EP1793357B1

EP1793357B1 - System for controlling at least two environment protection devices via multi-channel radio transmitters

Info

Publication number: EP1793357B1
Application number: EP06077185.4A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Renato De Pazzi; Damiano Guzzo; Paolo De Pazzi
Original assignee: Master SpA
Current assignee: Master SpA
Priority date: 2005-11-30
Filing date: 2006-11-27
Publication date: 2017-12-27
Anticipated expiration: 2026-11-27
Also published as: ITVE20050057A1; EP1793357A2; EP1793357A3

Description

The present invention relates to a control system for motors used for automating environment protection devices (roller shutters, sunshades, skylights or similar), comprising at least one control point provided with contacts that allow the motor to be stopped and to be moved in the desired direction.
In most cases, a system for automating a roller shutter consists of a roller shutter, a bi-directional motor, a control card to which the contacts of the two directions of rotation of the motor are connected, and at least one control point.
Currently, control points that use wireless technology, instead of being connected to the control card via a physical connection, are increasingly being developed. This technique consists of equipping the control card with a radio receiver tuned to at least one radio transmitter equipped with contacts that allow the motor to be stopped and to be moved in the desired direction.
The wireless solution has the undoubted advantage of eliminating the need for any kind of masonry work, which is necessary in traditional wired systems for installing the control point in a position that is accessible to the user.
However, the installation of at least one wireless control point for each roller shutter, sunshade or similar, means equipping the system with what can sometimes be a very large number of radio transmitters. Moreover, these transmitters are often perfectly identical to each other and this creates an inconvenience for the user who can never be certain whether the transmitter s/he is about to use is tuned to the environment protection device s/he actually wishes to operate or to another device.
Multi-channel transmitters are well known and allow more than one device to be controlled in order to reduce the number of transmitters forming part of a system. These have a certain number "n" of radio channels, each of which can be tuned to a different environment protection device; by means of a selection button, the user can tune in to one of the possible "n" channels and send the raise, stop, lower command to the device tuned to the selected channel.
However, the number of channels of these multi-channel transmitters is fixed. This means that a generic system will consist of a certain number of environment protection devices and a multi-channel transmitter whose number of channels is generally different from the number of environment protection devices forming part of the system. In some cases, a large number of channels may be unused and this leads to a complication in the use of the transmitter, since the operator must search for the channel tuned to the environment protection device to be operated from among all the channels of the transmitter, and not just from among those actually used in the system.
Remote control systems for home automation systems are known from documents EP1353306A and US 2004/0240395A . Document WO 01/71685 A discloses a system of a universal remote control unit for electronic household appliances.
It is an object of the present invention to eliminate this problem by making a multi-channel transmitter in which the number of channels used can vary according to the number of environment protection devices making up the system.
This object and others that will become apparent from the description that follows are achieved according to the invention with a system that has the features set forth in claim 1.
The present invention is further explained below in one of its preferred embodiments illustrated by way of non-limiting example with reference to the accompanying illustrations.

Figure 1 is a general diagram of the system comprising more than one environment protection device and a multi-channel transmitter.
Figure 2 shows a block diagram of a control card.
Figure 3 shows a block diagram of the multi-channel radio transmitter.
Figure 4 shows a block diagram of the learning program inside the microprocessor.

The system shown in figure 1 comprises two environment protection devices (1) (5) each operated by a bi-directional asynchronous motor (2) (6); each motor is managed by its own control card (3) (7) provided with radio receiver (4) (8); each radio receiver is tuned to a different channel of a multi-channel radio transmitter (9).
The control card shown in figure 2 contains a radio receiver (4), a microprocessor (10), an EEPROM memory (11), a voltage stabilizer stage (12), a motor windings control stage (13) consisting of two relays (14) managed by the microprocessor (10) according to the commands coming from the channel of the radio transmitter (9) tuned to the radio receiver (4).
The multi-channel radio transmitter (9) shown in figure 3 contains the transmitter stage (15), a display (16) for displaying the current channel, a microprocessor (17) that contains the program (20) that allows activation or deactivation of the use of at least one channel of the multi-channel radio transmitter, an EEPROM memory (18), a power supply stage (19), the raise (S) and lower (D) contacts for manual control of the motor, a channel selection contact (SEL), a contact (PG) for activating the running of the program (20) that allows activation or deactivation of the use of at least one channel of the multi-channel radio transmitter.
It is presumed that the multi-channel radio transmitter is able to manage up to 15 channels. Since the system in figure 1 consists of only two environment protection devices, it follows that the multi-channel transmitter has 13 channels more than necessary.
The operation of the system is as follows:

Through the closing of the contact (PG), the user activates the running of the program (20) that allows activation or deactivation of the use of the multi-channel radio transmitter channels. The program (20) displays on the display (16) the "1" symbol and the state ("active" or "inactive") of channel 1. Through the closing of the raise contact (S), the operator sets the state of channel 1 as "active". Through the closing of the (SEL) contact, the program (20) displays on the display the "2" symbol and the state ("active" or "inactive") of channel 2. Through the closing of the raise contact (S), the operator sets the state of channel 2 as "active". In the same way, the operator will set channels 3 to 15 to the "inactive" state. Through the closing of the (PG) contact, the program (20) stores the new settings and terminates the running of the program (20). During normal operation, the (SEL) button will allow only channel 1 and channel 2 to be selected since the other 13 channels are not active.

Figure 4 shows a block diagram of the learning program inside the microprocessor.

In block 1, the transmitter carries out other activities.
In block 2, a test on the (PG) contact is carried out. If the contact is open, it returns to block 1, otherwise the running of the program (20) that allows activation or deactivation of the use of the multi-channel radio transmitter channels is activated.
In block 3, the state ("active" or "inactive") of channel 1 is stored in memory.
In block 4, the channel number and the state of the channel ("active" or "inactive") are displayed on the display.
In block 5, a test on the raise contact (S) is carried out. If the contact is closed, it changes the state of the channel (block 6) and returns to block 4.
In block 7, a test on the channel selection contact (SEL) is carried out. If the contact is closed, it goes to the next channel (block 8) and returns to block 4.
In block 9, a test on the (PG) contact is carried out. If the contact is open, it returns to block 4, otherwise it exits the program (20) that allows activation or deactivation of the use of the multi-channel radio transmitter channels and returns to block 1.

It is clear from what has been said that the control system for controlling environment protection devices has numerous advantages, in particular:

it allows only the channels that are actually necessary for managing the system to be enabled,
it allows the number of active channels to be changed at any time, in the event that the number of environment protection devices constituting the system is changed, and
it makes its use simpler and quicker, since the multi-channel transmitter is sized exactly according to the requirements of the system.

The present invention has been illustrated and described in one of its preferred embodiments, but it is understood that it will in practice be possible to make implementation variants of it without, however, departing from the scope of protection of the present industrial invention patent.

Claims

System for controlling at least two environment protection devices (1) (5) comprising at least one bi-directional motor (2) (6) and a control card (3) (7) for each environment protection device, each control card comprising a radio receiver (4) (8) tuned to at least one channel of at least one multi-channel radio transmitter (9) provided with microprocessor (17) and raise (S) and lower (D) contacts for manual control of the motor and with an activation or deactivation contact (PG), characterized in that the multi-channel radio transmitter (9) has at least one channel selection contact (SEL), and in that the microprocessor (17) comprises a program (20) whose running is activated by closing of said activation or deactivation contact (PG) and that allows: activation or deactivation of the use of at least one channel of the multi-channel radio transmitter, display on a channel display (16) of the symbol and of the state of active or inactive of a channel, change of the channel state of active or inactive by closing said raise contact (S), selection of a next channel when the selection contact (SEL) is closed, change of the state of active or inactive of said next channel by closing of said raise contact (S), and storing of the new settings by way of closing of said activation or deactivation contact (PG).
System for controlling at least two environment protection devices as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that the program (20) that allows activation or deactivation of the use of at least one channel of the multi-channel radio transmitter is run automatically when the multi-channel radio transmitter is switched on.
System for controlling at least two environment protection devices as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that the multi-channel radio transmitter (9) is provided with a general channel that controls all the environment protection devices tuned to at least one active channel of the multi-channel radio transmitter.
System for controlling at least two environment protection devices as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that the microprocessor (17) comprises a program through which it is possible to assign to each channel of the multi-channel radio transmitter the name of the environment protection device tuned to the channel.
System for controlling at least two environment protection devices as claimed in claim 4, characterized in that the multi-channel radio transmitter (9) comprises a display able to display the name of the environment protection device tuned to the channel.