WO2007143901A1

WO2007143901A1 - Remote control system and control method for information household electrical appliances

Info

Publication number: WO2007143901A1
Application number: PCT/CN2007/001704
Authority: WO
Inventors: Congxing Ouyang; Guanghai Zhang; Jinglei Liu
Original assignee: China Mobile Communications Corporation
Priority date: 2006-05-25
Filing date: 2007-05-25
Publication date: 2007-12-21
Also published as: CN101079730A; CN100450032C

Abstract

A remote control system and control method for information household electrical appliances. The system includes a session control server(1) for forwarding a SIP message, a home gateway server(2) and a control terminal (3); the control terminal(3) connects to the session control server (1) via an IP access network, the home gateway server (2) connects to the session control server (1) via the IP access network. The method includes: 1. The control terminal(3) sends the SIP message containing a control information to the session control server(1). 2. The session control server(1) sends the SIP message to the home gateway server (2) according to a network address of the home gateway server(2) contained in the SIP message. 3.The home gateway server (2) performs a control operation on the information household electrical appliances based on an ID number and a control instruction of the information household electrical appliances in the SIP message.

Description

Remote control system and control method for information appliance

The invention relates to a control system and a control method, in particular to a system and a control method for realizing remote control of operation and operation of an information home appliance through a remote communication network. Background technique

With the development of the network technology and the information appliance industry, the original simple household electrical appliances can be connected to the network, thereby generating information appliances, also called network appliances. The information appliance can receive the data in the network and feed back the status information to the network. The birth of the information appliance enables the user to know and control the data of the information appliance in the home through the Internet, so that the user can not return home. You can control the information appliances in your home.

The remote control method of the existing information home appliance mainly uses a point-to-point short message communication method to remotely control the information home appliance or remotely control by using a webpage.

For the peer-to-peer short message control method, the management of each information appliance is relatively isolated. The control by the short message requires the server on the network side to convert the format of the short message, and the effectiveness of the communication control is not high.

For the webpage-based control method, the information appliance can be controlled only when the user browses to the corresponding webpage, and the mobile terminal is generally inconvenient to browse the webpage. Therefore, for the user who uses the mobile terminal, the mobile home appliance is used for the information appliance. Control is very inconvenient. Summary of the invention

The purpose of the present invention is to provide a remote control system and method for information appliances, which introduces a mechanism for communicating with people into the control of information appliances through SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) messages. The information appliance is controlled to manage the information appliance in a unified manner, which facilitates the user's control of the information appliance and improves the effectiveness of the control communication. Especially for the user who uses the mobile terminal, the remote control of the information appliance is more convenient. In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a remote control system for an information appliance, the system comprising: a session control server, a home gateway server, and a control terminal; the control terminal is connected to the session control server through an IP access network. And sending, by the session control server, a SIP message including control information, where the home gateway server is connected to the session control server by using an IP access network, and configured to receive a SIP message including control information sent by the session control service, And parsing the SIP message, and controlling the information appliance connected thereto according to the control instruction; the session control server is configured to receive the control information sent by the control terminal

SIP message and forwarded to the home gateway server. The session control server may be a Call Session Control Function (CSCF) in the IMS network.

The present invention also provides a remote control method for an information appliance, comprising the following steps: Step 1. The control terminal sends a SIP message containing the control information to the session control server, where the control information includes at least the user number corresponding to the control terminal. And a network address of the home gateway server, an ID number of the information appliance, and a control instruction.

Step 2: The session control server sends the SIP message to the home gateway server according to the network address of the home gateway server included in the SIP message.

Step 3: The home gateway server performs a control operation on the information appliance connected thereto according to the ID number of the information appliance of the SIP message and the control instruction;

Step 4. End.

The remote control system and control method of the information home appliance of the invention introduces the mode of communication between people and people into the remote control of the information appliance through the communication method based on the SIP message, thereby improving the effectiveness of the communication and facilitating the user to the information appliance Remote control, and convenient centralized control of information appliances.

The technical solution of the present invention will be further described in detail below through the accompanying drawings and embodiments. DRAWINGS

1 is a schematic structural diagram of a first embodiment of a remote control system for an information appliance according to the present invention; FIG. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of a second embodiment of a remote control system for an information appliance according to the present invention; 3 is a schematic structural diagram of a third embodiment of a remote control system for an information appliance according to the present invention; FIG. 4 is a schematic structural view of a remote control system for an information appliance according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 6 is a schematic structural diagram of a remote control system for an information home appliance according to a sixth embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 7 is a flow chart of a specific embodiment of a remote control method for an information appliance according to the present invention. detailed description

The invention introduces the communication mode of human beings into the management control of the information home appliance, and realizes the user's control of the home appliance by using the communication method based on the SIP message. The user sends the SIP message containing the control information to the session control server through the control terminal 4, and the session control server forwards the SIP message to the corresponding home gateway, and the information appliance inside the home gateway family performs the corresponding control operation. The invention introduces the mode of communication between people into the management of information appliances. When an information appliance is shipped from the factory, the equipment manufacturer should assign a code to each device. The factory code conforms to the standard format, and the information appliance should be uniquely designated globally, which is called the ID (identification number) of the information appliance. This ID number is equivalent to the mobile number in the personal communication.

1 is a schematic structural diagram of a specific embodiment 1 of a remote control system for an information appliance according to the present invention, the system including a session control server 1, a home gateway server 2, and a control terminal 3;

The control terminal 3 is connected to the session control server 1 through an IP access network, and is configured to send a SIP message containing control information to the call session control server; the control terminal may be any communication supporting the SIP message. a terminal, the preferred communication terminal is a mobile terminal supporting an IP message;

The home gateway server 2 is connected to the session control server 1 through an IP access network, and is configured to receive an IP message including control information sent by the session control server, parse the SIP message, and connect to the SIP message according to the control instruction. Information appliances for control;

The session control server 1 is configured to receive control information sent by the control terminal 3

S IP message, and forwarded to the home gateway server 2. The session control server functions as a relay of the SIP message, and the home gateway and the control terminal are established through the session control server. A SIP-based communication connection between.

2 is a schematic structural diagram of Embodiment 2 of the information appliance remote control system of the present invention, which is different from Embodiment 1 in that the session control server 1 is specifically a call session control server (CSCF) in an IMS network. , Call Session Control Function) 11. The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is the subsystem of the Third Generation General Partnership Project (3GPP) proposed in the R5 version to support IP multimedia services. The core feature of IMS is the use of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and its independence from access. Therefore, IMS is an important step towards the all-IP network service system. Under the trend of network convergence, 3GPP, ETSI and ITU-T are all researching IMS-based network convergence solutions, aiming to make IMS a universal platform based on SIP sessions, thus providing a common service platform for future multimedia applications. At the same time, it supports multiple access methods for fixed and mobile, and realizes the convergence of fixed network and mobile network. Compared with softswitch technology, IMS has access independence, which also constitutes the core technical advantage of IMS. The communication endpoint (IMS terminal) of the IMS network and the network are both IP based. In the 3GPP specification, this is guaranteed by the IP Connectivity Accsess Netwrok (IP-CAN). In this embodiment, the advantage of the session control of the IMS system is fully utilized, and the control information of the information appliance is realized by using the SIP message transmission control information. Since the IMS has good access independence, the home gateway server and the control terminal can adopt different types. The IP access network, for example, the home gateway server may be a computer connected to the Internet, connected to the S network through the Internet, thereby receiving the SIP message forwarded by the call session control server, and the control terminal is an instant communication terminal supporting the IMS. Access the IMS network through the GPRS network and send SIP messages to the call session control server. The home gateway server and the control terminal may access the same call session control server or may access different call session control servers, mainly determined by the location of the home gateway server and the control terminal. If the home gateway server and the control terminal access different call session control servers, SIP messages need to be forwarded between the two call session control servers.

3 is a schematic structural diagram of a third embodiment of a remote control system for an information appliance according to the present invention. In this embodiment, a home gateway server and a control terminal access different call session control. Therefore, the SIP message needs to be forwarded between the two call session control servers, that is, the call session control server corresponding to the control terminal forwards the SIP message it receives to the call session control server corresponding to the home gateway server, by the family. The call session control server corresponding to the gateway server sends a SIP message to the home gateway server.

The present invention will be further described below by taking a remote control for reducing the temperature of the air conditioner in the home by a mobile terminal as an example. In this example, the mobile terminal and the home gateway correspond to different session control servers, and the mobile terminal sends an instant communication SIP message to the network side. The message includes at least the user's own user number, the network address of the corresponding home gateway, the device ID number of the air conditioner, and the air conditioning temperature control command (the command may include a specific temperature reduction value). The SIP message is sent over the GPRS network to a session control server (CSCF, CA ll Ses s Control Control) in the IMS network, and the session control server then moves the mobile terminal according to the network address of the corresponding home gateway. The sent SIP message is forwarded to the session control server responsible for accessing the home gateway, and the session control server responsible for accessing the home gateway sends the SIP message through the Internet to the home gateway managing the air conditioner according to the address of the home gateway in the SIP message. After receiving the SIP message, the home gateway performs a temperature reduction adjustment on the air conditioner according to the control instruction in the SIP message and the ID of the air conditioner.

The precondition for realizing the remote control of the information home appliance is that the ID of the controlled information appliance, the network address of the home gateway, and the control instruction set of the controlled information appliance are stored in advance in the control terminal; and the home gateway needs to have the SIP message parsed. Capability, and pre-stored the ID of the controlled information appliance and the corresponding control instruction set.

4 is a schematic structural diagram of a fourth embodiment of a remote control system for an information appliance according to the present invention. The difference from the second embodiment is that the system further includes an instant messaging application server 4 disposed in the IMS network, and the call. The session control server 11 is connected to receive the SIP message sent by the call session control server 11, perform logical control of the control information in the SIP message, and return a judgment result to the call session control server 11. After the instant messaging application server is introduced, the call session control server does not directly send the received SIP message to the home gateway, but first forwards the SIP message to the instant messaging application server connected thereto. The instant messaging application server pre-stores user information having control authority for the information appliance corresponding to the home gateway (the user information is stored in the server when the user registers the information control service of the home appliance), when the instant communication Receiving, by the application server, the S IP message, determining, according to the user number, whether the user has the control authority for the information appliance corresponding to the home gateway, and including the return message of the determination result to the call session control server, If the user has the control right, the call session control server forwards the S IP message to the home gateway server after receiving the return message, otherwise, the S IP message is not forwarded to the home gateway server, thereby stopping the control of the information appliance. . For the instant messaging application server, the return message to the call session control server may take the following form: If the user who sends the information has the control right, the return to the session control server may be a SIP message of 200 0K message, otherwise it may be a 400 N0K message.

5 is a schematic structural diagram of Embodiment 5 of a remote control system for an information appliance according to the present invention, which is different from Embodiment 1 in that it further includes an information appliance home database server 6 and information appliance data set in an IMS network. The management server 5 is connected to the control terminal 3 and the home gateway server 2 through the IMS network and the IP access network; the information appliance home database server 6 is configured to store static data of the information appliance, and at least the identification number of the information appliance And a control appliance set; the information appliance data management server 5 is configured to store usage data of the information appliance in use state, the usage data including at least static data and usage status data of the information appliance, and a home gateway corresponding to the information appliance Server address information. In order to better manage the information of the information home appliance, the information home appliance home database server and the information home appliance data management server are introduced in the present invention, so that the information about the information home appliance and the management of the information home appliance are better realized.

The invention introduces the data storage mode of human-to-human communication into the information appliance management. When an information appliance is shipped from the factory, the equipment manufacturer should assign a code to each device. The factory code conforms to the standard format, and the information appliance should be uniquely designated globally, which is called the ID (identification number) of the information appliance, and the ID can locate the home database server of the information appliance to which the information appliance belongs. The ID of the information appliance is stored in the information appliance and the information appliance home database server. At the same time, the manufacturer of information appliances will provide other static data of the household appliances. It can include: device brand, device name, device model, production serial number, configuration information when the device leaves the factory, a set of control commands that can be supported, and so on. The static data is stored in the information home appliance home database server when the device leaves the factory, and the static data of the existing information home appliance must be stored in the information home appliance and the information appliance belongs to the database server. In the present invention, the static data does not need to be stored in the information appliance, thereby reducing the amount of data storage of the information appliance itself. The information appliance home database server can be divided into a variety of ways, for example: can be divided by the manufacturer, or by the type of home appliances, the ID number of the corresponding information appliance is also encoded in the same way, so by analyzing the ID number It is possible to locate which information appliance belongs to the database server to which the information appliance belongs.

The information appliance data management server manages one or more home gateway servers, and the home gateway server manages all information appliances in the home. The information home appliance data management server stores usage data of all the information appliances used in the plurality of home gateways managed by the home appliance data management server, and in the home appliance data management server, the data of the information appliance is organized in accordance with each home gateway server. In the present invention, any information appliance is connected to the home gateway server, a home is provided with a home gateway server, all information appliances in the home are connected to the server of the home gateway, and the server of the home gateway is used for information appliances in the home. Unified management, and real-time monitoring of the status of information appliances, the home gateway server stores all the data of all the information appliances in the home state, and keeps the data in the information appliance management server, so that on the one hand The home appliance manages the information appliance through the server of the home gateway. On the other hand, when the home gateway server is disconnected from the network, the data of the information appliance can be saved, and after the network connection is normal, the information appliance management server is updated. data.

The information appliance data management server and the home gateway server only store data of the information appliance in use state. When a new information appliance is connected to the home gateway server, the information appliance stores the ID number and reports the information through the home gateway server. The home appliance data management server obtains the static data of the information home appliance from the home database server of the information home appliance based on the ID number of the information home appliance. The static data is stored in the information appliance data management server and the home gateway server.

Since the information appliance data management server stores all the information homes currently in use state Electrical data, other servers or terminals in the network can obtain data of all information appliances currently in use in the information appliance data management server, and can be obtained in various ways, and can adopt a traditional webpage interaction mode, or can adopt Compared with the prior art, the method of instant messaging has great advantages. In practical applications, the acquisition of related data of the information appliance can be performed by means of instant messaging. The home appliance data management server is also responsible for managing the subscription information of the instant messaging user to the information appliance event. The information appliance event refers to a change in the state of the information appliance, for example, the online appliance of the information appliance, the offline, the update of the status data, etc., when the event occurs, the data management server will notify the event to all subscribed to the event. The terminal of the instant messaging user sends the corresponding data to the terminal of the instant communication user. This method is very suitable for widely used mobile terminals. The event subscription is not for an information appliance, but for a home gateway server. A home gateway server corresponds to a home. The event subscription is all information appliances in the home. The collection is object-oriented, that is, for the online event, it refers to the online event of any home appliance in the family. If a mobile terminal subscribes to an event, when the event occurs, the information generated by the event is notified to the information appliance data management server through the information exchange between the servers, and the information appliance data management server according to the stored subscription. Information, the event is immediately notified to the mobile terminal, in this way, the user does not need to take the initiative to obtain, such online state management and instant communication of the home appliance is difficult to implement based on the data storage mode of the existing information appliance, and The subscriber in the present invention may be a server in the network in addition to the ordinary user. For example, the information appliance home data server may be a subscriber. When an event occurs in the information appliance, the event may be sent to the information appliance. Data server, because the information appliance home data server is closely connected with the information appliance manufacturer, this instant message communication method enables the manufacturer to instantly know the status of the information appliance it produces.

After introducing the information appliance home database server and the information appliance data management server, the management and control of the information appliance are more flexible, and the control terminal can acquire the instruction set of the information appliance from the information appliance home database server and the information appliance data management server in the network. Static information, and can make full use of the advantages of the IMS system in instant communication, and send the static information and dynamic information of the information appliance to the control terminal in an active push manner, thus making the user of the control terminal Instantly understand the information of current information appliances, and manage and control the information appliances. The instant communication method adopted by the invention controls and manages the information home appliance, and the setting of the control interface of the control terminal can adopt the setting mode of the instant communication software for the communication of the person, so that the user is more convenient and user-friendly, and For example, in the control of the air conditioner, the air conditioner is displayed as an instant communication object on the user's mobile terminal, and the icon (portrait) can be an air conditioner. After the user selects the icon of the air conditioner, the screen display of the mobile terminal will automatically list the current working status and operation list of the air conditioner. In the operation list, there is a temperature adjustment item. After the user inputs the settings in the temperature adjustment item, the mobile terminal converts the user input into control information and sends it in the form of a SIP message, thereby realizing control of the information appliance.

6 is a schematic structural diagram of Embodiment 6 of a remote control system for an information appliance according to the present invention, which is different from Embodiment 5 in that it further includes an instant messaging application server 4 disposed in an IMS network, and The call session control server 11 is connected to receive the SIP message sent by the call session control server 11, perform logical judgment on the control authority in the SIP message, and return a judgment result to the call session control server 11. .

The present invention also provides a control method of a remote control system for an information appliance based on the present invention. Referring to FIG. 7, which is a flowchart of a specific embodiment of a remote control method for an information appliance according to the present invention, including the following steps:

Step 101: The control terminal sends a SIP message including control information to the session control server, where the control information includes at least a user number corresponding to the control terminal, a network address of the home gateway server, an ID number of the information appliance, and Control instruction. The session control server can be specifically a Call Session Control Server (CSCF) in the IMS network.

Step 102: The session control server sends the SIP message to the home gateway server according to the network address of the home gateway server included in the SIP message. Step 103: The home gateway server according to the SIP The ID number of the message home appliance and the control command perform a control operation on the information appliance connected thereto;

Step 104, the end.

In order to better control information appliances, the instant messaging application server was introduced to SIP. The control information in the message is subjected to an authentication operation. Therefore, the step 1 and the step 2 may further include: after the call session control server receives the SIP message, forwarding the SIP message to the instant messaging application. a server, the instant messaging application server analyzes control information in the SIP message, determines whether the user has control authority for the information appliance corresponding to the home gateway server, and includes the judgment to the call session control server The returned message of the result; if the result of the determination is that the user has the control authority, step 2 is performed, otherwise, step 4 is performed.

The authentication operation of the control information in the SIP message may also be performed by the home gateway server, which requires the home gateway service to pre-store the user information having the control authority for the information appliance corresponding to the home gateway, so that the step is The above authentication operation is not required to be inserted between 1 and 1, and the following steps are inserted between the steps 2 and 3. The home gateway server analyzes the control information in the SIP message after receiving the SIP message. And determining whether the user has the control authority for the information appliance corresponding to the home gateway server, and if yes, performing step 3; otherwise, performing step 4.

In addition, in the actual application, for the control terminal, the interface management style of the instant communication tool such as QQ, MSN, etc. can be used to design the control interface of the information appliance, for example, each information appliance can be set as an icon of the image. It is also possible to give a humanized nickname. And the unified operation of the plurality of information appliances can be designed as an option or an icon. For example, an icon named "sleeping" can be designed. When the user clicks the icon, the control terminal will uniformly close all the information appliances in the home. The control operation eliminates the trouble of the user controlling the information appliance one by one, which is more convenient for the user to use.

In addition, those skilled in the art should understand that the control information of the information appliance can also be encapsulated into other network transmission protocol formats for transmission, and remote control of the information appliance can also be realized. For example, the control information may be encapsulated by using the HTTP protocol and sent to the home gateway server through the IP network. However, due to the advantages of the SIP protocol in session control, especially based on the advantages of session control in the IMS system, the present invention selects a SIP message as a carrier for information appliance control information. The SIP protocol has the following advantages: The S IP protocol is a text-based protocol. Because this method is easy to understand and simple to implement, it is very popular among device developers. The SIP protocol considers and supports user mobility. The SIP protocol defines different functions such as a registration server and a redirect server. When a user's location changes, the location information is registered to the registration server at any time. This makes it convenient and quick for mobile terminal users to control information appliances. The SIP protocol uses the message processing method of the HTTP protocol Cl ient-Server. The SIP message itself has a certain positioning capability. The identification method of the domain name in the SIP message header may include the user number information, the location information, the user name and the attribution information thereof, and is a great advantage of the manner in which the SIP message is expressed. The SIP protocol can be integrated with many other IETF protocols to provide various services (such as SDP, RSVP, RTSP, MIME, HTTP, etc.), which enables the SIP protocol to have great flexibility in the implementation of services. The SIP protocol is more scalable. Since the release, a number of new messages have been defined based on business requirements and some feature requirements, and the message extension is better before and after. The SIP protocol has an inseparable close relationship with the Internet, the largest IP network, which makes the SIP protocol closer to the general trend of IP networking for next-generation networks. Therefore, the use of SIP messages as the carrier of control information in the control field of information appliances conforms to the trend of the development of next-generation networks, and has enormous room for development.

It should be noted that the above embodiments are only intended to illustrate the technical solutions of the present invention and are not intended to be limiting, and the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the preferred embodiments. Modifications or equivalents are made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.

Claims

Claim

A remote control system for an information appliance, characterized by comprising a session control server, a home gateway server, and a control terminal;

The control terminal is connected to the session control server through an IP access network, and configured to send a SIP message including control information to the session control server;

The home gateway server is connected to the session control server through an IP access network, and is configured to receive a SIP message including control information sent by the session control server, parse the SIP message, and connect the information appliance connected thereto according to the control instruction. Control

The session control server is configured to receive a SIP message including control information sent by the control terminal, and forward the message to the home gateway server.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein said session control server is a call session control server in an IMS network.

3. The system of claim 2, further comprising:

An instant messaging application server disposed in the IMS network, connected to the call session control server, configured to receive the SIP message sent by the call session control server, and perform logical judgment on the control authority in the SIP message, And returning the judgment result to the call session control server.

4. The system of claim 2 or 3, further comprising:

a home gateway server and an information appliance data management server disposed in the IMS network, connected to the control terminal and the home gateway server through an IMS network and an IP access network; the information appliance belongs to a database server, and is used for storing static information appliances Data, comprising at least an identification number and a control instruction set of the information appliance; the information appliance data management server, configured to store usage data of the information appliance in use state, the usage data including at least static data and usage status of the information appliance Data and address information of the home gateway server corresponding to the information appliance.

5. A remote control method for an information appliance, characterized in that the method comprises the following steps:

Step 1: The control terminal sends a SIP message containing the control information to the session control server, where the control information includes at least the user number corresponding to the control terminal, and the home gateway service. The network address of the device, the ID number of the information appliance, and a control command.

Step 1: The session control server sends the SIP message to the home gateway server according to the network address of the home gateway server included in the S IP message.

Step 4. End.

The method according to claim 5, further comprising: after the step control server receives the SIP message, forwarding the SIP message to the instant messaging application server The instant messaging application server analyzes the control information in the SIP message, determines whether the user has control authority for the information appliance corresponding to the home gateway server, and sends the judgment result to the session control server. Return message; if the judgment result is that the user has the control authority, step 2 is performed; otherwise, step 4 is performed.

The method according to claim 5, further comprising: after the step 2 and the step 3, the home gateway server analyzes the control information in the SIP message after receiving the SIP message. And determining whether the user has the control authority for the information appliance corresponding to the home gateway server, and if yes, executing step 3; otherwise, performing step 4.