KR101588140B1 - Home appliance and registraion method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a home appliance. The home appliance according to an aspect of the present invention comprises: a communications unit capable of communicating with an energy measurement unit which can communicate with a server of an electric power company; and a control unit capable of controlling a load based on information received from the communications unit. The communications unit makes a DNS-SD request which describes security information for registration, and attempts the registration in the energy measurement unit by any one registration method among a plurality of registration methods depending on whether a response to the DNS-SD request is received.

Description

Home appliance and registraion method < RTI ID = 0.0 >

The present invention relates to a home appliance and a registration method thereof.

BACKGROUND ART [0002] Household appliances generally provided at home include a washing machine, a refrigerator, a cooking appliance or a vacuum cleaner. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] Electrical appliances in recent years include a communication unit, and can receive energy related information through communication with an energy measuring unit installed in a power company.

In the prior art, Korean Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2012-0075572 (published on July 30, 2012), electrical products are disclosed.

The electrical product can communicate with an energy management unit, which can communicate with an energy measurement unit. The energy measuring unit is configured and managed by a power company.

However, according to the prior art, there is a problem that the electric appliance can not receive the information provided by the electric power company when the energy measurement unit is not provided or the energy measurement unit does not have the communication unit according to the installation position of the electric appliance.

Also, although the registration method by communication between the energy management unit and the energy measurement unit may be different depending on the type of the energy measurement unit, according to the prior art, there is a problem that it can not cope with various registration methods.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a home appliance product capable of acquiring information related to energy provided by a utility and a method of registering the same.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a household appliance and registration method thereof that can be registered by communication with an energy measuring unit regardless of the type of an energy measuring unit provided by a utility company.

According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a home appliance including a communication unit capable of communicating with an energy measurement unit capable of communicating with a server of a power company; And a control unit capable of controlling a load based on information received from the communication unit, wherein the communication unit performs a DNS-SD request specifying security information for registration, and receives a response to a DNS-SD request , It tries to register with the energy measuring unit by any one of a plurality of registration methods for registration.

Also, the communication unit may include a Wi-Fi modem, and the security information for the registration may be a short-form device identifier (SFDI) stored in the communication unit.

When the communication unit receives a response to the DNS-SD request specifying the security information for registration, the communication unit attempts to register with the energy measurement unit in the first registration method, and transmits the security information for registration If the response to the specified DNS-SD request is not received, the communication unit may attempt to register with the energy measurement unit in the second registration method.

The communication unit may request SFDI information of the energy measurement unit from the energy measurement unit and receive SFDI information from the energy measurement unit during the registration attempt by the first registration method.

The communication unit may transmit the security key stored in the memory of the communication unit to the energy measurement unit after receiving the SFDI information from the energy measurement unit, and may receive the registration completion response from the energy measurement unit.

Also, the communication unit may receive the security key transmission request to the energy measurement unit after receiving the SFDI information from the energy measurement unit, and receive the security key from the energy measurement unit.

In addition, in the registration attempt by the second registration method, the communication unit can perform a DNS-SD request specifying the Smart Grid function.

In addition, when receiving a response to the DNS-SD request specifying the Smart Grid function, the communication unit may transmit the SFDI information of the SFDI information to the energy measurement unit and receive a registration completion response from the energy measurement unit have.

In addition, when receiving the response to the DNS-SD request specifying the Smart Grid function, the communication unit may attempt to communicate with an external server capable of communicating with the server of the power company.

A method for registering a home appliance according to another aspect, comprising the steps of: receiving a DNS-SD request for a registration of security information; Determining whether a communication unit of the household appliance has received a response to a DNS-SD request; And an energy measurement unit capable of communicating with a server of the electric power company in a first registration manner when the communication unit of the household appliance receives a response to the DNS-SD request, And attempting to register with the energy measurement unit.

If the communication unit of the household appliance can not register with the energy measuring unit in the second registration method, the step of registering with the external server capable of communicating with the server of the electric power company may be further performed.

According to the proposed invention, when the household electric appliance is turned on and can communicate with the energy measuring unit, the energy measuring unit can receive energy information from the energy measuring unit, In the case where the communication connection with the power department can not be established, it is advantageous in that a response (demand response) can be made to reduce energy usage by receiving energy information according to communication connection with an external server capable of communicating with the power company's server.

Further, in the case of the present invention, since the home appliances can perform two registration methods irrespective of the policy of the electric power company, there is an advantage that compatibility can be ensured.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Figure 1 is a schematic illustration of a network device in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.
Fig. 2 is a block diagram schematically showing a household appliance constituting the network device of Fig. 1; Fig.
3 is a flow chart illustrating a method of communication connection of a home appliance according to an embodiment of the present invention.
4 is a flow chart specifically explaining a registration method of a home appliance and an energy measurement unit;

Hereinafter, some embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to exemplary drawings. It should be noted that, in adding reference numerals to the constituent elements of the drawings, the same constituent elements are denoted by the same reference numerals whenever possible, even if they are shown in different drawings. In the following description of the embodiments of the present invention, a detailed description of known functions and configurations incorporated herein will be omitted when it may make the difference that the embodiments of the present invention are not conclusive.

In describing the components of the embodiment of the present invention, terms such as first, second, A, B, (a), and (b) may be used. These terms are intended to distinguish the constituent elements from other constituent elements, and the terms do not limit the nature, order or order of the constituent elements. When a component is described as being "connected", "coupled", or "connected" to another component, the component may be directly connected or connected to the other component, Quot; may be "connected," "coupled," or "connected. &Quot;

FIG. 1 is a schematic view showing a network device according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a block diagram schematically showing a household appliance constituting the network device of FIG.

Referring to FIGS. 1 and 2, a network device according to an embodiment of the present invention may include an appliance 10 connected via a network.

The household appliance 10 may include various products such as a refrigerator 11, a cooking appliance 12, a washing machine 13, a vacuum cleaner, a water purifier, and an air conditioner. In this specification, Quot;

The household appliance (10) can communicate with other household appliances. The home appliance 10 can communicate with the energy measuring unit 20 when an energy measuring unit 20 (ESI) is installed in a home, a building, or the like, or around a home or a building.

The home appliance 10 receives information related to energy from an external server 50 operated by the manufacturer of the home appliance 10 or a server 30 of a utility company and transmits the information to the home appliance 10 And can communicate with the external server 50 that can deliver it.

The external server 50 may include a server operated by a manufacturer of the home appliance 10 or a company commissioned by a manufacturer, a server for a home appliance service, a web server, and the like.

In this specification, there is no limitation on the type of the external server 50, but, in the case where the household appliance 10 can not communicate with the energy measuring unit 20, Information can be received.

The energy measuring unit 20 can communicate with the server 30 of the power company and when the household appliance 10 directly communicates with the energy measuring unit 20, And the like. That is, the energy measuring unit 20 on the side of the household appliance 10 serves as a gateway for transmitting the information of the server 30 of the power company to the household appliance 10.

The energy measuring unit 20 can measure at least the electric power consumption of the household electric appliances 10 and can transmit energy related information to the household electric appliances 10. [

When the household appliance 10 communicates with the external server 50, the external server 50 communicates with the server 30 of the utility company and receives information about the energy from the server 30 of the utility company , And can transmit information related to the received energy to the household appliance (10).

The home appliance (10) includes a control unit (100) for controlling the function of the home appliance (10), an operation unit (110) for inputting various commands and information such as an operation command of the home appliance (10) A display unit 120 capable of displaying operation information of the household appliance 10, a load 130 operating with power supplied thereto, and a communication unit 140 capable of communicating with an external device.

The communication unit 140 may be a Wi-Fi modem. The energy measurement unit 20 may also have a communication unit for communicating with the communication unit 140 through the same communication method as the communication unit 140 so that the energy measurement unit 20 can communicate with the energy measurement unit 20.

The communication unit 140 may include a Smart Energy Profile (SEP) 2.0 protocol. The communication unit 140 may include a memory and a communication control unit. The SEP2.0 protocol has a short-form device identifier (SFDI), and the communication control unit can extract the SFDI using a hashing program and store it in the memory. In this specification, SFDI can be referred to as security information for registration.

The user can access the server 30 of the electric power company by using the Internet or a portable terminal and register the SFDI information included in the communication unit 140.

The communication unit 140 may communicate with either the energy measurement unit 20 or the external server 50 through the wireless router 40. [

The communication unit 140 receives information related to energy from any one of the energy measurement unit 20 and the external server 50. The control unit 100 controls the energy of the energy received by the communication unit 140 The load 130 can be controlled based on the information.

Hereinafter, the communication connection method of the household electric appliances will be described.

3 is a flowchart illustrating a communication connection method of a home appliance according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIGS. 1 and 3, the household appliance 1 is powered on for use of the household appliance 1 (S1). When the electrical appliance 1 is powered on, the communication unit 140 is turned on. The communication unit 140 may attempt to establish a communication connection with the energy measurement unit through the wireless router 40 (S2).

Then, it is determined whether or not the communication unit 140 can communicate with the energy measurement unit 20.

The communication unit 140 may search the energy measurement unit 20 using DNS-based service discovery (DNS-SD), for example.

If the communication unit 140 can communicate with the energy measurement unit 20, the communication unit 140 is communicatively connected to the communication unit of the energy measurement unit 20 (S4).

When the communication unit 140 and the energy measurement unit 20 are communicatively connected to each other, the communication unit 140 periodically requests time information to the energy measurement unit 20, The time information can be transmitted to the terminal 140 via the network. Time can be synchronized between the appliances 10 and the energy measuring unit 20 by receiving the time information from the energy measuring unit 20 by the communication unit 140. [

The communication unit 140 may receive energy related information (hereinafter referred to as "energy information") from the energy measurement unit 20. [

The energy information may include electricity bill information according to time, day, week, or month, and energy reduction information for the household appliance 10 to reduce energy.

The communication unit 140 may intermittently receive the electric bill information from the energy measuring unit 20. [ Then, the communication unit 140 can receive the energy reduction information at the same time as the reception of the electricity rate information or irrespective of the information of the electricity rate. That is, when the time zone for energy reduction is determined, the energy measuring unit 20 may transmit the energy reduction information to the communication unit 140 before the time.

The energy reduction information may be stored in the server of the utility company 10 so that the appliance 10 stops operating or the appliance 10 consumes less electric power or the electricity use fee of the appliance 10 is reduced. 30). ≪ / RTI >

The energy reduction information may be transmitted or received as a true or false signal, such as a Boolean, on the network. That is, the home appliance 10 can receive a stop signal (turn off signal) or a lower signal (lower power signal) through the energy measuring unit 20.

When the household appliance 10 recognizes the energy reduction information, the control unit 100 of the home appliance 10 sets the output 130 of the household appliance 10 to 0 (stop operation) Can be controlled.

Alternatively, the energy reduction information may include length information of a time for which energy should be reduced (hereinafter referred to as "reduction time zone information"). The method for reducing energy in the household appliance 10 may be different according to the reduction time zone information.

Illustratively, when the length of time for which the energy is to be reduced is greater than the reference value, the household appliance 10 can operate in the first power saving mode, and when the length of time to reduce the energy is less than the reference value, The product 10 can be operated in the second power saving mode. In this case, each power saving mode is a mode for reducing the power consumption of the household appliance 10 in the abatement time period as compared with the case where the power consumption is not the power saving mode but the normal mode.

If the communication unit 140 can not communicate with the energy measurement unit 20 in step S3, the communication unit 140 attempts to establish a communication connection with the external server 50 and communicates with the external server 50 in step S5.

The energy measurement unit 20 and the communication unit 140 are not communicatively connected to each other in the case where the energy measurement unit 20 does not have a communication unit. And may use a communication method different from that of the communication unit 140 of the household appliance 10.

The communication unit 140 may transmit the inherent code and security key of the home appliance 10 to the external server 50 during the communication connection process between the communication unit 140 and the external server 50 at step S6.

When the communication unit 140 communicates with the external server 50, the communication unit 140 notifies the external server 50 of the installation area of the current household appliance 10 and the electric power Can be transmitted.

At this time, the installation area and the electric power company information of the household electric appliances 10 can be input through the operation unit 110 of the household appliances 10. [

When the household appliance 10 transmits the use area and the power company information of the household appliance 10 to the external server 50, the external server 50 transmits energy information from the server 30 of the power company . Then, the household appliance 10 can receive the time information and the energy information from the external server 50 (S7).

The communication unit 140 of the household appliance 10 receives the time information from the external server 50 so that the communication between the household appliance 10 and the outside The time between the servers 50 can be synchronized.

Also, the communication unit 140 may intermittently receive energy information from the external server 50. [

According to the present invention, when the household electric appliance (10) is turned on, it can communicate with the energy measuring unit, and can make a communication connection with the energy measuring unit and can be connected to receive energy information from the energy measuring unit. When the communication connection with the energy measurement unit is impossible, a response (demand response) to reduce the energy usage by receiving the energy information is advantageous in accordance with the communication connection with the external server communicating with the server of the power company.

That is, according to the present invention, there is an advantage that the household appliance 10 can receive the energy information provided by the electric power company irrespective of the installation area or position of the electric appliance 10.

4 is a flowchart specifically illustrating a registration method of the household appliances and the energy measuring unit.

Referring to FIGS. 1, 3 and 4, the step of communicating with the energy measuring unit of the household appliance includes the step of extracting a short-form device identifier (SFDI) by the communication unit 140 of the household appliance 10 (S11). The SFDI extracted as described above can be stored in the memory of the communication unit 140.

Then, the security key may be input to the household appliance 10 (S2). The security key may be obtained from the utility company upon contracting with the utility. That is, the user may receive the security key off-line from the utility. The input security key may be stored in the memory of the communication unit 140.

Then, the communication unit 10 of the household appliance 10 specifies the SFDI it has and performs a DNS-SD request (S13).

The electric power company may store or not store the SFDI registered in advance by the user in the energy measuring unit 20 in a state where the energy measuring unit 20 is installed in a home or a building.

The communication unit 140 of the household appliance 10 determines whether a DNS-SD response to the SFDI has been received (S14). For example, when the energy measurement unit 20 has the SFDI of the communication unit 140 of the home appliance 10, that is, when the energy measurement unit stores the SFDI previously registered by the user, (20) to the communication unit (140) of the home appliance (10). On the other hand, when the energy measuring unit 20 does not have the SFDI of the communication unit 140 of the home appliance, the home appliance 10 will not respond.

If the communication unit 140 of the household appliance 10 receives a response from the energy measuring unit 20 as a result of the determination in step S14, (S15).

The communication unit 140 of the home appliance 10 may perform a specific request to the energy measurement unit 20 and the energy measurement unit 20 may include a response to a specific request.

For example, the communication unit 140 of the household appliance 10 may request the energy measurement unit 20 for the SFDI held by the energy measurement unit 20. [ Then, the energy measuring unit 20 can transmit the SFDI of its own to the communication unit 140 of the household electric appliances 10.

The communication unit 140 of the home appliance 10 may transmit the security key stored in the memory of the communication unit 140 to the energy measurement unit 20 after confirming the SFDI reception of the energy measurement unit 10. [ The energy measuring unit 20 may determine whether the received security key is normal and finally transmit a registration completion response to the communication unit 140 of the household appliance 10. [ Then, the communication unit 140 of the household appliance 10 can be registered in the energy measurement unit 20 (S16).

In the above embodiment, the user inputs the security key in advance before performing the DNS-SD request. Alternatively, the security key may be input in the registration process according to the first registration method.

That is, in the process of registering with the first registration method, after the communication unit 140 of the household appliance 10 receives the SFDI of the energy measurement unit 10, the energy measurement unit 20 Key transfer requests can be made. The energy measuring unit 20 or the server 30 of the power company may be connected to the communication unit 140 of the home appliance 10 or a user of the user registered with the electric power company, The security key can be transmitted. For example, information for inputting a security key may be displayed on the display unit 120 of the household appliance 10. When the user inputs the security key in the display unit 120, the registration can be completed. That is, after completion of the security key input, the display unit 120 may transmit an input completion confirmation request to the energy measurement unit 20, and the energy measurement unit 20 may transmit a registration completion response to the communication unit 10 (140).

If the communication unit 140 of the household appliance 10 fails to receive a response from the energy measuring unit 20 in step S14, the household appliance 10 is connected to the energy measuring unit 20 in a second registration manner Registration is attempted (S17).

The second registration method is a registration method when the energy measurement unit 20 does not have the SFDI. The communication unit 140 of the home appliance 10 performs a DNS-SD request specifying "smartenergy" , It is determined whether the DNS-SD response is received from the energy measurement unit 20 (S18).

In the present specification, "smartenergy" can be used to search for an energy measurement unit 20 that can provide a smart grid function. Therefore, it can be understood that the communication unit 140 of the household appliance 10 performs the DNS-SD request by specifying the Smart Grid function.

When the energy measurement unit 20 can support the smart grid function, the energy measurement unit 20 can transmit a response to the communication unit 140 of the household appliance 10. [

Then, the communication unit 140 of the household appliance 10 transmits its own SFDI to the energy measurement unit 20 for registration. The energy measuring unit 20 determines whether the SFDI is a protocol that can support the Smart Grid function or whether the user matches the SFDI registered in the server 30 of the power company in advance, The registration completion response can be transmitted to the communication unit 140 of the home appliance 10. [

On the other hand, when the energy measurement unit 20 can not support the smart grid, the communication unit 140 of the household appliance 10 can not receive a response from the energy measurement unit 20. [ In this case, the communication unit 140 of the household appliance 10 may attempt to communicate with the external server (S19).

According to the present invention, the registration method may vary according to the policy of the utility company. In the case of the present invention, since the appliance can perform two registration methods irrespective of the policy of the utility company, .

While the present invention has been described in connection with what is presently considered to be the most practical and preferred embodiment, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments. That is, within the scope of the present invention, all of the components may be selectively coupled to one or more of them. Furthermore, the terms "comprises", "comprising", or "having" described above mean that a component can be implanted unless otherwise specifically stated, But should be construed as including other elements. All terms, including technical and scientific terms, have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs, unless otherwise defined. Commonly used terms, such as predefined terms, should be interpreted to be consistent with the contextual meanings of the related art, and are not to be construed as ideal or overly formal, unless expressly defined to the contrary.

The foregoing description is merely illustrative of the technical idea of the present invention, and various changes and modifications may be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the essential characteristics of the present invention. Therefore, the embodiments disclosed in the present invention are intended to illustrate rather than limit the scope of the present invention, and the scope of the technical idea of the present invention is not limited by these embodiments. The scope of protection of the present invention should be construed according to the following claims, and all technical ideas within the scope of equivalents should be construed as falling within the scope of the present invention.

10: home appliance 100: control unit
110: Operation section 140:
20: energy measuring unit 50: external server

Claims (11)

A communication unit capable of communicating with an energy measurement unit capable of communicating with a server of a power company; And
And a control unit capable of controlling a load based on information received from the communication unit,
The communication unit performs a DNS-SD request specifying SFDI (short-form device identifier) stored in the communication unit as security information for registration, and performs registration in accordance with whether or not a response to the DNS-SD request is received Which attempt to register with the energy measurement department by any of a number of registration methods. The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the communication unit includes a Wi-Fi modem. The method according to claim 1,
When the communication unit receives a response to the DNS-SD request specifying the security information for registration, the communication unit attempts to register with the energy measurement unit in the first registration method,
And if the response to the DNS-SD request specifying the security information for registration is not received, the communication unit tries to register with the energy measurement unit in the second registration method. The method of claim 3,
In the registration attempt by the first registration method,
Wherein the communication unit requests SFDI information of the energy measurement unit from the energy measurement unit,
And receives SFDI information from the energy measurement unit. 5. The method of claim 4,
Wherein the communication unit transmits the security key stored in the memory of the communication unit to the energy measurement unit after receiving the SFDI information from the energy measurement unit and receives the registration completion response from the energy measurement unit. 5. The method of claim 4,
Wherein the communication unit transmits the security key transmission request to the energy measurement unit after receiving the SFDI information from the energy measurement unit and receives the security key from the energy measurement unit. The method of claim 3,
In the registration attempt by the second registration method,
Wherein the communication unit performs a DNS-SD request specifying a Smart Grid function. 8. The method of claim 7,
Wherein, when receiving a response to the DNS-SD request specifying the Smart Grid function, the communication unit transmits the SFDI information of the SFDI information to the energy measurement unit, and receives the registration completion response from the energy measurement unit. 8. The method of claim 7,
Wherein the communication unit attempts communication with an external server capable of communicating with a server of the power company when receiving a response to a DNS-SD request specifying a Smart Grid function. Performing a DNS-SD request in which the communication unit of the household appliance is turned on to extract security information for registration and specifying security information for registration;
Determining whether a communication unit of the household appliance has received a response to a DNS-SD request; And
When the communication unit of the household appliance receives a response to the DNS-SD request, it tries to register with the energy measuring unit that can communicate with the server of the power company in the first registration manner, And attempting to register with the energy measurement unit. 11. The method of claim 10,
Further comprising the step of attempting registration with an external server capable of communicating with a server of the power company when the communication unit of the household appliance fails to register with the energy measurement unit in the second registration method.

Images