JPS62219825A - Gateway of load control system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To improve the control signal conversion efficiency between a private line and a power line with different transmission speed by referencing the state of each load stored in the gateway depending on a load supervisory means in receiving a load control signal and relay-transmitting a control signal onto the power line only when the present load state is changed. CONSTITUTION:The gateway uses an internal trigger from a timer 16 to send a transmission request signal to a load (i) and when a reply is received within a prescribed time, the connection flag of the load (i) is set to 1, and the content of a reply signal is discriminated to set the state flag of the load (i) into 1 or 0. Further, 1 is added to the load (i), the presence of the timer trigger input again is awaited, the operation above is repeated by the number of loads similarly and the information of the load state is renewed and stored at every prescribed time. When the private line reception circuit of the gateway receives a request signal applying on-control to the load (i) from a controller via a private line, by load (i) connection flag is referenced and the reply signal is sent by a private line transmission line 7. Then the state flag is referenced and only when the state of control request changes the load state, the control request signal received from the private line is relayed and sent.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention uses a dedicated information transmission line such as a coaxial cable and a power line as an information transmission line in a load control system such as a home automation system. It relates to a gateway that exchanges information.

[Conventional technology]

FIG. 3 shows, for example, a dedicated line and a power line shown in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 149242/1988, which are installed in an overlapping manner.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a load control system to which a conventional device 3 and an embodiment according to the present invention are applied. In the figure, C
13 indicates a house that has been expanded and renovated, aD is an expanded room,
ul and α9 are already built rooms. In the expanded room aη, a dedicated line transmission system a consisting of a dedicated line (1) dedicated to coaxial cable as an information transmission path and a controller for the dedicated line transmission system is installed to control the load Qυ of each device such as lighting equipment. . On the other hand, the existing room uLI 19 controls the load Qυ of each device such as lighting equipment by a power line transmission system b using a power line (21). (31 is a gateway inserted between the dedicated line (1) and the power line (2) This gateway (31) connects the leased line fi and IT system controller ■ to the power line (1) by mutually exchanging control signals between the leased line 1 transmission system a and the power line transmission system b. It is possible to remotely control the lighting equipment etc.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing the internal configuration of the conventional gateway disclosed in the above-mentioned Japanese Patent Application Publication.
), I24 is a conversion circuit that converts the output of 41 into a signal for power line transmission,
(5) is a transmitter circuit that transmits the output of this conversion circuit 4 onto the power line (2), (6) is a receiver circuit that receives the signal on the power line (2), and ■ is a dedicated output of this receiver circuit (6). A conversion circuit that converts signals for line transmission, (7) is this conversion circuit (
2) A transmitting circuit that transmits the output onto the dedicated line tll.

Next, the operation of the above-mentioned conventional gateway will be explained for the case where the load Cυ is sub-controlled from the dedicated line transmission system controller (2).

When the controller ■ sends a load Qυon control request signal on the dedicated line (1), the dedicated line receiving circuit (4) in the gateway (3) receives this signal, and the conversion circuit c14)
converts the signal into a signal for the power line transmission system, and the power line transmission circuit (5) transmits this signal onto the power line (2).

Next, when a response signal to the controller ■ indicating that the load Qυ has changed to the On state is transmitted on the power line (2), the power line receiving circuit (6) in the gateway (3:) receives this signal, The conversion circuit (to) converts the signal into a signal for the leased line transmission system, and the leased line transmission circuit (7) transmits this signal onto the leased line (1).

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

Traditional gateways are configured as described above, converting signals between dedicated lines, which can be transmitted over long distances, and power lines, which are noisy and must be transmitted at low speeds to improve reliability. In this case, there was a problem of poor transmission efficiency. For example, conventional gateways relay control request signals even for loads that are currently not in use and are not connected to the power line and send them over the power line, which has a slow transmission speed, resulting in unnecessary retransmissions and long response waits. must be carried out.

This invention was made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and its purpose is to provide a gateway that can efficiently exchange control signals between a dedicated line and a power line that have different transmission speeds. do.

[Means for solving problems]

The gateway according to the present invention includes load monitoring means for monitoring the status of each load for all connected loads;
Load control means that, when receiving a load control signal, refers to the state of each load held within the gateway by the load monitoring means and relays the control signal onto the power line only when changing the current state of the load. It is equipped with a control circuit having the following.

[For production].

In the gateway in this invention, the load monitoring means of the control circuit (118) monitors the state of each load for all the loads, and stores the state in the storage means, and the load control means performs load control. When a signal is received, the status of each load stored in the storage means is referred to, and the control signal is relayed over the power line only when changing the current status, so it can be used on dedicated lines and power lines with different transmission speeds. It is possible to efficiently convert control signals between the two and reduce the burden of power line transmission.

〔Example〕

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. 1st
The figure is an internal block diagram showing the configuration of a gateway in a load control system in which a leased line and a power line coexist according to the present invention (11 is a leased line).

(21 is a power line, (31 is a dedicated line (11 and power line (2)
), (5) is a receiving circuit that receives signals on the dedicated line (5) is a transmitting circuit that transmits signals on power line (2), (6) is power line (2) (7) is a transmitting circuit that transmits signals on dedicated line (1), (8) is a transmitting/receiving circuit for these +4
1, +51, +61, and +71, (9) is a load monitoring means that this control circuit (8) has, and αω is a load control means that this control circuit has.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an example of the configuration of the control circuit (8), where Qυ is the transmitting/receiving circuit for the leased line (1) +3
1, +41 memory that stores the program that controls it.

α2 is the transmitting/receiving circuit (5), (6) for the power line (2)
α3 is a memory in which a program for exchanging a dedicated line transmission signal and a power line transmission signal for load control is stored.

I is a memory in which a load monitoring program is stored that requests each load to send its status at a predetermined time interval and stores the contents of responses from each load in memory, α9 is The contents of the response by the load monitoring program are stored, and the flags referred to by the load control program are stored (RAM as a storage means).

tte is a timer that outputs a trigger signal to the load monitoring program at regular intervals.

FIG. 3 shows an application of the gateway according to the present invention.

It is a block diagram showing a specific example of a load control system in which a dedicated line and a power line are mixed, but since it is the same as the load control system used to explain the conventional gateway, description of each part will be omitted.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the load monitoring program, FIG. 5 is a sequence chart showing the communication procedure by the load monitoring program, FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the operation of the load control program, and FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the operation of the load monitoring program. 3 is a sequence chart showing a communication procedure according to a control program.

Next, the operation of the gateway will be described with reference to FIGS. 4 to T for the case where a load connected to a power line is controlled from a controller (2) for a leased line transmission system.

First, the operation of the load monitoring means will be explained using FIGS. 4 and 5. In FIG. 4, the total number of loads is 3. When an internal trigger is generated from timer αQ (step 1), gateway (3) sends a signal requesting load 1 to transmit its status (step fl), and waits for a response from load i for a certain period of time. (Step 111). If a response is received from load 1 during this time, connection flag 1 of load i
Next step 1v) and further step v)1 to judge the content of the responded signal are illustrated in FIG.
If the signal indicates that the status is On, such as load 1 in i), set the status flag of load i to 1 (step v1)
.

On the other hand, the state is off as shown in load 2 in FIG. 5 (step x 1). If the signal is, the status flag of load i is set to 0 (step vi+). Also, like load 3 in FIG. 5 (step XV), no response is received from load i,
If the response wait timeout occurs (step viii)
) sets the connection plug of load i to 0 (step 1x).

Furthermore, in step X, 1 is added to i, and timer l-IJ is again
Wait until there is input (step 1). In the same way, the above operations are repeated for loads 1 to 3 (steps Xi) and (steps xii), so that the information about the page change state can be maintained while being updated at regular intervals.

Next, the operation of the load control means will be explained using FIGS. 6 and 7. Dedicated line receiving circuit (4) at gateway (3)
) receives a signal requesting to turn on the load i from the controller (1) via the dedicated line (1) (
(step 7), the data is transmitted onto the dedicated line (1) (step x wire). or,
If the connection flag of load i is 1 and it is connected, refer to the 0th order status flag (step XIX), θ1 is load 1
When the status flag is 1 and in the on state, the ON response signal of the load i to the controller 0 is transmitted onto the dedicated line (1) by the dedicated line transmission circuit (7) (step XX
). Also, refer to the status flag (step X+X) 1
For example, when the status flag is 0 and the load i is in the off state, the onil1wJ request signal to the load i is transmitted onto the power line (2) by the power line transmission circuit (5) (step XX1). When the power line receiving circuit (6) receives the response signal of load i from the power line (2) (step XX1i
), converts the response signal of load i to the controller (1) into a leased line transmission signal.

The dedicated line transmission circuit (7) transmits on the dedicated line +11 (step X-1). In this way, only when the control requested state changes the current load state, the tunnel request signal received from the leased line is relayed onto the power line, and the control requested state is changed to the current load state. If they are the same, or if no load is connected, the response signal is not relayed to the power line and is sent to the dedicated line.

In the above embodiment, the time interval at which the load status transmission request signal is transmitted on the power line is fixed, but the same effect as in the above embodiment can be obtained even if the timing of this transmission is set to a time when there is little signal transmission traffic on the power line. play.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, according to the present invention, the load monitoring means monitors the state of each load in the gateway of a load control system in which dedicated lines and power lines coexist, and stores the state in the storage means. and.

and load control means that, when receiving a load control signal, refers to the state of each load held in the storage means and relays and transmits a side signal on the power line only when changing the current state of the load. Since the circuit is provided, control signals can be efficiently exchanged between the dedicated line and the power line, which has the effect of reducing the burden of signal transmission over the power line, which has a slow transmission speed.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an internal block diagram showing the configuration of a gateway in the load control system according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an example of the configuration of the control circuit of the gateway, and FIG.
Figure 4 is a block diagram showing a specific example of a load control system, Figure 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the load monitoring program, Figure 5 is a sequence chart showing the communication procedure by the load monitoring program, and Figure 6 is load control FIG. 7 is a sequence chart showing the communication procedure according to the load control program. FIG. 8 is an internal block diagram showing the configuration of a gateway in a conventional load control system. In the figure, (l) is a dedicated line, (21 is a power line, (3)
is a gateway, (4) is a leased line signal receiving circuit, (5)
is a power line signal transmitting circuit, (61 is a power line signal receiving circuit,
(7) is a leased line signal transmission circuit, (8) is a control circuit, (9
) is a load monitoring means, αl is a load control means, and (I51 is a storage means.) In FIG. 1, the same reference numerals indicate the same or equivalent parts.

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) A dedicated line transmission system that transmits load control signals through a dedicated line and a power line transmission system that modulates the control signal into a high-frequency signal and transmits it superimposed on the power line are installed in an overlapping manner, and the dedicated line and power line are overlapped. In a load control system that inserts a gateway that converts control signals between the two and enables mutual transmission, and controls the load using the control signal, the gateway includes a transmitting/receiving circuit that transmits and receives signals to and from the leased line and the power line, and all When a control signal is received through the transmitting/receiving circuit, the load monitoring means monitors the state of each load and stores the state of each load. A gateway for a load control system, comprising: a control circuit having load control means for controlling the transmitting/receiving circuit so as to relay and transmit a control signal onto the power line only when changing the state of the load control system. (2) The load monitoring means is configured to request all loads to transmit the status of each load at predetermined intervals, and store the responses in the storage means. Gateway of the load control system according to item 1.