CN111294630A

CN111294630A - Control method of video transmission equipment and multi-port forwarding equipment

Info

Publication number: CN111294630A
Application number: CN202010384214.9A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 廖耿耿; 明泉水; 周剑; 宋启恒
Original assignee: Alipay Hangzhou Information Technology Co Ltd
Current assignee: Alipay Hangzhou Information Technology Co Ltd
Priority date: 2020-05-09
Filing date: 2020-05-09
Publication date: 2020-06-16

Abstract

The embodiment of the specification provides a control method of a video transmission device and a multi-port forwarding device. The multi-port forwarding device is configured to connect to one or more transmission devices, and the multi-port forwarding device includes: a hub chip comprising a plurality of input ports; a power-down module for controlling the power-down of the transmission device connected to the multi-port forwarding device; the power-on module corresponds to the power-off module and is used for controlling the power-on of the transmission equipment connected with the multi-port forwarding equipment; the control module is used for controlling the power-off module and the power-on module according to a control signal so as to control the transmission equipment connected with the multi-port forwarding equipment to switch between power-off and power-on.

Description

Control method of video transmission equipment and multi-port forwarding equipment

Technical Field

The present disclosure relates to the field of electronic technologies, and in particular, to a control method for a video transmission device and a multi-port forwarding device.

Background

The visual sales counter is internally provided with a plurality of USB video transmission devices, and pictures of a user before and after taking a commodity are respectively obtained based on video streams shot by the video transmission devices, so that the commodity is sold and identified. Generally, the video stream of the USB video transmission device in the visual sales counter is opened for a long time, and after the video transmission device works for a long time, the video transmission device is easily cut off and jammed, and at this time, the video transmission device needs to be restarted to be recovered to normal.

It is therefore desirable to provide a device that does not require manual restart of the USB video transmission device.

Disclosure of Invention

One aspect of the present specification provides a multi-port forwarding device for connecting to one or more transmission devices, the multi-port forwarding device comprising: a hub chip comprising a plurality of input ports; a power-down module for controlling the power-down of the transmission device connected to the multi-port forwarding device; the power-on module corresponds to the power-off module and is used for controlling the power-on of the transmission equipment connected with the multi-port forwarding equipment; the control module is used for controlling the power-off module and the power-on module according to a control signal so as to control the transmission equipment connected with the multi-port forwarding equipment to switch between power-off and power-on; and after at least one of the plurality of input ports of the hub chip is connected with the power-off module and the power-on module, the input port of the multi-port forwarding device is formed.

In some embodiments, the number of the power-off modules and the number of the power-on modules are the same as the number of the input ports of the hub chip, and each input port of the hub chip is connected with a group of power-off modules and a corresponding power-on module.

In some embodiments, the multi-port forwarding device further includes a short circuit module, where the short circuit module corresponds to the power-off module and is configured to control the transmission device connected to the multi-port forwarding device to be short-circuited, so that the transmission device can complete discharging quickly after power-off and enter a shutdown state.

In some embodiments, the power-off module, the power-on module and the short-circuit module are implemented by MOS transistors.

In some embodiments, the one or more transport devices are video transport devices having a USB interface.

Another aspect of the present specification provides a control method of a video transmission apparatus. The method comprises the following steps: connecting two or more video transmission devices using a multi-port forwarding device as described above; controlling an operating state of at least one of the two or more video transmission devices based on the multi-port forwarding device, the operating state including an off state and an on state.

In some embodiments, said controlling an operational state of at least one of said two or more video transmission devices based on said multi-port forwarding device comprises: acquiring video data of the two or more video transmission devices based on the multi-port forwarding device; and when the video data of the video transmission equipment cannot be acquired within a first preset time, sending a control signal to the multi-port forwarding equipment so as to restart the video transmission equipment.

In some embodiments, said sending a control signal to said multi-port forwarding device comprises: sending a first control signal to the multi-port forwarding device, wherein the first control signal comprises control of the video transmission device to be switched from power-on to power-off; and when the time of the video transmission equipment in power failure meets second preset time, sending a second control signal to the multi-port forwarding equipment, wherein the second control signal comprises control over the video transmission equipment to be switched from power failure to power on so as to restart the video transmission equipment.

In some embodiments, the first control signal further comprises controlling the video transmission device to short circuit so that the video transmission device completes discharging quickly after power off into the off state.

In some embodiments, said sending a control signal to said multi-port forwarding device comprises: sending a third control signal to the multi-port forwarding device, the third control signal including controlling the video transmission device to sequentially switch between power-off, short-circuit, and power-on to restart the video transmission device.

In some embodiments, the method further comprises: judging the video data transmission state of the restarted video transmission equipment; and when the video data transmission of the video transmission equipment is abnormal, sending the control signal to the multi-port forwarding equipment so as to restart the video transmission equipment again.

In some embodiments, the method further comprises: in response to failing to acquire video data of a video transmission device, performing at least one of the following restart operations on the video transmission device: sending a control signal related to restarting the video transmission equipment and restarting an industrial control device to the multi-port forwarding equipment, wherein the industrial control device is connected with an output port of the multi-port forwarding equipment; and judging the video data transmission state of the video transmission equipment after the restarting operation is executed every time.

Drawings

The present description will be further explained by way of exemplary embodiments, which will be described in detail by way of the accompanying drawings. These embodiments are not intended to be limiting, and in these embodiments like numerals are used to indicate like structures, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an application scenario of a multi-port forwarding device shown in accordance with some embodiments of the present description;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a multi-port forwarding device shown in accordance with some embodiments of the present description; and

fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of a control method of a video transmission device shown in accordance with some embodiments of the present description.

Detailed Description

In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present disclosure, the drawings used in the description of the embodiments will be briefly described below. It is obvious that the drawings in the following description are only examples or embodiments of the present description, and that for a person skilled in the art, the present description can also be applied to other similar scenarios on the basis of these drawings without inventive effort. Unless otherwise apparent from the context, or otherwise indicated, like reference numbers in the figures refer to the same structure or operation.

It should be understood that "system", "device", "unit" and/or "module" as used herein is a method for distinguishing different components, elements, parts, portions or assemblies at different levels. However, other words may be substituted by other expressions if they accomplish the same purpose.

As used in this specification and the appended claims, the terms "a," "an," "the," and/or "the" are not intended to be inclusive in the singular, but rather are intended to be inclusive in the plural, unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. In general, the terms "comprises" and "comprising" merely indicate that steps and elements are included which are explicitly identified, that the steps and elements do not form an exclusive list, and that a method or apparatus may include other steps or elements.

Although various references are made herein to certain modules or units in a system according to embodiments of the present description, any number of different modules or units may be used and run on the client and/or server. The modules are merely illustrative and different aspects of the systems and methods may use different modules.

Flow charts are used in this description to illustrate operations performed by a system according to embodiments of the present description. It should be understood that the preceding or following operations are not necessarily performed in the exact order in which they are performed. Rather, the various steps may be processed in reverse order or simultaneously. Meanwhile, other operations may be added to the processes, or a certain step or several steps of operations may be removed from the processes.

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of an application scenario of a multi-port forwarding device shown in some embodiments according to the present description.

As shown in fig. 1, system 100 may include a server 110, a network 120, a multi-port forwarding device 130, a transmission device 140, and a memory 150.

The server 110 may be used to manage and/or process data and/or information from at least one component of the present system or an external data source (e.g., a cloud data center), as well as send signals or instructions to at least one component of the system 100. In some embodiments, the server 110 may be a single server or a server farm. The server farm can be centralized or distributed (e.g., server 110 can be a distributed system). In some embodiments, the server 110 may be local or remote. In some embodiments, the server 110 may be implemented on a cloud platform or provided in a virtual manner. By way of example only, the cloud platform may include a private cloud, a public cloud, a hybrid cloud, a community cloud, a distributed cloud, across clouds, multiple clouds, the like, or any combination of the above. In some embodiments, server 110 may be implemented on a computing device, which may include one or more components.

In some embodiments, the server 110 may include a processing device 112. The processing device 112 may process data obtained from the transmitting device 140 and control the operational state of the transmitting device 140. For example, the processing device 112 may store data retrieved from the transmission device 140 in the memory 150. For another example, processing device 112 may control a corresponding transmitting device to restart or shut down, etc. by sending a control signal to multi-port forwarding device 130 when the data transmission of transmitting device 140 is abnormal. In some embodiments, the processing device 112 may include one or more processors (e.g., a single wafer processor or a multi-wafer processor). By way of example only, the processing device 112 may include one or more hardware processors such as a Central Processing Unit (CPU), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), an application specific instruction set processor (ASIP), an image processing unit (GPU), a physical arithmetic processing unit (PPU), a Digital Signal Processor (DSP), a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), a Programmable Logic Device (PLD), a controller, a microcontroller unit, a Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC), a microprocessor, or the like, or any combination of the above.

Network 120 may connect the various components of system 100 and/or connect system 100 with external resource components. Network 120 enables communication between the various components and with other components outside of system 100 to facilitate the exchange of data and/or information. In some embodiments, the network 120 may be any one of, or a combination of, a wired network or a wireless network. Merely by way of example, network 120 may include a cable network, a wired network, a fiber optic network, a remote communication network, an intranet, the internet, a Local Area Network (LAN), a Wide Area Network (WAN), a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), a Metropolitan Area Network (MAN), a Wide Area Network (WAN), a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), a bluetooth network, a ZigBee network, a Near Field Communication (NFC) network, the like, or any combination of the above. In some embodiments, network 120 may include one or more network switching points. For example, network 120 may include wired or wireless network switching points, such as base stations and/or internet switching points 120-1, 120-2, … …, through which one or more components of training data generation system 100 may connect to network 120 to exchange data and/or information.

The multi-port forwarding device 130 may be used to connect to one or more transmission devices (e.g., transmission device 140), to forward data of multiple transmission devices to a background server (e.g., server 110) at the same time, and to monitor the operating status of the transmission devices connected thereto. In some embodiments, the multi-port forwarding device 130 may include a hub chip, a power-on module, a power-off module, a control module, and so on, and further details regarding the multi-port forwarding device 130 may be referred to in other parts of this specification (for example, fig. 2 and the related description thereof), and are not described herein again.

The transmitting device 140 may be used to acquire and/or transmit data. For example, the transmission device 140 may be used to capture video data of a remote client, record audio data of a remote client, and so on. In some embodiments, the transmitting device 140 may transmit the obtained data to the server 110 to cause the system to process the remote data. In some embodiments, the transmission device 140 may include any combination of one or more of a video transmission device, an audio transmission device, a data transmission device, and the like. In some embodiments, the interface of the transfer device may include a USB interface, IDE interface, SCSI interface, or the like.

Memory 150 may be used to store data and/or instructions. In some embodiments, memory 150 may be implemented in a single central server, multiple servers connected by communication links, or multiple personal devices. In some embodiments, the memory 150 may include mass storage, removable storage, volatile read-and-write memory (e.g., random access memory RAM), read-only memory (ROM), the like, or any combination of the above. Exemplary mass storage devices may include magnetic disks, optical disks, solid state disks, and the like. In some embodiments, the memory 150 may be implemented on a cloud platform. By way of example only, the cloud platform may include a private cloud, a public cloud, a hybrid cloud, a community cloud, a distributed cloud, across clouds, multiple clouds, the like, or any combination of the above.

In some embodiments, the system 100 may further include other components, such as industrial control devices, and the like, which are not limited by this specification.

In some embodiments, server 110 may communicate with other components of system 100 (e.g., multiport forwarding device 130, transmission device 140, and/or memory 150, etc.) over network 120 to obtain information and/or data therein, or to send signals and/or instructions. For example, server 110 may obtain data transmitted by transmission device 140 to multi-port forwarding device 130 via network 120. As another example, server 110 may send control signals to multi-port forwarding device 130 over network 120 to control the operational state of transmitting device 140. In some embodiments, memory 150 may be connected to network 120 to communicate with one or more components in system 100 (e.g., server 110, multi-port forwarding device 130, and/or transmission device 140, etc.).

Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a multi-port forwarding device shown in accordance with some embodiments of the present description.

The multi-port forwarding device 130 may be used to connect one or more transmitting devices to forward data of multiple transmitting devices to a background server. As shown in fig. 2, multi-port forwarding device 130 may include a hub chip 210, a power down module 213, a power up module 215, and a control module 230.

The HUB, known in english as a "HUB," may include a plurality of input ports. In some embodiments, the hub may perform regenerative shaping amplification on the received signal to extend the transmission range of the network. The HUB chip 210 is used as a central device to connect a plurality of transmission devices, so that when a certain line or a certain transmission device in the network fails, the operation of other lines or transmission devices is not affected. In some embodiments, the HUBs may include passive HUBs, active HUBs, smart HUBs, and other HUBs, among others.

The power down module 213 may be used to control the power down of the transmission device connected to the multi-port forwarding device 130. The transmission equipment can be in a closed state by controlling the transmission equipment to be powered off, and meanwhile, the normal work of other transmission equipment is not influenced. For example, when one of the transmission devices connected to the multi-port forwarding device 130 fails, the server may control the transmission device to be powered off through the power-off module 213 to switch from the on state to the off state without affecting the operation of other transmission devices. In some embodiments, the number of the power-down modules 213 may be one or more, which is not limited in this specification.

The power-up module 215 may be used to control the power-up of a transmission device connected to the multi-port forwarding device 130. The corresponding transmission equipment can be in an open state by controlling the transmission equipment to be powered on. In some embodiments, the number of powered-up modules may be the same as the number of powered-down modules. The power-up module 215 may correspond to the power-down module 213 one by one to control the corresponding transmission device to be turned on or off. In some alternative embodiments, the number of the power-on modules may be one or more, and the present specification does not limit this.

The control module 230 may be configured to control the power down module 213 and the power up module 215 according to the control signal to control the transmission device connected to the multi-port forwarding device 130 to switch between powering down and powering up. For example, the control module 230 may control a power-off module or a power-on module connected to the corresponding transmission device based on a control signal sent by the server, so as to control the transmission device to be turned off or turned on. In some embodiments, the control module may be implemented by a single-chip microcomputer. For example, a program for controlling the power-on module and/or the power-off module may be written into the single chip, and the single chip is connected to the power-on module and the power-off module to control the transmission device connected to the corresponding input port. In some alternative embodiments, the control module may be implemented in other ways, which are not limited by this specification.

In some embodiments, multi-port forwarding device 130 may also include a shorting module 217. The shorting module 217 may correspond to the power down module 213 (or the power up module 215) for controlling a transmission device connected to the multi-port forwarding device 130 to be shorted. Some transmission devices, which include capacitive devices, can be charged at power-up, and thus can continue to operate for some time after power-down until discharge is complete. By controlling the short circuit of the transmission equipment, the corresponding transmission equipment can quickly finish discharging and enter a closed state after power failure.

In some embodiments, at least one of the plurality of input ports of hub chip 210, after connecting power down module 213, power up module 215, and short circuit module 217, may form an input port of multi-port forwarding device 130.

In some embodiments, the number of shorting modules 217 may correspond to the number of power down modules 213 (and/or power up modules 215). In some embodiments, the number of power down modules 213, power up modules 215, and short circuit modules 217 may correspond to the number of input ports of the hub chip 210. Each input port of the hub chip 210 may be connected to a corresponding set of power down module 213, power up module 215, and short circuit module 217. For example, as shown in FIG. 2, hub chip 210 has four input ports, four sets of power down modules 213, power up modules 215, and shorting modules 217, with each set of modules 220 connected to an input port of hub chip 210, forming four input ports of multi-port forwarding device 130.

It is understood that the number of input ports of the multi-port forwarding device 130 in fig. 2 is by way of example only. In some alternative embodiments, the number of input ports of multi-port forwarding device 130 may be any reasonable value, for example, consistent with the number of input ports of hub chip 210, and is not limited by this specification.

In some embodiments, the power-down module 213, the power-up module 215, and the short-circuit module 217 may be three modules having power-down, power-up, and short-circuit functions, respectively, or may be one module having power-down, power-up, and short-circuit functions at the same time. For example, as shown in FIG. 2, the power down module 213, the power up module 215, and the short circuit module 217 may be a module 220 having power down, power up, and short circuit functions at the same time.

In some embodiments, the power down module 213, the power up module 215, and the short circuit module 217 may be implemented by MOS transistors. For example, a module 220 having power-off, power-on and short-circuit functions can be formed by connecting a plurality of MOS transistors. In alternative embodiments, the power down module 213, the power up module 215, and the short circuit module 217 may be implemented by any feasible elements, which are not limited by this specification.

In some embodiments, the multi-port forwarding device 130 may be used to connect one or more transport devices. The one or more transmission devices may be video transmission devices having a USB interface. In some embodiments, the interface of the video transmission device may include a standard USB interface, a Mini USB interface, a Micro USB interface, and the like, which is not limited in this specification. The video transmission equipment with one or more USB interfaces is connected through the multi-port forwarding equipment 130, so that when any one or more of the one or more USB video transmission equipment fails, the failed equipment can be independently controlled to be turned off or on while the normal work of other transmission equipment is not influenced. For example, if the server detects that a certain video transmission device connected to the multi-port forwarding device 130 is disconnected or jammed, a control signal for sequentially powering off and powering on the failed video transmission device may be sent to the control module 230 of the multi-port forwarding device 130, and the control module 230 may control the corresponding video transmission device to restart based on the control signal. For more details on controlling the video transmission device, reference may be made to other parts of this specification (for example, fig. 3 and the related description thereof), and details are not repeated here.

In some embodiments, system 100 may be connected to one or more USB-interfaced video transmission devices through multi-port forwarding device 130, and may control the operational status of at least one of the one or more video transmission devices through multi-port forwarding device 130. The operating state of the video transmission device may include an on state and an off state. As shown in fig. 3, control of the operational state of the video transmission device may be implemented by the processing device 112.

Step 310, acquiring video data of the video transmission device based on the multi-port forwarding device.

The processing device may obtain video data captured by the video transmission device via the multi-port forwarding device 130. Specifically, after capturing the video data, the video transmission device may transmit the video data to the multi-port forwarding device 130, and the multi-port forwarding device 130 may forward the video data transmitted by the video transmission device to the processing device. In some embodiments, the data transmission rate of the video transmission device may be set to any reasonable value according to the situation, for example, 3 frames/second, 5 frames/second, 10 frames/second, and the like, which is not limited in this specification.

Step 320, when the video data of the video transmission device cannot be obtained within the first preset time, sending a control signal related to restarting the video transmission device to the multi-port forwarding device.

The processing device may send a control signal to the multi-port forwarding device 130 when the processing device cannot acquire the video data transmitted by the video transmission device within the first preset time. After the control module 230 in the multi-port forwarding device 130 receives the control signal sent by the processing device, it may control the corresponding power-on/power-off/short-circuit module based on the control signal to restart the video transmission device.

When the processing device cannot acquire video data within a first preset time, the processing device can be defined as a corresponding video transmission device cut-off or a corresponding card stream, and the processing device can restart the corresponding video transmission device without affecting the work of other transmission devices by sending a control signal to the multi-port forwarding device. The interruption or the blocking refers to that the video transmission device does not output the stream, or the upper layer application cannot acquire the video data of the video transmission device due to some reason by the processing device.

In some embodiments, the first preset time may be any integer value. For example, the first preset time may be 3 seconds, 5 seconds, or the like. In some embodiments, the first preset time may be based on a data transmission rate setting of the video transmission device. For example, when the data transmission rate of the video transmission apparatus is 3 frames/second, the first preset time may be set to 5 seconds. The first preset time may be set in any reasonable manner, which is not limited in this specification.

In some embodiments, the processing device may send the first control signal to the multi-port forwarding device 130 when the video data transmitted by the video transmission device cannot be acquired within the first preset time. In some embodiments, the first control signal may include controlling the video transmission device to switch from power-up to power-down. By controlling the video transmission equipment to be switched from power-on to power-off, the video transmission equipment which is originally in the on state can be switched to the off state. In some embodiments, the first control signal may include controlling a video transmission device to short. In some embodiments, the first control signal may include sequentially performing power-off, short-circuiting, etc. on the video transmission device. By controlling the short circuit of the video transmission equipment, the video transmission equipment can quickly finish discharging and enter a closed state after power failure.

In some embodiments, the processing device may send a second control signal to the multi-port forwarding device 130 when the time that the video transmission device is powered off satisfies a second preset time. In some embodiments, the second control signal may include controlling the video transmission device to switch from powered off to powered on. The video transmission equipment for controlling the cut-off (or the card flow) is switched from power-on to power-off and then from power-off to power-on, so that the video transmission equipment which is originally in the open state is closed and then enters the open state again, and the corresponding video transmission equipment is restarted.

In some embodiments, the second predetermined time may be any reasonable integer value. For example, the second preset time may be 2 seconds, 3 seconds, 4 seconds, and the like. In some embodiments, the second preset time may be set based on the first preset time. In some embodiments, the second preset time may be the same as or different from the first preset time. In some embodiments, the second preset time may be based on a performance setting of the video transmission device. For example, the response capability of the video transmission apparatus is strong, the value of the second preset time may be small.

In some embodiments, the processing device may send the third control signal to the multi-port forwarding device 130 when the video data transmitted by the video transmission device cannot be acquired within the first preset time. In some embodiments, the third control signal may include controlling the video transmission device to sequentially switch between powering off, shorting, and powering on. In some embodiments, the third control signal may include controlling the video transmission device to sequentially switch between powering down and powering up. After the control module in the multi-port forwarding device 130 receives the third control signal sent by the processing device, the control module controls the corresponding power-off module and power-on module to enable the video transmission device to sequentially execute power-off and power-on operations (or power-off, short-circuit and power-on operations), so that the video transmission device in an on state is turned off first and then turned on, and the video transmission device is restarted. For example, the third control signal may be a short-circuit operation executed after 3 seconds of power failure, and a power-on operation executed after 5 seconds of short circuit, so that the video transmission device in the on state is short-circuited after 3 seconds of power failure, and then the video transmission device is quickly discharged to enter the off state, and is powered on and restarted after 5 seconds.

Step 330, determining whether the transmission state of the video transmission device is normal after the restart.

In some embodiments, the processing device may determine whether the transmission state of the video transmission device is normal by acquiring the video data of the video transmission device after the restart. If the video transmission equipment is recovered to be normal after being restarted, the video stream can be shot again, and meanwhile, the shot video stream is sent to the processing equipment through the multi-port forwarding equipment. In this case, the processing device may acquire the video data of the video transmission device again; otherwise, the processing device cannot acquire the video data of the video transmission device, and the transmission state of the video transmission device is abnormal. In some embodiments, the processing device may perform the alert when the transmission status of the video transmission device is abnormal. The reminding operation can comprise one or more of ring tone prompt, text prompt, voice prompt and the like. For example, when the video transmission video cannot transmit video data after the restart, the processing device may send a text prompt message to the manager to remind the manager to perform inspection or debugging. In some embodiments, the processing device may obtain the video data of the corresponding video transmission device after the multi-port forwarding device 130 performs the operation corresponding to the control signal. For example, the processing device may retrieve the video data corresponding to the video transmission device after sending the control signal for a period of time (e.g., 8 seconds, 10 seconds, etc.).

In some alternative embodiments, the processing device may determine the video data transmission status of the restarted video transmission device by other means, which is not limited in this specification.

In some embodiments, the processing device may perform the restart operation on the video transmission device again when the video data of the video transmission device after the restart cannot be acquired. For example, the processing device may again send a control signal (e.g., a first control signal, a second control signal, or a third control signal) associated with restarting the video transmission device to multiport forwarding device 130. In some embodiments, the processing device may obtain the corresponding video data in real-time when the video transmission device resumes normal data transmission.

In some embodiments, the processing device may perform at least one of the following restart operations in response to a result of the failure to obtain video data of the video transmission device: and sending a control signal related to restarting the video transmission equipment to the multi-port forwarding equipment, and restarting the industrial control device. The industrial control device may be connected to an output port of the multi-port forwarding device 130, and the entire video transmission system may be restarted by restarting the industrial control device. For example, in a visual sales counter, the restart industrial control apparatus may restart all video transmission devices in the visual sales counter. In some embodiments, the processing device may determine the data transmission status of the video transmission device after each execution of the restart operation. If the video transmission equipment is recovered to be normal after being restarted, the video stream can be shot again, and meanwhile, the shot video stream is sent to the processing equipment through the multi-port forwarding equipment; if the transmission state of the video transmission equipment is abnormal, reminding can be carried out. For more details on the transmission status, reference may be made to the above-mentioned related description, which is not repeated herein.

In one embodiment, if the system 100 is a visual sales counter management system, the visual sales counter can be connected to a plurality of USB cameras therein through the multi-port forwarding device 130. The processing device may obtain an internal picture of the visual sales counter taken by the USB camera based on the multi-port forwarding device 130. When the processing apparatus does not acquire the video stream of the USB camera device 1 within a first preset time (e.g., 3 seconds), it is determined that a card stream or a cut-off may occur in the USB camera device 1. The processing device may send a control signal related to restarting the USB camera 1, such as a third control signal, to the multi-port relay device 130. After receiving the control signal, the control module 230 in the multi-port forwarding device 130 can control the corresponding module 220 to sequentially perform power-off, short-circuit, and power-on operations on the USB camera device 1, thereby restarting the USB camera device 1. After the USB camera 1 is restarted, the processing apparatus may acquire the video stream captured by the USB camera 1 again.

It should be noted that the above description of method 300 is for purposes of example and illustration only and is not intended to limit the scope of applicability of the present application. Various modifications and alterations to method 300 will be apparent to those skilled in the art in light of the present application. However, such modifications and variations are intended to be within the scope of the present application. For example, in step 320, the processing device may directly restart the industrial control apparatus when the video data of the video transmission device cannot be acquired.

The beneficial effects that may be brought by the embodiments of the present description include, but are not limited to: (1) the power-off/power-on module is arranged at the input port of the concentrator, so that the working state of the transmission equipment connected with the corresponding input port can be independently controlled; (2) the multi-port forwarding equipment with the power-on/power-off module is connected with the plurality of transmission equipment, so that when one transmission equipment fails, the failed equipment can be restarted on the premise of not influencing the work of other transmission equipment, and further the working efficiency of the whole transmission system can be improved. It is to be noted that different embodiments may produce different advantages, and in different embodiments, any one or combination of the above advantages may be produced, or any other advantages may be obtained.

Having thus described the basic concept, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the foregoing detailed disclosure is to be regarded as illustrative only and not as limiting the present specification. Various modifications, improvements and adaptations to the present description may occur to those skilled in the art, although not explicitly described herein. Such modifications, improvements and adaptations are proposed in the present specification and thus fall within the spirit and scope of the exemplary embodiments of the present specification.

Also, the description uses specific words to describe embodiments of the description. Reference throughout this specification to "one embodiment," "an embodiment," and/or "some embodiments" means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with at least one embodiment of the specification is included. Therefore, it is emphasized and should be appreciated that two or more references to "an embodiment" or "one embodiment" or "an alternative embodiment" in various places throughout this specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment. Furthermore, some features, structures, or characteristics of one or more embodiments of the specification may be combined as appropriate.

Moreover, those skilled in the art will appreciate that aspects of the present description may be illustrated and described in terms of several patentable species or situations, including any new and useful combination of processes, machines, manufacture, or materials, or any new and useful improvement thereof. Accordingly, aspects of this description may be performed entirely by hardware, entirely by software (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.), or by a combination of hardware and software. The above hardware or software may be referred to as "data block," module, "" engine, "" unit, "" component, "or" system. Furthermore, aspects of the present description may be represented as a computer product, including computer readable program code, embodied in one or more computer readable media.

The computer storage medium may comprise a propagated data signal with the computer program code embodied therewith, for example, on baseband or as part of a carrier wave. The propagated signal may take any of a variety of forms, including electromagnetic, optical, etc., or any suitable combination. A computer storage medium may be any computer-readable medium that can communicate, propagate, or transport a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. Program code located on a computer storage medium may be propagated over any suitable medium, including radio, cable, fiber optic cable, RF, or the like, or any combination of the preceding.

Computer program code required for the operation of various portions of this specification may be written in any one or more programming languages, including an object oriented programming language such as Java, Scala, Smalltalk, Eiffel, JADE, Emerald, C + +, C #, VB.NET, Python, and the like, a conventional programming language such as C, VisualBasic, Fortran2003, Perl, COBOL2002, PHP, ABAP, a dynamic programming language such as Python, Ruby, and Groovy, or other programming languages, and the like. 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 processing device. In the latter scenario, the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through any network format, such as 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), or in a cloud computing environment, or as a service, such as a software as a service (SaaS).

Additionally, the order in which the elements and sequences of the process are recited in the specification, the use of alphanumeric characters, or other designations, is not intended to limit the order in which the processes and methods of the specification occur, unless otherwise specified in the claims. While various presently contemplated embodiments of the invention have been discussed in the foregoing disclosure by way of example, it is to be understood that such detail is solely for that purpose and that the appended claims are not limited to the disclosed embodiments, but, on the contrary, are intended to cover all modifications and equivalent arrangements that are within the spirit and scope of the embodiments herein. For example, although the system components described above may be implemented by hardware devices, they may also be implemented by software-only solutions, such as installing the described system on an existing processing device or mobile device.

Similarly, it should be noted that in the preceding description of embodiments of the present specification, various features are sometimes grouped together in a single embodiment, figure, or description thereof for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure aiding in the understanding of one or more of the embodiments. This method of disclosure, however, is not intended to imply that more features than are expressly recited in a claim. Indeed, the embodiments may be characterized as having less than all of the features of a single embodiment disclosed above.

Numerals describing the number of components, attributes, etc. are used in some embodiments, it being understood that such numerals used in the description of the embodiments are modified in some instances by the use of the modifier "about", "approximately" or "substantially". Unless otherwise indicated, "about", "approximately" or "substantially" indicates that the number allows a variation of ± 20%. Accordingly, in some embodiments, the numerical parameters used in the specification and claims are approximations that may vary depending upon the desired properties of the individual embodiments. In some embodiments, the numerical parameter should take into account the specified significant digits and employ a general digit preserving approach. Notwithstanding that the numerical ranges and parameters setting forth the broad scope of the range are approximations, in the specific examples, such numerical values are set forth as precisely as possible within the scope of the application.

For each patent, patent application publication, and other material, such as articles, books, specifications, publications, documents, etc., cited in this specification, the entire contents of each are hereby incorporated by reference into this specification. Except where the application history document does not conform to or conflict with the contents of the present specification, it is to be understood that the application history document, as used herein in the present specification or appended claims, is intended to define the broadest scope of the present specification (whether presently or later in the specification) rather than the broadest scope of the present specification. It is to be understood that the descriptions, definitions and/or uses of terms in the accompanying materials of this specification shall control if they are inconsistent or contrary to the descriptions and/or uses of terms in this specification.

Finally, it should be understood that the embodiments described herein are merely illustrative of the principles of the embodiments of the present disclosure. Other variations are also possible within the scope of the present description. Thus, by way of example, and not limitation, alternative configurations of the embodiments of the specification can be considered consistent with the teachings of the specification. Accordingly, the embodiments of the present description are not limited to only those embodiments explicitly described and depicted herein.

Claims

1. A multi-port forwarding device for connecting to one or more transmission devices, the multi-port forwarding device comprising:

a hub chip comprising a plurality of input ports;

a power-down module for controlling the power-down of the transmission device connected to the multi-port forwarding device;

the power-on module corresponds to the power-off module and is used for controlling the power-on of the transmission equipment connected with the multi-port forwarding equipment;

the control module is used for controlling the power-off module and the power-on module according to a control signal so as to control the transmission equipment connected with the multi-port forwarding equipment to switch between power-off and power-on;

and after at least one of the plurality of input ports of the hub chip is connected with the power-off module and the power-on module, the input port of the multi-port forwarding device is formed.

2. The multi-port forwarding device of claim 1, wherein the number of powered-down modules and the number of powered-up modules are identical to the number of input ports of the hub chip, each input port of the hub chip being connected to a set of powered-down modules and a corresponding powered-up module.

3. The multi-port forwarding device of claim 1, further comprising:

and the short circuit module corresponds to the power-off module and is used for controlling the transmission equipment connected with the multi-port forwarding equipment to be in short circuit so as to enable the transmission equipment to quickly finish discharging after power is off and enter a closed state.

4. The multi-port forwarding device of claim 1, wherein the power-down module, the power-up module and the short-circuit module are implemented by MOS transistors.

5. The multi-port forwarding device of claim 1 wherein the one or more transport devices are video transport devices having a USB interface.

6. A control method of a video transmission apparatus, comprising:

connecting two or more video transmission devices using a multi-port forwarding device according to any of claims 1-5;

controlling an operating state of at least one of the two or more video transmission devices based on the multi-port forwarding device, the operating state including an off state and an on state.

7. The method of claim 6, said controlling an operational state of at least one of the two or more video transmission devices based on the multi-port forwarding device comprising:

acquiring video data of the two or more video transmission devices based on the multi-port forwarding device;

and when the video data of the video transmission equipment cannot be acquired within a first preset time, sending a control signal to the multi-port forwarding equipment so as to restart the video transmission equipment.

8. The method of claim 7, the sending control signals to the multi-port forwarding device comprising:

sending a first control signal to the multi-port forwarding device, wherein the first control signal comprises control of the video transmission device to be switched from power-on to power-off;

and when the time of the video transmission equipment in power failure meets second preset time, sending a second control signal to the multi-port forwarding equipment, wherein the second control signal comprises control over the video transmission equipment to be switched from power failure to power on so as to restart the video transmission equipment.

9. The method of claim 8, the first control signal further comprising controlling the video transmission device to short circuit so that the video transmission device completes discharging quickly into the off state after power is off.

10. The method of claim 7, the sending control signals to the multi-port forwarding device comprising:

sending a third control signal to the multi-port forwarding device, the third control signal including controlling the video transmission device to sequentially switch between power-off, short-circuit, and power-on to restart the video transmission device.

11. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

judging the video data transmission state of the restarted video transmission equipment;

and when the video data transmission of the video transmission equipment is abnormal, sending the control signal to the multi-port forwarding equipment so as to restart the video transmission equipment again.

12. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

in response to failing to acquire video data of a video transmission device, performing at least one of the following restart operations on the video transmission device: sending a control signal related to restarting the video transmission equipment and restarting an industrial control device to the multi-port forwarding equipment, wherein the industrial control device is connected with an output port of the multi-port forwarding equipment; and

and judging the video data transmission state of the video transmission equipment after the restarting operation is executed every time.