KR100565524B1 - Home network system and its method for the same - Google Patents

Abstract

 The present invention comprises a home network system including a modem capable of converting data transmitted and received between a network and a home appliance having a different communication standard to conform to the corresponding communication standard to enable mutual control through data transmission and reception; A method for operating the same, comprising: a power line communication network established based on a first communication standard for home networking and control according to data transmitted and received through the power line communication network, and a slave home appliance based on a second communication standard And a modem connected to each of the home appliances to mutually convert signals of different communication standards of the first communication standard power line communication network and the second communication standard home appliance so as to perform communication. Application of the home appliance by increasing the compatibility and interoperability of the home appliance The range can be expanded, and the configuration of the system can be simplified, thereby greatly improving the user's convenience.

Power line communication network, home appliance, modem, control unit, converter

Description

 Home network system and its method {Home network system and its method for the same}             

1 is a diagram showing the configuration of a typical home network system;

2 is a diagram showing the configuration of a home network system according to the present invention;

3 is a diagram showing the configuration of a modem according to the present invention;

4 is a connection diagram illustrating an operation of the home network system when a control command is received from a power line communication network in the home network system according to the present invention;

5 is a connection diagram illustrating an operation of the home network system when an event command is received from a home appliance in the home network system according to the present invention;

6 is a connection diagram illustrating an operation of the home network system when a monitoring command is received from a power line communication network in the home network system according to the present invention;

7 is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the home network system according to the present invention.

<Explanation of symbols on main parts of the drawings>

N: power line network H: home appliance

100: modem 120: control unit

121: transmission control unit 122: conversion unit

The present invention relates to a home network system and a method of operating the same, which can convert the data to conform to the communication standard so that data can be transmitted and received between the network and the home appliance having a different communication standard.

Hereinafter, with reference to the accompanying drawings will be described the configuration and problems of the prior invention.

1 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of a general home network system.

A home network system means that a plurality of home appliances installed in a home, including a personal computer (PC), are integrated into one network, thereby enabling mutual data transmission and reception.

Recently, the construction of a home network system that connects a plurality of home appliances to a network installed in a building to mutually control the plurality of home appliances has been greatly increased.

As shown in FIG. 1, a general home network system is constructed in a home or a building, and performs a mobile passage function of data, and is connected to the network N to control the transmission and reception of data. It is comprised including as many household appliances H1-Hn as possible.

In particular, a power line communication network has been in the spotlight as a network network built in the home network system. The power line communication network (PLC) connects a cable to a power socket of a home or office to provide voice, data, and the Internet. It is a service that can be used at high speed, and the data transmission path, which is complicatedly divided into wired television network, telephone line, and optical communication network, is reduced to one power line, and since the electric line in the home is used as a communication network, it is connected to the power socket without additional wiring. In addition to transmitting data in each electromagnetic period, information can be retrieved and downloaded in connection with the Internet network.

On the other hand, the home network system has been developed a variety of communication standards for each of the household appliances connected to the network network to transmit and receive data, each communication standard is currently applied to many home network systems.

Currently, the communication standard applied to many home appliances is UPnP (Universal Plug and Play), which is developed by leading companies such as Intel, 3COM, Cisco, Dell, IBM, Ericsson, Nokia, Philips, and Samsung, and applied to various home appliance network systems. LG Electronics has been developing its own standard LnCP (Living Network Control Protocol), and is now mass-producing home appliances based on the LnCP method.

In addition, a standard plan of the home network control protocol (HNCP), which is a domestic power line communication protocol for the home network system, is developed and commercialized by the PLC forum.

However, since the specifications of the power line communication network and the plurality of home appliances are different from each other by the HNCP and the LnCP, the multiple home appliances constituting the home network system by using the power line communication network have data so that mutual control is possible even if they are connected to the same network. There is a problem that can not be properly transmitted and received.

Therefore, even if a consumer owns a home appliance that supports the home networking function, the home appliance cannot be efficiently used by a communication network having a different communication standard.

The present invention has been made to solve the above problems of the prior art, the object of which includes a modem that can convert the data transmitted and received between the network and home appliances having different communication standards to conform to the corresponding communication standards The present invention provides a home network system and an operation method thereof, which are configured to enable mutual control through transmission and reception of data.

The home network system according to the present invention for solving the above problems can be controlled according to the power line communication network established based on the first communication standard for home networking, and the data transmitted and received through the power line communication network, the second communication Slave household appliances based on the standard, and the signal of the different communication standards of the first communication standard power line communication network and the second communication standard home appliance to be connected to each of the home appliances to perform communication Including a modem for interconversion; When the modem is initially connected with the power line communication network, an HA setting module configured to set a home address if a home address of a network network to which the home appliance is connected is provided, an HA memory for storing the home address separately, and the power line communication network. And a receiving buffer in which data transmitted and received between the home appliance and the household appliance are temporarily stored, and a control unit configured to transmit data of different communication standards by being converted to each other.

In addition, the present invention provides a method for operating a modem connected to a power line communication network constructed for a home network system and a home appliance having a communication standard different from that of the power line communication network, wherein the setting of the modem is initialized; When the home address is not set, setting a home address, storing a product code and product state information received from the home appliance, and communicating signals of different communication standards so that data is transmitted and received through the power line communication network. And converting and updating the product state information when the state information of the connected home appliance is changed, and converting and transmitting the updated state information data to conform to the communication standard of the power line communication network. do.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

2 is a diagram showing a configuration of a home network system according to the present invention, FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a configuration of a modem according to the present invention, and FIG. 4 is a diagram of a home network system according to the present invention. When the control command is received, it is a connection diagram showing the operation of the home network system, Figure 5 is a connection diagram showing the operation of the home network system, when an event command is received from the home appliance.

6 is a connection diagram illustrating an operation of the home network system when a monitoring command is received from a power line communication network in the home network system according to the present invention, and FIG. 7 is an operation of the home network system according to the present invention. Is a flow chart showing the flow of.

As shown in FIG. 2, the home network system according to the present invention can be controlled according to a power line communication network (N) constructed based on a first communication standard for home networking, and data received through the power line communication network. It is configured to include home appliances (H1 to H6) based on the second communication standard.

In addition, the home network system includes a modem (100) connected to each of the home appliances to mutually convert different communication standards of the home appliance and power line communication network so that the home appliance can communicate through the power line communication network; It is composed.

In this case, the first communication standard uses the HNCP communication standard established by the PLC (Power Line Communication) forum, and the second communication standard uses the LnCP communication standard, which is a communication protocol independently developed by LG Electronics, Accordingly, the modem performs a HNCP / LnCP bridge function that converts HNCP and LnCP.

On the other hand, as shown in Figure 3 showing the configuration of the modem according to the present invention, the modem 100, when initially connected with the power line communication network, automatically checks the home address and the home address is not granted HA setting module 110 for setting this, and a control unit 120 to store the state information of the product of each home appliance connected to the modem, and to receive the data of the received HNCP and LnCP communication standards are converted to each other and transmitted It is composed.

In addition, the modem 100 is connected to the HA memory 111 and the power line communication network (N) or the home appliance (H) where the home address is stored separately, so that data received through the power line communication network or home appliance is stored. It further comprises a receive buffer 112 which is temporarily stored.

The control unit 120 converts the data based on the HNCP communication standard and the data based on the LnCP communication standard and the data converted by the conversion unit 122 to the power line communication network N or It is configured to include a transmission control unit 121 for controlling the transmission to the home appliance (H).

When the transmission control unit 121 receives the control command through the power line communication network (N), the control unit 122 transmits the control command data converted to the LnCP communication standard to the home appliance (H), When the response data is received from the home appliance (H), the conversion unit 122 transmits the response data converted into the HNCP communication standard through the power line communication network (N).

In this case, the transmission control unit 121 is stored in the reception buffer 112 when the response data is transmitted from the home appliance (H) or if the response data is not received within one second after transmitting the data to the home appliance (H). Process the following data in turn.

Therefore, referring to FIG. 4, when a control command is received from a power line communication network to a modem, when data is received from the power line communication network, the modem determines whether the modem corresponds to a home address stored in the received data (①), If not applicable, it is transmitted through the power line communication network again.

However, if the modem is applicable, the modem determines whether the received data is storing a control command or a monitoring command, and if the received data is a control command (2), the control command is sent to the home appliance. In order to transmit the received data, the received data is converted to comply with the LnCP communication standard (3).

The converted data is transmitted to the home appliance (④), and when the response data according to the control command is received from the home appliance (⑤), the received response data based on the temporarily stored HNCP data is adapted to comply with the HNCP communication standard. Converted (⑥) and transmitted through the power line communication network. (⑦)

At this time, the data received by the modem after the data received and processed for the first time is sequentially stored in the reception buffer (⑨), after the response data is received from the home appliance, or the control command data converted to the home appliance is transmitted. If response data is not received within 1 second, the data stored in the receiving buffer is processed sequentially. (⑧)

On the other hand, the control unit 120 further comprises a state information storage unit 123 for storing the state information separately by monitoring the state information of the home appliance (H) at the time of initial connection with the power line communication network (N) do.

The state information storage unit 123 receives and updates the changed state information when the state information of the home appliance changes through the monitoring function of the home appliance itself, and the changed state information is converted by the conversion unit 122. The data is converted into data of the HNCP communication standard and transmitted to the power line communication network N by the transmission control unit 121.

Therefore, referring to FIG. 5, when the event command is received from the home appliance, the operation of the home network system will be described. When the state information of the home appliance is changed, the changed state information is transmitted to the modem through its own monitoring. (Ⓐ) The state information storage unit 123 updates the state information received from the home appliance (H), and converts the converted state information to the HNCP communication standard (ⓑ), and the converted state information Transmit through power line communication network (ⓒ)

In addition, when the monitoring command is received from the power line communication network to the modem, the operation of the home network system will be described with reference to FIG. 6. When data is received by the modem through the power line communication network, the modem is stored in the received data. If the modem is a modem corresponding to the home address stored in the received data, it is determined whether the command stored in the received data is a control command or a monitoring command.

If the data is a monitoring command, the state information stored in the state information storage unit is converted to the HNCP communication standard (⑬), and then the converted data is transmitted through the power line communication network. (⑭)

The operation of the present invention configured as described above will be described with reference to FIG. 7, which is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the home network system according to the present invention.

The modem connected to the home appliance having the LnCP communication standard is initially connected to the power line communication network having the HNCP communication standard. The modem determines whether a home address used in the power line communication network is assigned to the modem (S1), and sets the home address if not. (S2)

After setting the home address, the modem transmits a status check packet to the home appliance, and then separately stores the packet address of the response packet received from the home appliance and monitors the packet for requesting the status information of the home appliance. send.

In this case, the monitoring packets for each category transmitted to the home appliances are shown in Table 1.

Classification Monitoring packet air conditioner 02 My_Address 00 00 13 49 1F 04 04 03 00 D1 CRC ~ 03 Drum washing machine 02 My_Address 00 00 13 49 1F 04 04 03 00 C2 CRC ~ 03 Microwave 02 My_Address 00 00 13 49 1F 04 04 03 00 C2 CRC ~ 03 Gas oven 02 My_Address 00 00 13 49 1F 04 04 03 00 C2 CRC ~ 03

(However, My_Address is a packet address of the home appliance.)

When the response packet for the monitoring packet is received from the home appliance, the received data is stored in the state information storage unit. (S3)

During operation of the home network system, if the state information of the home appliance is changed (S4), the state information changed by the monitoring function of the home appliance itself is transmitted to the modem. The modem stores / updates the received state information in the state information storage unit (S5), and converts the state information into data of an HNCP communication standard for transmission through the power line communication network.

On the other hand, when the data is received by the modem, the data determines a control command or a monitoring command (S6), if the data is control command data LnCP communication to transmit the control command having the HNCP communication standard to the home appliance Converted to a standard (S9) and sent to the home appliance. (S10)

Further, when the response data for the control command is transmitted from the home appliance, the response data of the LnCP communication standard is converted into the HNCP communication standard (S11) and transmitted through the power line communication network (S12).

At this time, the data received by the modem during the processing of the data is sequentially stored in the reception buffer, and if the data received in the entire reception buffer is stored, generates a data reception signal is transmitted through the power line communication network.

Therefore, when response data is received for the data transmitted to the home appliance or when the control command data is transmitted to the home appliance for one second, the data stored in the reception buffer is sequentially processed, and the data is sent to the reception buffer. When a space for storage is created, a data reception signal is generated and transmitted through the power line communication network.

On the other hand, if the received data is a monitoring command, the data of the state information storage unit is checked (S7) to convert the most recently updated state information data into data of HNCP communication standard (S8), and the converted data is The transmission is transmitted to the power line communication network (S12).

As described above, the home network system according to the present invention has been described with reference to the illustrated drawings. However, the present invention is not limited by the embodiments and drawings disclosed herein, and the compatibility is improved by converting data having different communication standards. The spirit of the invention can be applied by those skilled in the art within the scope of protection.

The home network system and its operation method according to the present invention configured as described above include a power line communication network having a different communication standard and a modem for converting a communication standard to enable data transmission and reception between home appliances, and the compatibility of the home appliances. And by increasing the interoperability it is possible to extend the application range of the home appliance, the configuration of the system is simplified, there is an effect that can greatly improve the user's convenience.

Claims (17)

A power line communication network constructed based on a first communication standard for home networking; A slave home appliance that can be controlled according to data transmitted and received through the power line communication network and based on a second communication standard; And a modem connected to each of the home appliances to mutually convert signals of different communication standards of the first communication standard power line communication network and the second communication standard home appliance so as to perform communication. When the modem is initially connected with the power line communication network, an HA setting module configured to set a home address if a home address of a network network to which the home appliance is connected is provided, an HA memory for storing the home address separately, and the power line communication network. And a receiving buffer in which data transmitted / received between the home appliance is temporarily stored, and a control unit for converting data of different communication standards into each other. delete delete delete The method of claim 1, The control unit includes a conversion unit for converting the first communication standard based data transmitted and received through the power line communication network and the second communication standard based data transmitted and received from the home appliance; And a transmission control unit for controlling transmission of the data converted by the conversion unit to the power line communication network or a home appliance. The method of claim 5, The transmission control unit transmits the control command converted to the second communication standard to the home appliance when receiving the control command through the power line communication network, and when response data is received from the home appliance, the control command is converted into the first communication standard. And transmitting the response data through the power line communication network. The method of claim 6, And the transmission control unit processes the next data if the response data is received from the home appliance or if the response data is not received within 1 second after transmitting the data to the home appliance. The method of claim 1, The control unit may further include a state information storage unit configured to separately store the state information by monitoring state information of the home appliance at the time of initial connection with the power line communication network. The method of claim 8, The state information storage unit receives and updates the state information of the home appliance by monitoring of the home appliance itself, updates it, converts it into data of a first communication standard, and transmits it through the power line communication network. The method of claim 8, The control unit, upon receiving a monitoring command through the power line communication network, converts the state information of the home appliance stored in the state information unit into the data of the first communication standard, characterized in that for transmitting through the power line communication network. A method of operating a modem connected to a power line communication network constructed for a home network system and a home appliance having a different communication standard from the power line communication network, A first step of initializing the setting of the modem, a second step of setting a home address when the home address is not set in the home appliance, and a product code and product state information received from the home appliance A third step of mutually converting signals of different communication standards to transmit and receive data through the power line communication network; and updating and storing the product state information when the state information of the connected home appliance is changed, and updated state information data. And a fifth step of converting and transmitting the data to comply with a communication standard of the power line communication network. delete delete The method of claim 11, The fifth step includes a first step of converting the updated state information to meet the communication standard of the power line communication network when receiving a monitoring command through the power line communication network; And a second process of transmitting the converted data through the power line communication network. The method of claim 11, The fifth step includes a first step of converting the control command to conform to the communication standard of the home appliance when receiving the control command through the power line communication network; And when the response data is received from the home appliance having received the converted control command, converting the response data into data conforming to the communication standard of the power line communication network. . The method of claim 15, The first step may further include storing the received data in a receiving buffer in order to process the received data, and generating a data non-receiving signal and transmitting the received data to the power line communication network when the receiving buffer is full. Operation method of a home network system characterized in that. The method of claim 15, The fifth step may include a third process of sequentially processing data stored in the reception buffer when response data is received from the home appliance or when the response data is not received within 1 second after transmitting a control command to the home appliance. Operation method of a home network system, characterized in that further comprises.

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