JP5175474B2 - Device control system - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a device control system that controls and / or monitors an electronic device connected to a specific network environment such as an equipment network or a home network via a telecommunication line such as the Internet.

Conventionally, an electronic device connected to a control device (web server device) via a telecommunication line such as the Internet and connected to a specific network environment to which the control device belongs via a web environment provided by the control device. Device control systems that control and monitor devices are known. According to such a device control system, the user can easily control and monitor the electronic device from a position away from the electronic device via the web browser.
Ken Takahashi, Hideki Fujimura, Goro Oda, “Compact and Low-Cost Internet Interface Unit”, Matsushita Electric Works Technical Report, Vol.52, No.4, p11-18

  However, as described above, the conventional device control system is configured to control and monitor the electronic device via the web environment provided by the control device after connecting the terminal device to the control device via the telecommunication line. Therefore, when the number of terminal devices connected to the control device increases, the number of HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) sessions increases and the load on the control device increases. In addition, when the configuration of the specific network environment, more specifically, the configuration of the electronic device to be controlled and monitored changes, the configuration of the web environment must be changed, which requires a lot of cost for system management.

  The present invention has been made to solve the above-described problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a device control system that can reduce the load on the control device and reduce the cost required for system management. .

In order to solve the above problem, the device control system according to the first aspect of the present invention is characterized in that a plurality of electronic devices having unique identification information connected to the first telecommunication line, A control device that communicates with a plurality of electronic devices via a telecommunication line; and a terminal device that communicates with the control device via a second telecommunication line. When the control device has a table showing the correspondence between each IP address and the identification information of the electronic device, and the electronic device is controlled and / or monitored, the terminal device uses the second telecommunication An IP address corresponding to the electronic device is designated to the control device via the line, and in response to the IP address designated by the terminal device, the control device corresponds to the IP address designated by referring to the table. An electronic device having the identification information to control and / or monitoring, control device is assigned a group pattern IP address corresponding to a predetermined control pattern by a plurality of electronic devices, the group pattern IP address has been specified from the terminal device Alternatively, the control device executes a control pattern by a plurality of electronic devices corresponding to the group pattern IP address corresponding to the group pattern IP address in accordance with the transmission, and the control pattern is a combination of different electronic devices. Includes multiple patterns to operate on .
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Features of the device control system according to a first aspect of the present invention is connected to the first telecommunication line, have a device ID as unique identification information, in accordance with any communication protocol among the plurality of communication protocols A plurality of electronic devices that operate; a control device that communicates with the plurality of electronic devices via the first telecommunication line; and a terminal device that communicates with the control device via a second telecommunication line. When the control device is assigned a plurality of IP addresses corresponding to each of the plurality of electronic devices, and the electronic device is controlled and / or monitored, the terminal device controls the control device via the second telecommunication line. device sends the IP address corresponding to the electronic equipment, the said IP address contains the network address and the interface ID, the system to the interface ID Wherein the gateway identifier identifying the device and protocol identifier for identifying the communication protocol includes a device ID for identifying the electronic device, wherein in response from the terminal to the IP address is transmitted, included in the IP addresses The control device identified by the gateway identifier is restored to the device ID by performing conversion defined in the communication protocol identified by the protocol identifier included in the IP address, and corresponds to the device ID included in the IP address. Control and / or monitor the electronic device to be controlled, and the control device is assigned a group pattern IP address corresponding to a predetermined control pattern by a plurality of electronic devices, and the group pattern IP address is designated or transmitted from the terminal device. In response to the request, the control unit sends the group pattern IP address. Run the control pattern by a plurality of electronic device corresponding to the corresponding group pattern IP address includes a plurality of patterns to be operated in the combination control pattern different multiple electronic devices.

  According to the device control system of the present invention, since a session is established between the control device and the terminal device only when controlling and / or monitoring the electronic device, the load on the control device is reduced and system management is required. Cost can be reduced. In addition, according to the device control system of the present invention, the electronic device can be controlled and / or monitored without intervening the web environment. Therefore, the electronic device can be controlled and / or monitored without a human operation. it can.

  Hereinafter, a device control system according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

[Configuration of device control system]
As shown in FIG. 1, a device control system 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a terminal device 2 constituted by a known information processing device such as a personal computer or a portable information communication terminal, and field controllers 3a and 3b. Operation of the plurality of electronic devices 4a to 4d such as connected desk lamps and air conditioners and the plurality of electronic devices 4a to 4d via the field controllers 3a and 3b (power on / off, switch on / off, level A control device 5 that controls and monitors settings and the like is provided as a main component, and the terminal device 2 and the control device 5 are configured to be capable of information communication via the Internet 6. In the present embodiment, the electronic device is connected to the field controller via a telecommunication line having a communication protocol different from that of the Internet 6 such as a full two-wire network or a LON (Local Operating Network).

  The field controllers 3a and 3b are devices that control and monitor the electronic devices 4a to 4d by serial communication, IO, or the like without IP connection to the electronic devices 4a to 4d. The control device 5 includes identification information unique to the electronic devices connected to the field controllers 3a and 3b (for example, a MAC address or a LIU (Local Interface Unit) number, a T / U (Terminal Unit) number in a full 2-wire network), and A plurality of global addresses (hereinafter referred to as IP addresses) associated with contact identification numbers composed of channel numbers, etc., hereinafter referred to as device IDs) are assigned, and the control device 5 is configured as shown in FIG. A control block 12 for controlling and monitoring the plurality of electronic devices 4a to 4d via the field controllers 3a and 3b with reference to a mapping table 11 (see FIG. 4) showing the correspondence between IDs and IP addresses, and predetermined electronic devices Group pattern management that instructs the control block 12 to execute a predetermined control pattern for a group of It comprises a lock 13, and a schedule management block 14 instructs the control block 12 to the timing (scheduling) for performing a predetermined control in a predetermined electronic device. The schedule management block 14 is periodically called from a main program or the like at preset time intervals, and when there is control to be processed at that time, issues a control command to the protocol analysis block 24 described later.

  As shown in FIG. 3, the control block 12 generates a thread 22 in response to receiving a session request from the terminal device 2 via the Internet 6, and monitors and controls the number of generated sessions. A communication control block 23 that performs transmission / reception of IP data and exception processing (error processing such as CRC error that cannot open a communication socket) provided for each thread 22 generated by the block 21 and the IP session management block 21; A protocol analysis block 24 that analyzes received data according to the communication protocol, a determination block 25 that issues a control command to the corresponding electronic device via the field controllers 3a and 3b according to the analysis result, and a format that matches the protocol for controlling the electronic device Convert control commands For example comprise received control command with the conversion, and the like) to serial commands for the full two-wire network, the device control block 26 which converts the information acquired from the electronic apparatus to a format matching the control block 12.

  Specifically, the group pattern management block 13 is a group pattern IP address (FIG. 5A) corresponding to a plurality of electronic devices or a predetermined control pattern, as shown in FIGS. , (B) 2001 :: 10, 2001 :: 11), and in response to the group pattern IP address being designated from the terminal device 2, a plurality of group pattern IP addresses corresponding to the group pattern IP address are stored. The control block 12 is instructed to control the electronic device or to execute a control pattern corresponding to the group pattern IP address. In the example shown in FIG. 5A, the group pattern management block 13 instructs the control block 12 to turn on / off the four electronic devices, for example. In the example shown in FIG. The control block 12 is instructed to set the designated on / off states. According to such processing, when the electronic device is an office ceiling luminaire, desired group pattern control can be performed with a single IP command, such as thinning lighting or turning off only the lighting in the vicinity of the window.

  Such a device control system 1 operates as described below, thereby reducing the load on the control device 5 and reducing the cost required for system management. That is, in the device control system 1, when the electronic devices 4a to 4d are controlled and monitored, first, the terminal device 2 specifies an IP address corresponding to the electronic devices 4a to 4d as a command via the Internet 6. To connect to the control device 5 having these IP addresses. The connection state between the terminal device 2 and the control device 5 is established only when the IP address is transmitted. Next, when the terminal device 2 is connected, the control block 12 inside the control device 5 refers to the mapping table 11 to identify the device ID corresponding to the IP address specified at the time of connection, and has the specified device ID. A thread 22 for controlling and monitoring the electronic devices 4a to 4d is generated and executed. The contents of the processing requested to be executed to the electronic devices 4a to 4d are attached with data indicating the processing contents together with the IP address, or the processing contents are described in specific bits (for example, payload) in the IP address. Can be specified.

  In general, in the case of web browsing using HTTP, since a session is maintained even while a web screen is opened, the load on the server device tends to increase. On the other hand, according to the device control system 1 according to the embodiment of the present invention, as described above, a session is established in the control device 5 only when a command is transmitted or an event is received. Compared with the control system, the load on the control device 5 can be reduced.

  Further, according to the device control system 1 according to the embodiment of the present invention, the electronic devices 4a to 4c connected to the field controllers 3a and 3b are regarded as IP devices, and are widely used as socket APIs. Software can be implemented, making it easy to connect with vendors from other vendors and reducing the load of software implementation (IP socket programming has been standardized and verified for interoperability) .

  As mentioned above, although the embodiment to which the invention made by the present inventor is applied has been described, the present invention is not limited by the description and the drawings that form part of the disclosure of the present invention according to this embodiment. For example, in the present embodiment, the control block 12 refers to the mapping table 11 and converts the IP address transmitted from the terminal device 2 into a device ID unique to the device. The IP address information in which the unique device ID is embedded may be transmitted. Specifically, the terminal device 2 transmits IP address information in a format as shown in FIG. The IP address information shown in FIG. 6 includes IPv6 address information and payload information (various commands, data, responses, etc.) of the transmission source (terminal device 2) and destination (control target). As shown in FIG. 7, it is composed of a network address part and an interface ID part. The interface ID portion is formed by the identifier (gateway (GW) identifier) of the control device 5, the protocol identifier, and the field device ID portion, and stores the device ID to be controlled in the field device ID portion. In this case, the protocol analysis block 24 extracts the data of the device ID to be controlled from the field device ID part and, if necessary, performs conversion defined for each protocol of the field controller with reference to the protocol identifier. Restore the device ID to be controlled. Then, the protocol analysis block 24 delivers the restored device ID and the command in the payload to the device control block 26. According to such a process, it is not necessary to store the mapping table 11 in the control device 5, so that the resources of the control device 5 can be reduced. In addition, since it is not necessary to search the device ID of the electronic device corresponding to the IP address from the mapping table 11, the processing time of the control device 5 is shortened, and the control device 5 is efficient even when the number of connected field controllers is large. Can be processed. Furthermore, in this embodiment, the control block 12 generates the thread 22 in response to receiving a session request from the terminal device 2, but a process may be generated instead of the thread 22. In the present embodiment, the IP address may be either an IPv4 form or an IPv6 form, or may be a link local (private) address. As described above, it is a matter of course that all other embodiments, examples, operation techniques, and the like made by those skilled in the art based on the above embodiments are included in the scope of the present invention.

It is a schematic diagram which shows the structure of the device control system used as embodiment of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows the internal structure of the control apparatus shown in FIG. It is a block diagram which shows the internal structure of the control block shown in FIG. It is a figure which shows an example of the mapping table shown in FIG. It is a figure which shows an example of the group pattern IP address corresponding to a some electronic device or a predetermined control pattern. It is a schematic diagram which shows the IP address information which becomes embodiment of this invention. It is a schematic diagram which shows the structure of the destination IPv6 address information shown in FIG. It is a schematic diagram which shows the structure of the interface ID part shown in FIG.

Explanation of symbols

1: Device control system 2: Terminal devices 3a and 3b: Field controllers 4a to 4d: Electronic equipment 5: Control device 6: Internet

Claims (1)

Connected to the first telecommunication line, it has a device ID as unique identification information, and a plurality of electronic devices that operate according to any communication protocol among the plurality of communication protocols,
A control device that communicates with the plurality of electronic devices via the first telecommunication line;
A terminal device that communicates with the control device via a second telecommunication line,
When the control device is assigned a plurality of IP addresses corresponding to a plurality of electronic devices, and the electronic device is controlled and / or monitored, the terminal device transmits the control device via the second telecommunication line. An IP address corresponding to the electronic device is transmitted, and the IP address includes a network address and an interface ID. The interface ID includes a gateway identifier for identifying the control device, a protocol identifier for identifying the communication protocol, and the interface ID. The control device identified by the gateway identifier included in the IP address in response to the transmission of the IP address from the terminal device is included in the IP address. Defined in the communication protocol identified by the protocol identifier The restore the device ID by performing controls and / or monitors the electronic device corresponding to the device ID included in the IP address,
A group pattern IP address corresponding to a predetermined control pattern by a plurality of electronic devices is assigned to the control device, and the control device is designated or transmitted in response to designation or transmission of the group pattern IP address from the terminal device. Executes a control pattern by a plurality of electronic devices corresponding to the group pattern IP address corresponding to the group pattern IP address, and the control pattern includes a plurality of patterns for operating the plurality of electronic devices in different combinations. Feature device control system.

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