subsequent digestion and dissemination. The remote service may aggregate information from a number of different gateways 102, which may be under common control. For example, a dental practice may have multiple clinics spread across a particular geographic location or locations. The various gateways 102 may collect data from their respective connected devices 104, and provide this information to the remote service, which can then provide visibility into the information to users such as an administrator of the practice, administrator of a given location, etc.
As mentioned above, the various devices 104 may be located within a given physical dental operatory or other location within a dental clinic or other dental treatment facility, or may be common to multiple operatories. In the depicted embodiment, device 104a may be a machine located in a mechanical room, such as a vacuum pump or compressor that is shared among multiple physical operatories. Device 104b may be a remote work station that is connected to a single physical operatory or multiple physical operatories. Device 104c may be a dental chair, forming the basis of a given physical operatory. Still further, some devices 104 may be attached to the dental chair, device 104c. For example, the dental chair may be equipped with a dental unit, various powered dental instruments, a dental light, a cuspidor, etc., which each could be implemented with a microcontroller that accepts firmware updates. The dental unit, powered dental instruments, dental light, cuspidor, etc. may each be considered a device 104. Other embodiments may have different and fewer or more devices 104. Still further, in some embodiments, a given device 104 may be in communication with multiple gateways 102. In some embodiments, a given gateway 102 may be connected to some devices, in addition to devices 104, that do not support firmware updates by the gateway 102, e.g. they either are not upgradeable, do not use firmware, and/or require a manual or physical update process (such as using a USB stick or other physically attached storage). Devices 104 should be understood to refer to only those devices connected to gateway 102 that support a firmware update by gateway 102.
As seen in
With respect to gateway 102, data link 110 may be used to exchange information with update service 108, including the aforementioned device identities, firmware revisions, and a selective firmware image. It should be understood that, in embodiments, each data link 106 and/or 110 may be transitory, being established and used only when necessary, and being disconnected when dormant; in other embodiments, one or more data links 106 and/or 110 may be continually established. In some embodiments, data link 110 may be a local area network, a wide area network, and/or the Internet, with update service 108 accessible over the Internet.
Update service 108 may be implemented on a remotely located server or cluster of servers, or may be implemented as part or all of a data center or Internet-accessible cloud service. As will be discussed herein, in embodiments update service 108 may determine which devices 104 in an operatory require firmware updates and build selective update packages, as will be discussed below with respect to
In process flow 200, an operatory 202 includes a gateway 204, which is in communication with devices 206a, 206b, and 206c over a local network 218. As discussed above with respect to
In operation, update service 208 may query the gateway 204 for a list of firmware revisions for each of the devices 206 in the operatory 202, in some embodiments. As can be seen, gateway 204 has a firmware revision of 1.1; device 206a has a firmware revision of 3.2, device 206b has a firmware revision of 1.6; and device 206c has a firmware revision of 2.3. These revision numbers may be provided to update service 208 by gateway 204 over network 212. In other embodiments, update server 208 may also or alternatively query the gateway 204 to determine is a particular or specific type or model of device 206 which may be of interest is attached, e.g. if a critical firmware update is made available for a particular model or type of device, and it is desirable to push the update out as quickly as possible, to name one possible scenario. For example, the update server 208 may query gateway 204 to determine if a compressor is connected to gateway 204, if a particular model of dental chair is connected to gateway 204, or some combination of types/makes/models.
Once received, update service 208 may consult the update database 214. As shown in
In
In operation 302, the update service sends a query to a gateway, such as gateway 102 (
In operation 304, the list of firmware revisions is received by the update service from the gateway. In some embodiments, the list may include the firmware revisions for all devices attached to the gateway. In other embodiments, such as where the gateway is able to determine which devices have out of date firmware revisions, the list may be only of those devices that require a firmware image for updating.
In operation 306, in some embodiments, the update service determines which devices have out of date firmware revisions. The update service may consult a database that lists the current firmware revisions for all devices. In some embodiments, the database may be accessed using device identifiers as lookups, with the resulting firmware revision compared to the firmware revision received from the gateway. In other embodiments, the update service may have a previously stored list of all devices associated with the gateway, and can use the list to determine the current firmware revisions and compare to the list received from the gateway. As mentioned above, in other embodiments, operation 306 may be at least partly carried out by the gateway.
In operation 308, once the devices that have out of date firmware revisions are identified, the update service builds an update package that only contains firmware images for the devices that are out of date, if any are determined to be out of date. Devices that are current do not have images included within the update package. The package may be of any suitable format that allows for transmission within available bandwidth and that can be used by the gateway to extract the firmware images. The firmware images, in embodiments, are in a format appropriate for their intended devices. Once the update package is built, in some embodiments it is transmitted to the operatory gateway in operation 310, to be installed on the relevant devices. In other embodiments, the gateway may be provided a resource locator (such as a URI) by the update service, with the gateway then downloading the update package from the source indicated by the resource locator.
In
In operation 402, the gateway receives a query from an update service, such as update service 108 or 208, requesting a list of firmware revisions for some or all devices connected to the gateway. How the query is structured will depend upon the specifics of a given implementation. In some embodiments, the gateway may simply repeat or broadcast the request from the update service across the network to all devices, and then relay the responses to the update service. As mentioned above with respect to method 300, in some embodiments the query may also include a request for device identifiers, such as to determine device models. Furthermore, in some embodiments operation 402 may be omitted, such as where the gateway initiates an update request; the gateway may simply send the list of firmware revisions without first receiving a query from the update service. In other embodiments, a middleware service or application may coordinate requests between the gateway and the update service, including receiving update requests from the gateway, receiving update packages from the update service, and providing the update package or package location to the gateway. In still other embodiments, a user such as a staff member or administrator for the dental clinic may manually initiate or request the gateway to commence a device firmware request and update.
In operation 404, the gateway may detect devices attached to it via a network, and proceed to query each device to determine its firmware revision. Operation 404 is rendered in dashed line because, depending on the embodiment, it may be unnecessary. In some embodiments, the gateway may already be aware of all devices attached to the network, or may query to determine whether any devices have been added or removed. The query may also request each device to provide an identifier indicating its model, serial number, and/or any other pertinent identifying information, if such information is needed and/or the gateway has not stored such information. The query to determine firmware revisions may be made in response to receiving a query from the update service in operation 402, or may be done on a scheduled basis or ad hoc basis without first receiving a query from the update service.
In operation 406, the gateway sends the list of firmware revisions to the update service. In some embodiments, the entire list of firmware revisions for all devices may be transmitted to the update service. In other embodiments, the gateway may have access to a list of current firmware revisions, either stored locally to the gateway or available through a remote server such as the update service. If so, the gateway may be able to compare the firmware revisions from each device with the list of current firmware revisions, and determine which devices are out of date. The gateway may then transmit a list of only those devices that are out of date to the update service.
In operation 408, the gateway receives an update package from the update service that contains only those firmware update images for devices that have out of date firmware revisions. Once received, in operation 410, the gateway pushes the update images to those devices that are out of date. The mechanics of how the gateway updates each out of date device will depend on the specifics of a given implementation, including the capabilities of the gateway and how a particular device must be updated.
Depending on its applications, computer device 1500 may include other components that may be physically and electrically coupled to the PCB 1502. These other components may include, but are not limited to, memory controller 1526, volatile memory (e.g., dynamic random access memory (DRAM) 1520), non-volatile memory such as read only memory (ROM) 1524, flash memory 1522, storage device 1554 (e.g., a hard-disk drive (HDD)), an I/O controller 1541, a digital signal processor (not shown), a crypto processor (not shown), a graphics processor 1530, one or more antennae 1528, a display, a touch screen display 1532, a touch screen controller 1546, a battery 1536, an audio codec (not shown), a video codec (not shown), a global positioning system (GPS) device 1540, a compass 1542, an accelerometer (not shown), a gyroscope (not shown), a depth sensor 1548, a speaker 1550, a camera 1552, and a mass storage device (such as hard disk drive, a solid state drive, compact disk (CD), digital versatile disk (DVD)) (not shown), and so forth.
In some embodiments, the one or more processor(s) 1504, flash memory 1522, and/or storage device 1554 may include associated firmware (not shown) storing programming instructions configured to enable computer device 1500, in response to execution of the programming instructions by one or more processor(s) 1504, to practice all or selected aspects of system 100, process flow 200, method 300 and/or method 400 described herein. In various embodiments, these aspects may additionally or alternatively be implemented using hardware separate from the one or more processor(s) 1504, flash memory 1522, or storage device 1554.
The communication chips 1506 may enable wired and/or wireless communications for the transfer of data to and from the computer device 1500. The term “wireless” and its derivatives may be used to describe circuits, devices, systems, methods, techniques, communications channels, etc., that may communicate data through the use of modulated electromagnetic radiation through a non-solid medium. The term does not imply that the associated devices do not contain any wires, although in some embodiments they might not. The communication chip 1506 may implement any of a number of wireless standards or protocols, including but not limited to IEEE 802.20, Long Term Evolution (LTE), LTE Advanced (LTE-A), General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), Evolution Data Optimized (Ev-DO), Evolved High Speed Packet Access (HSPA+), Evolved High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA+), Evolved High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA+), Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE), Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT), Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX), Bluetooth, derivatives thereof, as well as any other wireless protocols that are designated as 3G, 4G, 5G, and beyond. The computer device 1500 may include a plurality of communication chips 1506. For instance, a first communication chip 1506 may be dedicated to shorter range wireless communications such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and a second communication chip 1506 may be dedicated to longer range wireless communications such as GPS, EDGE, GPRS, CDMA, WiMAX, LTE, Ev-DO, and others.
In various implementations, the computer device 1500 may be a laptop, a netbook, a notebook, an ultrabook, a smartphone, a computer tablet, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a desktop computer, smart glasses, headset, or a server. In further implementations, the computer device 1500 may be any other electronic device that processes data.
As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, the present disclosure may be embodied as methods or computer program products. Accordingly, the present disclosure, in addition to being embodied in hardware as earlier described, may take the form of an entirely software embodiment (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects that may all generally be referred to as a “circuit,” “module” or “system.” Furthermore, the present disclosure may take the form of a computer program product embodied in any tangible or non-transitory medium of expression having computer-usable program code embodied in the medium.
Any combination of one or more computer usable or computer readable medium(s) may be utilized. The computer-usable or computer-readable medium may be, for example but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, device, or propagation medium. More specific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer-readable medium would include the following: an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a transmission media such as those supporting the Internet or an intranet, or a magnetic storage device. Note that the computer-usable or computer-readable medium could even be paper or another suitable medium upon which the program is printed, as the program can be electronically captured, via, for instance, optical scanning of the paper or other medium, then compiled, interpreted, or otherwise processed in a suitable manner, if necessary, and then stored in a computer memory. In the context of this document, a computer-usable or computer-readable medium may be any medium that can contain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program for use by or in connection with the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. The computer-usable medium may include a propagated data signal with the computer-usable program code embodied therewith, either in baseband or as part of a carrier wave. The computer usable program code may be transmitted using any appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless, wireline, optical fiber cable, RF, etc.
Computer program code for carrying out operations of the present disclosure may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages, including an object oriented programming language such as Java, Smalltalk, C++, Objective-C, or the like, platforms and/or scripting environments such as React-Native, ClojureScript, NativeScript, or the like, and/or conventional procedural programming languages, such as the “C” programming language or similar programming languages. The program code may execute entirely on the user's computer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computer or entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latter scenario, the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through any type of network, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider).
The present disclosure is described with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems) and computer program products according to embodiments of the disclosure. It will be understood that each block of the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable medium that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable medium produce an article of manufacture including instruction means which implement the function/act specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide processes for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made in the disclosed embodiments of the disclosed device and associated methods without departing from the spirit or scope of the disclosure. Thus, it is intended that the present disclosure covers the modifications and variations of the embodiments disclosed above provided that the modifications and variations come within the scope of any claims and their equivalents.
