KR20060089855A - Method for communicating based event in living network control system - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to an event-based communication method in a living network control system. For example, an RS-485 network, a small output RF network, a power line network, or the like, installed in a home by a user located inside or outside the home, may be used. Through the same living network, it is possible to control the operation of various home appliances such as a refrigerator or a washing machine or to monitor the operation state, thereby providing a user with the convenience of remote control and monitoring. After setting an event in the home appliance, when the event occurs, the event content is transmitted to another device or by performing an operation corresponding to the event content, so that various home appliances connected and connected through the living network are connected. Behavior using event driven communication services It is a very useful invention that can be controlled efficiently.

Living Network Control Systems, LnCP Networks, Events, Network Managers, Appliances

Description

Event-based communication method in living network control system {Method for communicating based event in living network control system}             

1 illustrates a configuration of a living network control system according to the present invention,

2 and 3 illustrate a master-slave based communication structure applied to the present invention,

4 illustrates a hierarchical structure of an LnCP network applied to the present invention;

5 to 7 illustrate embodiments of a communication cycle service applied to the present invention.

8 illustrates an event-based communication processing scheme applied to the present invention.

9 illustrates an embodiment of an event file applied to the present invention.

※ Explanation of code for main part of drawing

100: LnCP Internet server 200: communication terminal

300: Internet 400: Living Network Control System

40: home gateway 41: network manager

42: LnCP Router 43: LnCP Adapter

44: home appliances

The present invention relates to an event-based communication method in a living network control system. The present invention relates to a method for providing a download and upload service using a variable length packet in a living network control system. The present invention relates to an event-based communication method in a living network control system for enabling a user who is located to efficiently control home appliances such as a refrigerator or a washing machine connected to a living network.

In general, a home network refers to a network in which various digital home appliances are connected to each other so that a user can conveniently and economically enjoy life services at home or outside the home. Or various types of home appliances such as washing machines are increasingly digital.

On the other hand, home networks have been developed in recent years as operating system technology for home appliances and high-speed multi-media communication technologies have been applied to digital home appliances, and new types of information home appliances have emerged. have.

In addition, a network constructed to provide file exchange or Internet service between a personal computer (PC) and peripheral devices, a network between home appliances that handle audio or video information, and a refrigerator or a washing machine. Various networks such as home appliances, home automation, remote meters, and the like are built for controlling home appliances, such as a living network.

In addition, the main communication purpose of the small-scale data transmission for the remote control or monitoring of the operation state of various home appliances, such as refrigerators or washing machines, etc. included in the living network In the living network service, the minimum communication resources are used, and the network managers included in the living network must be directly controlled to control the connected home appliances. As it is not prepared, the solution solution is urgently required,

Accordingly, the present invention has been made in view of the above situation, and for example, a user who is located inside or outside the home may use various household appliances such as a refrigerator or a washing machine connected to a living network, or the like. In the living network control system to enable efficient control using only communication resources, and to control the operation of the home appliances more efficiently using an event driven communication service. It is an object of the present invention to provide an event-based communication method.

The event-based communication method in the living network control system according to the present invention for achieving the above object, a step of setting any event in the home appliance included in the living network control system; And when an event occurs in the home appliance, characterized in that it comprises two steps of transmitting the generated event content to another device, or performing an operation corresponding to the event content,

The first step may include setting an event in the home appliance through a network manager and a user interface included in the living network control system, and in the second step, when an event occurs in the home appliance. After notifying the event contents to the network manager included in the living network control system, the network manager performs the corresponding operation, or in the home appliance, performs one operation corresponding to the event contents, Characterized in performing the operation.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of an event-based communication method in a living network control system according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

1 illustrates a configuration of a living network control system according to the present invention. For example, a LnCP internet server 100 to which a living network control protocol (LnCP) newly defined in the present invention is applied. 1 and the living network control system 400 are connected and connected through the Internet 300 as shown in FIG. 1, and the LnCP Internet server 100 includes a personal computer (PC) and a PDA (PDA). And interface operations with various communication terminals 200 such as PCS.

Meanwhile, the living network control system 400 includes a home gateway 40, a network manager 41, an LnCP router 42, an LnCP adapter 43, And appliances 44, wherein the constituent means includes, as shown in FIG. 1, a non-standardized transmission of a data link layer such as an RS-485 network or a small output RF network. A medium (Non-Standard Transmission Medium) or power line communication or a data link layer such as IEEE 802.11 or ZigBee (IEEE 802.15.4) may be used as a transmission medium.

In addition, the living network control system 400 may be referred to as an 'LnCP network', for example, where the LnCP network is a home appliance belonging to the living network category in an independent home, as shown in FIG. 1. It consists of a standalone network that connects (Appliances) to a wired or wireless transmission medium.

On the other hand, the LnCP network, and informs the master device (Master Device) that can control the operation or monitor the operation state of the other home appliances, the function in response to the request of the master device and the information about the change of their own state A slave device having a function is connected.

And, the environment setting and management functions of the home appliances 44 connected to the LnCP network, as shown in Figure 1, will be in charge of the network manager 41, the home appliances 44, It may be directly connected to the network or indirectly through the LnCP adapter 43, and the RS-485 network, the RF network, and the power line network in the LnCP network are connected through the LnCP router 42. .

In addition, the LnCP network, by connecting to the external Internet 300 to provide a function that allows the user outside to check or control the status of the home appliances installed in the home, for this purpose LnCP network and external The home gateway 40 is responsible for the connection function between the Internet, and when the user accesses the LnCP Internet server 100 from the outside and performs an authentication process, the user checks the status of the home appliance connected to the LnCP network or Or the function to control can be used.

In addition, after accessing the LnCP Internet server 100 through the home gateway 40 from the home appliance connected to the LnCP network, the content provided by the LnCP Internet server may be downloaded, which is the main feature of the LnCP network. When described in detail as follows.

First of all, digital information appliances have a microcontroller with various performances so as to perform unique functions. In the LnCP network according to the present invention, the digital information home appliances can operate with such a microcontroller with various performances. In order to simplify the function more efficiently, it is possible to use the resources of the microcontroller installed in the home appliance to a minimum, and the low performance microcontroller can handle the LnCP communication function while performing the functions of the home appliance. In addition, the high performance microcontroller controller supports multitasking functions.

In addition, the main features of the LnCP network according to the present invention, the master-slave-based communication structure, event-based communication support, a plurality of network manager support, four-layer structure, communication cycle service, flexible address management, variable length packet communication, And can be classified as providing a standard message set.

Meanwhile, the master-slave based communication structure is used as a connection communication structure between home appliances in the LnCP network, and there must be at least one master device, and the master device includes information on slave devices to be controlled and In this case, the master device controls another slave device according to a program already input or receiving input from a user.

For example, the message flow between the master device and the slave device, as shown in Figure 2, by sending a request (Request) message from the master to the slave, by sending a response message to the slave (Response) to the master In operation, the LnCP network may have a multi-master and multi-slave based communication structure, as shown in FIG. 3.

In the LnCP network, an event-driven communication service is supported, for example, a user may set an event required by the home appliance, and then, in the home appliance, perform an arbitrary operation. In the meantime, when an event set by the user occurs, the fact or content of the event is notified to another home appliance or, in response to the event, the operation state of the other home appliance is controlled.

In addition, the LnCP network includes at least one network manager that is responsible for environment setting and management functions of home appliances, and may support multiple network managers as needed. In order to prepare for errors, management information of home appliances should be synchronized.

In the LnCP network, as shown in FIG. 4, a four-layer structure of a physical layer, a data link layer, a network layer, and an application layer is illustrated. In the LnCP network, a service is provided in units of communication cycles. In a slave device, only one communication cycle may exist at a given time.

That is, while a communication cycle is performed in one slave device, it cannot be controlled by any master device, but in the master device, a plurality of communication cycles for a plurality of slave devices may be performed at a given time. There are four types of cycles: {1-Request, 1-Response}, {1-Request, Multi-Response}, {1-Notification}, and {Repeated-Notification}.

For example, in the {1-Request, 1-Response} communication cycle, one master transmits one request packet to one slave, and the slave responds with one response packet ( As a communication cycle for transmitting a response packet, if an error occurs in the received packet, as shown in FIG. 5, the master transmits a re-request packet, and the slave responds to the response packet. (Response Packet) will be delivered again.

In addition, in the {1-Request, Multi-Response} communication cycle, as shown in FIG. 6, one master transmits one request packet having a group address to multiple slaves, and each slave transmits a request packet. The master will end the cycle when the maximum allowed time is received, and the master will ignore the error even if an error occurs in the response packet received from the slave.

The {1-Notification} communication cycle is a cycle in which the master device transmits one notification packet to one or more devices and immediately terminates communication, as shown in FIG. 7. The {Repeated-Notification} communication cycle is a cycle for terminating communication after repeatedly transmitting the same packet in order to secure transmission reliability in the {1-Notification} communication cycle.

Meanwhile, in the PnCP network, flexible address management is supported. For example, home appliances equipped with the LnCP function are assigned at the time of factory shipment to automatically configure the network without user intervention. In this case, since the same kind of home appliances are initialized to the same address, the network manager has an algorithm for assigning a unique unique address when the home appliances are connected.

In addition, in the LnCP network, by assigning a unique group address to the home appliances belonging to the same type, it is possible to enable group communication using a single message, clustering various types of home appliances according to the user's needs You can classify as (Cluster) and assign a group address to each cluster.

In the PnCP network, packet communication of variable length is supported, for example, in the case of downloading content such as an application program related to the operation of a home appliance or uploading data stored in the home appliance, The length of the packet is adjusted using the buffer size information of the home appliance.

In addition, the LnCP network provides a standard message set. For example, the message layer defines a standard message set suitable for various home appliances in the application layer so that the master device can control another home appliance. Common Area Message Set for basic LnCP communication, Product Application Area Message Set to support the unique functions of home appliances, and Developer Area to provide unique functions of manufacturers It is divided into a Developer Area Message Set.

On the other hand, the message set as described above may be extended as needed, and may also add an argument to a previously defined message. Hereinafter, one of the main features of the LnCP network according to the present invention is event-based The communication support will be described in more detail.

8 illustrates an operation processing method when an event occurs according to the present invention. As described above, in the LnCP network to which the present invention is applied, a user may set an event required by the home appliance, and then the corresponding home appliance When an event set by a user occurs while performing any operation, the device notifies the other home appliance of the occurrence or content of the event or controls the operation state of the other home appliance in response to the event. In this case, the network manager 41 provides an additional service by using an event message transmitted from a device in which an event occurs.

Meanwhile, the event program according to the present invention is to determine what action to take when an event occurs in the device, and is not determined when the home appliance is shipped from the factory, but according to a scenario set by the user. The operation of the device may be determined. If the user sets the operation content through a user interface connected to the network manager 41, the network manager 41 may, for example, generate a device. Set using 'SetEventCode service (0xFF12)'.

In addition, the programmed event-related content can be deleted using the 'SetEventCodeDel service (0xFF13)', and there are two main methods for generating such an event and processing the same. The first method includes a single event / In a single action, only one action is performed when an event occurs, for example, "After washing the washing machine, turn on the porch light" or "After cooking the microwave" Display "event.

The second method is a single event / plural operation, and when a single event occurs, various operations are performed, for example, "when washing the washing machine is finished, the lamp of the veranda is turned on and the TV is washed. The display of "Complete".

On the other hand, there are three main types of event processing methods according to the operation subjects. In the first method, as illustrated in FIGS. 8A and 8B, when an event occurs in a device, a network manager ( 41), and the network manager takes control (or controlling or processing), and the second scheme is different from itself when an event occurs in the device, as shown in FIG. Takes control of the device (eg, Device 2).

In the final third scheme, as shown in FIG. 8D, when an event occurs in the device, the controller 3 takes an action on its own. Such an event program content is a network manager or each device generating an event. Are stored in nonvolatile memory.

In addition, an event program stored in each device is referred to as an "event file" and can be created or modified using a "SetEventFile" and a "ModifyEventFile" service. The event file is shown in FIG. Similarly, it consists of a header and a body, such as an event file header (EventFileHeader), an event code (EventCode), an event code status value (StatusVal), a memory address where the event file body is located (EventFileBody * FileBody), The event registered in the event file (Register Event), the body of the event file (EventFileBody), that is, the action content when the event occurs, the user request primitive content (UserReq UserReqData) to be delivered to the application layer, and the number of action processing for the event occurrence ( Action) Information is recorded including.

And, when the event file is generated, the device generating the event file, if the state value of the event code matches the specified value, delivers the data defined in the 'EventFileBody' to the application layer using the 'UserReq' primitive. In order to take action regardless of the status value when an event occurs, set the status value 'StatusVal' of the event file to '0xFFFFFFFF'.

As described above, the preferred embodiment of the present invention has been disclosed for the purpose of illustration, and a living network to which the present invention is applied can be connected to more various home appliances, and those skilled in the art will appreciate the following appended claims. Within the technical spirit of the disclosed invention and its technical scope, other various embodiments may be improved, changed, replaced or added.

The event-based communication method in the living network control system according to the present invention configured and made as described above may include, for example, an RS-485 network, a small output RF network, and a power line installed in a home by a user located inside or outside the home. Through a living network such as a line network, various home appliances, such as a refrigerator or a washing machine, can be controlled or monitored to provide a user with convenience of remote control and monitoring. Also, after setting an event in the home appliance, when the event occurs, the event content is transmitted to another device or by performing an operation corresponding to the event content, thereby connecting and connecting through the living network. Event driven communication of various home appliances Using a service, it would be very useful inventions are able to more effectively controlled.

Claims (9)

Setting an event in the home appliance included in the living network control system; And When the event occurs in the home appliance, the event in the living network control system comprising the step of transmitting the generated event content to another device, or performing an operation corresponding to the event content Based communication method. The method of claim 1, In the step 1, the event-based communication method of the living network control system, characterized in that for setting a certain event in the home appliance through a network manager included in the living network control system and the user interface. The method of claim 2, The network manager, the event-based communication method in the living network control system, characterized in that to set the event in the home appliance using the SetEventCode service, or to delete using the SetEventCodeDel service. The method of claim 1, In the second step, when one event occurs in the home appliance, event-based communication in the living network control system, characterized in that one operation or a plurality of operations corresponding to the event content is performed. Way. The method of claim 1, In the step 2, when an event occurs in the home appliance, the network manager notifies the content of the event to the network manager included in the living network control system, and then performs the corresponding operation in the network manager. Event-based communication method in the control system. The method of claim 1, And the event is set as an event file in the home appliance, and the event file comprises a header and a main body. The method of claim 6, The event file includes a header of the event file, an event code, a state value of the event code, a memory address in which the main body of the event file is located, an event registered in the event file, a main body of the event file, and a user request primitive content to be delivered to the application layer. The event-based communication method of the living network control system, characterized in that any one or more of the number of times of operation processing information about the occurrence is recorded. The method of claim 7, wherein When an event occurs in the home appliance, if the state value of the event code matches a specified value, the living network control system, characterized in that to transfer the data defined in the event file body to the application layer using a user request primitive. Event-based communication method. The method of claim 7, wherein When an event occurs in the home appliance, the event value of the event file is set to '0xFFFFFFFF' in order to take an action regardless of the state value of the event code. Based communication method.

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