KR100585676B1 - Increasing method for physical interface in home network system - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method of extending a physical interface of a home network system, and more particularly, to a home network by implementing a physical interface for communication with home appliances in various households (RF, USB, PLC, RS-232C, RS-485, etc.). The purpose is to ensure the scalability of the home network by connecting various home appliances. In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for controlling a home network using an LnCP library, the method comprising: determining an initialization of a channel handler 140 and transmitting a packet to a device in a home at a time when the channel handler 140 is initialized. Identifying a physical interface, initializing and activating a module supporting the identified physical interface, and registering the activated physical interface module with the channel handler 140. It is done.

Description

{INCREASING METHOD FOR PHYSICAL INTERFACE IN HOME NETWORK SYSTEM}

1 is a block diagram of an LnCP library according to an embodiment of the present invention.

2 is a flowchart illustrating a library initialization process according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Explanation of symbols on the main parts of the drawings

110: master handler 120: message hooking handler

130: transmission handler 140: channel handler

151 ~ 155: Interface module

The present invention relates to home appliance control, and more particularly, to a physical interface extension method of an LnCP-based home network system.

Recently, the construction of a home automation system that enables remote control via the Internet by connecting a plurality of home appliances installed in a home through a network is spreading.

Currently, home appliances have a microchip equipped with a serial communication function to communicate with a microcomputer or a device.

However, microchips embedded in home appliances have various resources that can be used for communication according to the performance of the device.

For example, in the case of a personal computer (PC) or a multimedia device such as TV or audio, a high-performance hardware specification is adopted to realize various functions, and thus a specification for a large amount of data and high-speed communication is required.

On the other hand, functions such as refrigerators, washing machines, microwave ovens, lights, or boilers are very simple compared to those of PCs or multimedia devices, and generally adopt low-function microchips of 8 bits or less.

Home appliances employing such low-function microchips require a standard that can communicate with minimal resources for remote control or operational status monitoring.

LG Electronics has developed Living Network Control Protocol (LnCP) to provide Internet services to home appliances installed in homes.

LnCP-based home network is equipped with a home network server that can coordinate various home appliances in the home, and connects various electric appliances such as refrigerators, air conditioners, washing machines, and microwave ovens without any equipment or complicated construction. Power Line Communication (PLC) is used to connect various home appliances in one network.

However, in the related art, only one physical interface is supported, so that in the future, various protocol-based devices may not be dynamically adapted.                         

That is, since only one physical interface is supported in the related art, when a device based on various media is connected to a home network in the future, an interface must be added or changed, but there is a disadvantage in that it cannot dynamically cope with this.

In addition, conventionally, since the LnCP function is supported in the form of a library, it is not possible to know which physical driver the library will interface with, and thus it may not be able to flexibly cope with various protocol-based devices.

Therefore, the present invention implements a variety of home appliances in the home network by implementing a physical interface for communication with home appliances in the home in various standards (RF, USB, PLC, RS-232C, RS-485, etc.) to improve the conventional problems The purpose of the present invention is to provide a method for extending a physical interface of a home network system, which can be connected to ensure the scalability of a home network.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of controlling a home network using an LnCP library, comprising: determining initialization of a channel handler; and a physical interface for transmitting a packet to a device in a home at the time when the channel handler is initialized. Confirming, initializing and activating a module supporting the identified physical interface, and registering the activated physical interface module with a channel handler.

The activating of the physical interface module may include extracting a house code by analyzing data received from the identified physical interface, and comparing the extracted house code with a house code recorded in a database. If the result of the comparison matches, it is determined to perform the process of determining and activating the legitimate physical interface.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

1 is a block diagram of an LnCP library according to an embodiment of the present invention, as shown in FIG. 1, a master handler 110, a message hooking handler 120, and a transmission handler. a handler 130, a channel handler 140, and an interface handler 150.

The master handler 110 is a home code management, address assignment, multi-NM management for DB (DataBase) processing of a plurality of NM (Network Manager), schedule management to support the desired control at a desired time, device registration Manage, control by device type / model, event action management, and device event processing.

The message hooking handler 120 is divided into a sending message hooking handler and a receiving message hooking handler according to packet transmission.

The sending message hooking handler processes a specific process (filtering, long processing) for a request or notification packet delivered from an upper layer, and transmits the packet according to the specific process to the transmission handler 130. The receiving message hooking handler may process a specific process for a response and an event packet delivered by the transmission handler 130, and may transmit a corresponding packet message according to the specific process to the master handler 110.

The transmission handler 120 processes the packet transmitted by the upper layer to be delivered to the physical interface 150 through the channel handler 140, and processes the LnCP packet received from the channel handler 140 to the upper message hooking handler ( 120). If a transmission error occurs, the retransmission process is performed.

The channel handler 140 manages the interface handler 150. That is, the channel handler 140 transmits the packet received from the transmission handler 130 to the interface handler 150 and delivers the packet received from the interface handler 150 to the transmission handler 130.

The interface handler 150 includes a power line communication (I / F) module 141, an RS-232C interface module 142, an RS-485 interface module 143, an RF interface module 144, and a USB. The interface module 145 is provided to transmit a control / data packet to a device connected to each of the modules 141 to 145, and receives a response accordingly and transmits the response to the channel handler 140.

Therefore, each module 151 to 155 included in the interface handler 150 is assigned a logical address by the master handler 110.

The initialization process of the LnCP library module having such a configuration is as shown in the operation flowchart of FIG.

That is, the message hooking handler 120, the transmission handler 130, and the channel handler 140 are sequentially initialized.

When the handler 120, 130 and 140 initialization process is completed in the above, the interface handler 150 is checked to check the interface module currently connected to the system.

In this case, we analyze the data received from the physical interface that is found to be connected to the system to extract the house code, compare the extracted house code with the house code recorded in the database, and then compare the physical Only the interface is determined to be a legitimate physical interface and activated. This process is to identify the devices in the home using the house code uniquely assigned to each home because the network installed in the neighboring home can be recognized in the case of the network using the power line.

Accordingly, when the interface modules 151 to 155 are confirmed, the modules are initialized and activated, and then registered in the channel handler 140.

If only the PLC-based device and the RF-based device are connected to the system, only the PLC interface module 151 and the RF interface module 154 are registered in the channel handler 140.

Meanwhile, when the physical interface module is registered in the channel handler 140 as described above, a process of transmitting a message will be briefly described as follows. In this case, it will be described on the assumption that the message is transmitted to the RF-based device.

First, when the message is delivered from the upper application layer, the master handler 110 checks the information (address, packet type, transmission priority, etc.) of the message.

Thereafter, the master handler 110 transmits the message to the message hooking handler 120.

At this time, when the message hooking handler 120 confirms that the message has been received periodically or at random intervals, the message hooking handler 120 transmits the corresponding message to the channel handler 140.

Accordingly, the channel handler 140 analyzes the message and confirms that the message is transmitted to the RF-based device and transmits the message to the corresponding device through the RF interface module 154 included in the interface module 150.

Subsequently, when a response according to a message is received from the corresponding device, the channel handler 140, the transmission handler 130, and the message hooking handler 120 are sequentially transmitted to the master handler 110 in reverse to the transmission process. Accordingly, the master handler 110 performs the processing according to the response.

As described in detail above, the present invention initializes each handler in the system initialization process and then checks the physical interface connected to the system and registers it in the channel handler so that even if various media are added, the interface can be extended to allow flexible message processing. It has the effect of making it work.

That is, the present invention can check the physical interface connected to the system during the system initialization process, it is possible to dynamically apply a variety of media has the effect of ensuring the scalability.

Claims (2)

In the home network control method using the LnCP library, Determining the initialization of the channel handler, Identifying a physical interface for transmitting a packet to a device in a home at the time the channel handler is initialized; Initializing and activating a module supporting the identified physical interface; And registering the activated physical interface module with a channel handler. The method of claim 1, wherein activating the physical interface module Extracting a house code by analyzing data received from the identified physical interface; Comparing the extracted house codes with house codes recorded in a database; And if it is determined that the comparison result is identical, the process of determining and activating as a legitimate physical interface.

Images