KR20140129947A - Smart appliance apparatus and urgent message transmission system - Google Patents

Abstract

According to an aspect of the present invention, a network access method between a union certification center and a smart home appliance in a multi home area network environment comprises the steps of: receiving, by a union certification center, an access request message from a smart home appliance; transmitting an access response message corresponding to the access request; receiving a pairing request message containing own device information from the smart home appliance; allocating a virtual home area network to which the smart home appliance belongs based on the pairing request message; and transmitting a pairing response message corresponding to the pairing request message.

Description

[0001] SMART APPLIANCE APPARATUS AND URGENT MESSAGE TRANSMISSION SYSTEM [0002]

Various embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to emergency message delivery in a multi-home area network environment, and more particularly, to a method and system for providing emergency message delivery in a multi- To an apparatus and a system in which a device which desires to transmit urgent messages performs the urgent message transmission in cooperation with devices of its home area network and a neighboring home area network.

IT technologies such as the Internet and high-speed communication have been making remarkable progress in recent years. With the changing perception of environmental issues and high social interest in eco-friendly technologies, interest in smart grid technology, which is a combination of IT and electric power industry, is increasing. The Smart Grid is a technology that utilizes energy efficiently by minimizing environmental pollution by implementing a stable, highly efficient, and intelligent power network through the convergence of IT and power technologies. The Smart Grid is a next-generation intelligent power grid that combines information technology with existing power grids to enable electric power providers and consumers to exchange information in real time in both directions, minimizing unnecessary power generation and increasing the efficiency of power use.

In the Smart Grid system, power generation facilities include traditional large power plants such as thermal power generation, hydropower generation, and nuclear power generation, and solar and wind power solar and wind power plants, which are renewed energy sources. The large power plants send power to the transmission station through the transmission line, and electricity is sent to the substation at the transmission station so that electricity is distributed to final consumers such as the home or the office. Electricity generated from large-scale renewable power generation complexes is also sent to the substation to be distributed to each customer.

In the Smart Grid, many devices that operate by electricity are connected to the IT network and information exchange is used to efficiently control supply and demand. The major problem with existing power networks is that unidirectional power supply and simple metering facilities do not know the power usage in the final customer (house, factory, commercial facility) in real time and can not optimize the power supply. In the smart grid environment, it is possible to collect the energy consumption used in real time through the Smart Meter, so that it is possible to control the power generation amount and to predict the future power consumption, so that the energy cost can be differentiated, .

In the home smart grid environment, information related to energy is exchanged through communication between appliances including smart meters. There are various methods of wired and wireless communication technology that can be used for the above purpose, but the technology that is installed in the most products to date is ZigBee technology. ZigBee, a low-rate wireless personal area network (LR-WPAN) technology, features low-power and low-cost, and is designed to meet the needs of personal wireless network standards for smart grid and home automation applications in the 2.4GHz frequency band. to be.

FIG. 1 shows each layer to which a ZigBee and IEEE 802.15.4 standards are applied.

The ZigBee communication method is a communication standard for short-range networking. The Medium Access Control (MAC) layer and the Physical (PHY) layer adopt the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. The network layer and the application layer form a standard in the ZigBee Alliance . The Zigbee communication method is one of the communication technologies that realize the ubiquitous computing by implementing the Internet of Things (IoT) by providing the short distance communication service of about several tens of meters in the environment of the home and the office. Especially, Zigbee communication method can minimize power consumption and can be mounted on various battery-based smart grid devices and household sensors.

Referring to the ZigBee standard, ZigBee is capable of using 2.4GHz, 915MHz, and 868MHz frequency bands, which are Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) bands, and has a transmission rate of 250Kbps using 16 channels in the 2.4GHz band, It uses 10 channels in the 915MHz band and has a transmission rate of 40kbps. In the 868MHz band, it can have a transmission rate of 20kbps using one channel. In the physical layer, DSSS (Direct Secure Spread Spectrum) technology is used. To sum up, ZigBee technology can exchange data at a rate of 20 to 250 kbps within a few tens of meters, connect up to 255 devices to a single PAN (Personal Area Network), and configure a large-scale wireless sensor network .

It is an object of the present invention to provide a method, apparatus and system for providing urgent message transmission in a multi-home area network environment.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a smart home appliance including: a control unit for controlling operation of the smart home appliance; And at least one communication module for transmitting / receiving data based on a command of the control unit, wherein the controller performs a first transmission step in which the first smart home appliance attempts to transmit an urgent message to the second smart home appliance A first smart home appliance transmits an emergency message transmission request according to a result of the message transmission and an emergency message transmission response corresponding to the emergency message transmission request from a first HEMS server of a home area network to which the first smart appliance belongs And performs a second transmission step in which the first smart home appliance retries transmission of the emergency message to the second smart home appliance according to a result of the emergency message transmission response.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an emergency message delivery system in a multi-home network environment, wherein the first smart appliance performs a first transmission step of transmitting an emergency message to a second smart appliance, The first smart home appliance transmits an emergency message transmission request according to the result of the message transmission and the first HEMS server of the home network of the first smart appliance transmits an emergency message transmission response corresponding to the emergency message transmission request And a second transmission step in which the first smart home appliance retries sending an emergency message to the second smart home appliance according to a result of the emergency message transmission response.

According to embodiments of the present invention, urgent messages can be transmitted in a multi-home area network environment. In particular, according to an embodiment of the present invention, it is possible to transmit urgent messages in a multi-home area network environment in which a plurality of home area networks are physically adjacent.

FIG. 1 shows each layer to which a ZigBee and IEEE 802.15.4 standards are applied.
2 is a block diagram of a home network system of a smart grid according to an embodiment of the present invention.
3 is a block diagram schematically illustrating a home network device according to an embodiment of the present invention.
4 illustrates a communication frame structure defined by the ZigBee standard and the IEEE 802.15.4 standard according to an embodiment of the present invention.
5 illustrates a topology of a ZigBee wireless network according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 6 illustrates a relationship between a HEMS server of the Urgent cluster and a home area network device according to an embodiment of the present invention.
7 illustrates a multi-home area network structure according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 8 illustrates an urgent message transmission requesting step between a HEMS server and a home area network device (e.g., a smart home appliance) according to an embodiment of the present invention.
9 illustrates a data portion of an emergency request message according to an embodiment of the present invention.

It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory and are intended to be illustrative of the present invention and not to limit the scope of the invention. Should be interpreted to include modifications or variations that do not depart from the spirit of the invention.

The terms and accompanying drawings used herein are for the purpose of facilitating the present invention and the shapes shown in the drawings are exaggerated for clarity of the present invention as necessary so that the present invention is not limited thereto And are not intended to be limited by the terms and drawings.

In the following description, a detailed description of known functions and configurations incorporated herein will be omitted when it may make the subject matter of the present invention rather unclear.

2 is a block diagram of a home network system of a smart grid according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 2, the devices in the home area network are equipped with ZigBee, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, PLC (Power Line Communication), and Ethernet modules, It can transmit and receive. Communication within the house can be done via the wireless or wireline. Preferably, each of the home area network devices is preferably capable of communicating with the HEMS server 101, and each home area network device is interconnected with other home area network devices so as to be communicable.

The home network device includes a temperature controller 107 connected to and controlling the smart home appliance 105, the in-home display 106 and the air conditioning system 107a, an electric car charger 108 for charging the electric car 108a, A battery inverter 109 connected to the household battery 109a for controlling charging and discharging, a battery operating device 103 operating as a battery, a data mirror device 104 for mirroring data of the battery operating device 103, A solar power inverter 120 for converting the direct current electricity generated from the solar power generator 120a into AC, a solar inverter 130 for converting the direct current electricity generated in the wind power generator 130a into AC, etc. It refers to various devices requiring energy control.

In the home smart grid, a home energy management system (HEMS) server 101 for real time real-time power management of the home and a real-time prediction of power consumption and a smart meter 102 for measuring power consumption in real time play a pivotal role I am responsible.

The home energy management system (HEMS) server 101 is a central device of the home energy management system. The home energy management system 101 is a home energy management system in which, in response to energy related information received from a HEMS management server 301 operated by a power additional service provider 300, Perform load control and energy usage control of internal devices. The HEMS server 101 may be a separate physical device or may be incorporated in the smart meter 102 or incorporated into a smart appliance 105 such as a TV. have. The HEMS management server 105 of the service provider performs functions of remotely managing and setting the HEMS server 101 of the customer.

The smart meter 102 is an electronic watt hour meter equipped with a communication function having a function of measuring the total usage amount of a home by time and transmitting it to an AMI server 201 operated by the utility company 200. It is possible to provide an LCD display unlike the conventional mechanical watt-hour meter, measure the power consumption in real time, and transmit the message in both directions to the power company and the user through the neighboring area network 204 and the home area network 100 communication function, respectively . Therefore, through the smart meter 102, the electric power company 200 and the user can achieve the effects of the reduction of the inspection cost and the energy cost savings through manpower.

The smart meter installed in the office or the home grasps the amount of real time electric power used in each customer and transmits it to the AMI server 201. On the contrary, the smart meter receives the real time electric charge, load control, Area network devices. Through this, the user can recognize the current amount of electric power and the electric charge, and can find a way to reduce the electric power consumption or electric charge according to the situation.

The Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) system, which monitors the electricity consumption of customers in real time, is the core infrastructure of the smart grid. The AMI is a system capable of collecting energy usage in real time. The AMI is a smart meter (102) installed in each household for measuring the total power consumption, and an intermediate data collecting device (DCU A data collection unit 203 and finally an AMI server 201 for collecting data from a plurality of DCUs 203 through a large area network 202. [ The DCU 203 communicates with a plurality of adjacent smart meters 102 through a Neighborhood Area Network (NAN) and communicates with the AMI Server 50 through a large area network (WAN) do. The smart meter also communicates with home appliances in the home via a home area network (HAN) 100. The AMI server 201 manages the smart meter 102 as a server located in the network of the power company 200 and transmits the real time energy price information to the smart meter 102 or the real time energy consumption Lt; / RTI >

Electricity is supplied to the house through the solar inverter 120 or the wind inverter 130, which generates electricity through the solar power generator 120a or the wind power generator 130a in the home area network and converts the electricity into AC And the remaining electricity can be returned to the outside.

The IHD (In-Home Display) 106 is a device for displaying the real-time energy usage amount of the home. The IHD (In-Home Display) And other information.

The mobile device 110 is a portable device capable of wireless communication with home area network devices such as a smart phone and a computer.

In the customer, the HEMS server 101, the smart meter 102 and the home area network devices send and receive messages via an application standard protocol called energy profile for demand response. As an example of the above energy profile, there is a ZigBee SEP (Smart Energy Profile) energy profile. The SEP standard is based on SEP 1.x version which operates only in ZigBee communication technology, SEP 2 which can operate in any communication technology supporting IP There is a separate .x standard. The SEP can be standardized through the ZigBee Alliance and loaded into each home appliance including the smart meter 102 within the home area network area. However, there are variations of various energy profiles depending on functions or countries, and therefore, there may be devices supporting these various energy profiles.

3 is a block diagram schematically illustrating a home network device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The device may be one of the devices in the home network 100 shown in FIG.

3, a device according to the present invention includes a ZigBee 101a, a wireless LAN 101b, a PLC 101c, a mobile communication module 101d, and a user input signal for bidirectional communication with home area network devices A display unit 101f for displaying power information received through the communication modules 101a, 101b, 101c, and 101d or information about the home network devices, Receives the setting information, the power information, or the information on the home network devices through the input unit 101e or the communication units 101a, 101b, 101c, and 101d, And a control unit 101h for controlling the operation.

The apparatus may include a memory unit 101g in which a control command or program for an electrical product is stored.

Preferably, the control unit 101h of the device may control the display unit 101f to graphically provide the user with the setting information, the power information, or the information about the electrical product.

The mobile communication module 101d enables the device to transmit and receive wireless signals to and from external devices in the mobile communication network.

The user input 101e section allows a command for controlling the apparatus to be input by the user.

The display 101f displays results and statuses according to the operation of the device, and can display information provided from the outside.

4 illustrates a communication frame structure defined by the ZigBee standard and the IEEE 802.15.4 standard according to an embodiment of the present invention.

ZigBee supports both slotted-mode and non-slotted-mode. In the slotted mode, all devices in the PAN synchronize using the beacon message of the PAN (Personal Area Network) coordinator. In non-slotted mode, the start of the frame is detected using the preamble signal. Slotted-mode has the advantage of increasing the network efficiency because it shares the synchronous signal, but it is not used due to the overhead of the synchronous signal in the actual network environment. The message frame structure is commonly defined for slotted-mode and non-slotted-mode.

The IEEE 802.15.4 standard specifies the PHY (physical) layer and the MAC (medium access control) layer, and the ZigBee Alliance specifies the NWK (Network) layer. There are 4 bytes of Preamble Sequence located at the beginning of the PHY Layer and 1 byte of Start of Frame Delimiter. The 5 bytes are called SHR (Synchronization Header). Followed by a 1-byte frame length to indicate the length of the subsequent PSDU (PHY Layer Service Data Unit). The PSDU is a data set including all the signals of the MAC layer and can be up to 127 bytes.

The MAC Layer starts with a 2-byte Frame Control and has a Sequence Number of 1 byte and Addressing Fields with a minimum of 4 bytes and a maximum of 20 bytes. The length of Addressing Fields will vary depending on whether you want to use short addresses in any PAN or longer IEEE Addresses. After that, the frame body carrying the NWK layer data comes along and finally the frame check sequence (FCS) is used to detect the frame error. The data payload is also called the MAC layer Service Data Unit (MSDU). If the PSDU of the PHY layer is a maximum of 127 bytes, the MAC header 7 bytes and the FCS 2 bytes are excluded, so that the length of the MSDU is maximum 118 bytes.

Necessary items in NWK Header are 2 bytes of Frame Control, 2 bytes of Destination Address, 2 bytes of Source Address, 1 byte of Radius, 1 byte of Sequence Number. If the MSDU is up to 118 bytes, the maximum payload available in the NWK layer is 110 bytes minus the NWK Header 8 bytes.

5 illustrates a topology of a ZigBee wireless network according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The ZigBee standard defines three network topologies: Star, Tree, and Mesh. The ZigBee standard defines three types of network nodes.

The coordinator acts as the center of the network and manages the information of all devices connected to the network. Only the FFD (Full Function Device) defined in IEEE 802.15.4 can operate as a coordinator.

Routers are not in a star topology, and can only be applied to tree topologies and mesh topologies. The router is responsible for connecting the coordinator and the end device, and it only consists of FFD. The router itself may also act as an end device, in which case the name is a router, but it is treated the same as an end device.

The end device constitutes the end node of the network and collects and transmits sensor data or performs a control function by receiving a command from the coordinator. The termination device is generally composed of RFD (Reduced Function Device) defined in the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. RFD uses less memory compared to FFD to lower the price and reduce power consumption.

The star topology is the simplest to implement, with the ZigBee coordinator at the center and the end devices directly behind it. In order to transmit data from the end device to the end device, two steps are required to be transmitted through the coordinator because the coordinator must pass through the coordinator, so inefficiency occurs when the neighboring nodes communicate with each other.

The mesh topology increases the size of the network, with the coordinator at the center, under which end devices or routers are connected, other routers are connected beneath the router, and end devices are directly connected. The difference from tree topology is that each node can have multiple parent nodes rather than having one parent node. Mesh topology has a disadvantage of consuming a lot of memory because network configuration is complicated and each router needs to have information about all nodes. However, even if one node is lost, the bypass path can be secured immediately, thereby improving the network stability and reducing the total traffic since the data can be directly transmitted through the shortest path without going through the coordinator.

The tree topology is a topology in which the coordinator is at the center, the end devices or routers are connected beneath it, the other routers are connected under the router, and the end devices are directly connected and the size of the network is increased. In a tree topology network, all data is concentrated in the coordinator, so the total traffic tends to increase.

FIG. 6 illustrates a relationship between a HEMS server of the Urgent cluster and a home area network device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The HEMS server operates as a server of the Urgent cluster defined in the present invention, and any home network device operates as a client. The server receives the Urgent Request message from the client and sends the corresponding Urgent Response message. When the Inter-PAN Request is set in the Urgent Request message, the HEMS server can transmit the Urgent Request to the neighboring home area network.

7 illustrates a multi-home area network structure according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The case where the multi-home area network 100 exists at the physically same position may be as follows. The first case may be a case where the HEMS server 101 supplied by the electric power company and the HEMS server 101 provided by the electric power added service provider exist separately in a single household. The second case may be the case where at least one HEMS server 101 for a plurality of goods such as electric power, gas, and water is kept separately in a single household. The third case may be the case of an apartment environment in which a plurality of home area networks and smart meters belonging to them are superimposed on a physical space and exist at the same time. At this time, each of the home area networks 100 is located at a communication interference distance with the neighboring area network.

Referring to FIG. 7, there is shown a case where a plurality of furniture (one in FIG. 7 shows an environment of two households) reside together in one building. Each household may include home area network 100 devices, including a HEMS server 101 and a smart home appliance 105.

When a multi-home area network is configured as described above, the types of devices operating in the network are classified into smart meters 102, HEMS servers 101 for managing individual home area networks, smart home appliances (105).

In the case of the HEMS server 102, the function may be combined with the smart meter instead of physically as a separate device.

FIG. 8 illustrates an urgent message transmission requesting step between a HEMS server and a home area network device (e.g., a smart home appliance) according to an embodiment of the present invention.

In this example, the smart home appliance 105 is utilized as an example of the home network device. In addition to smart home appliances, other home networking devices such as HEMS servers, IHDs, temperature controllers, etc. can perform similar steps.

The smart appliance 105b belonging to the first home area network transmits an urgent message transmission request to the HEMS server 101b of its network (S101). The reason why the first smart appliance performs the above step S101 may be that it has failed more than an arbitrary number of times in the previous message transmission or it is difficult to permit time delay such as key input, interface operation, network join by the user, or the like.

The smart appliance 105b transmits an Urgent Message ID, an Urgent Message Control, an Urgent Message Priority, a Network Perimeter, , A multi-home area network propagation request (Inter-PAN request), and time out values (Time Out Values).

The HEMS server 101b analyzes the contents of the emergency request message and transmits an emergency message transmission response corresponding to the emergency request message (S103).

Thereafter, the HEMS server 101b may broadcast the emergency request message to its home area network (S101a).

If the Inter-PAN Request is set in the emergency message transmission request, the HEMS server can transmit the emergency message transmission request to the neighboring home area network. In the case of FIG. 8, the HEMS server 101b of the first home area network transmits the message to the HEMS server 101a of the second home area network (S107).

The second HEMS server 101a may broadcast the urgent message transmission request to the nodes of its home network (S107a).

It is preferable that not all the nodes that have received the urgent message transmission request by broadcast transmit the messages having lower priority than the message priority in the urgent message transmission request. The limitation is valid only within the time specified in the duration information defined in the urgent message transmission request.

The nodes receiving the emergency message transmission request are preferably transmitted to the neighboring nodes. However, it is desirable to reduce the Network Perimeter value in the request message by 1 each time it is transmitted, and to discard the message which becomes 0.

If the second HEMS server transmits an emergency message transmission response, the first HEMS server can deliver the message to the smart appliance 105b (S109a).

Upon receipt of the result of the emergency message transmission response (S103, S109a), the smart appliance preferably attempts to transmit its emergency message.

If the emergency message transmission is successful and there is much time remaining in the duration information of the urgent message transmission request transmitted previously, the smart appliance retransmits the emergency message transmission request and releases the restriction of the other nodes . In this case, the message can be marked as " Cancel " in the emergency message control information of the emergency message transmission request, and the previous message can be retransmitted to perform the corresponding function.

9 illustrates a data portion of an emergency request message according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 9, the Urgent Message ID refers to the serial number of the urgent message request included in the current message. If the same Urgent Message ID is received and the Urgent Message Control value is set to Request, it can be considered a duplicate received message. If the same Urgent Message ID is received and the Urgent Message Control value is set to Cancel, the previously requested Urgent Message Request may be considered to have been interrupted.

The Urgent Message Control can have a value of Request or Cancel, and has the meaning of an urgent message control request in case of a request, and cancels the previous urgent message control request in case of Cancel.

The Urgent Message Priority indicates the priority value of the urgent message to be requested.

The network radius is arbitrarily set by the initial sender to determine the range of propagation of the message, decremented by 1 every time it is transmitted through the node, and discarded when it becomes zero.

The multi-home area network request (Inter-PAN Request) sets whether the original sender extends the propagation range of the emergency message transmission request message to the other home area network.

The Time Out Value may define a time when the urgent message transmission request is valid.

100: Home area network
101: HEMS server
102: Smart meter
105: Smart Appliances
201: AMI server
204: Neighbor area network

Claims (10)

As a smart home appliance,
A control unit for controlling operation of the smart home appliance; And
And at least one communication module for transmitting / receiving data based on a command of the control unit,
Wherein,
The first smart home appliance performs a first transmission step of attempting to transmit an urgent message to the second smart home appliance,
The first smart appliance transmits an emergency message transmission request according to a result of the message transmission,
Receiving an urgent message transmission response corresponding to the urgent message transmission request from the first HEMS server of the home area network to which the first smart appliance belongs,
And performs a second transmission step in which the first smart home appliance retries sending an emergency message to the second smart home appliance according to a result of the emergency message transmission response
The method according to claim 1,
Further comprising transmitting an emergency message transmission request when the first smart appliance has failed in the first transmission step for more than a predetermined number of times of transmission of the emergency message,
The method according to claim 1,
Further comprising information about at least one of an urgency message importance, a network radius, a multi-home area network propagation request, and duration information as contents of the urgent message transmission request
The method of claim 1, wherein
Wherein when the emergency message transmission is successful as a result of the second transmission step, the first smart appliance resends the emergency message transmission request to the first HEMS server, and the emergency message transmission request is the same as the previous emergency message transmission request ID < / RTI > and the release information of the previous emergency message transmission request. ≪ RTI ID = 0.0 &
1. An emergency message delivery system in a multi-home area network environment,
The first smart home appliance performs a first transmission step of attempting to transmit an urgent message to the second smart home appliance,
The first smart appliance transmits an emergency message transmission request according to a result of the message transmission,
The first HEMS server of the home network to which the first smart appliance belongs transmits an emergency message transmission response corresponding to the emergency message transmission request,
And a second transmission step of causing the first smart appliance to retry sending an emergency message to the second smart appliance according to the result of the emergency message transmission response
6. The method of claim 5,
Further comprising transmitting an emergency message transmission request when the first smart appliance has failed in the first transmission step for more than a predetermined number of times of the emergency message transmission,
6. The method of claim 5,
Wherein the emergency message transmission request includes at least one of an importance of an emergency message, a network radius, a multi-home area network propagation request, and duration information.
6. The method of claim 5,
Further comprising analyzing the contents of the emergency message transmission request and transmitting the emergency message transmission request to the second HEMS server in the communication radius of the first HEMS server
9. The method of claim 8,
And the second HEMS server transmits the emergency message transmission request to devices belonging to the same home area network as the first HEMS server.
The method of claim 5, wherein
Wherein when the emergency message transmission is successful as a result of the second transmission step, the first smart appliance resends the emergency message transmission request to the first HEMS server, and the emergency message transmission request is the same as the previous emergency message transmission request ID and release information of the previous urgent message transmission request. ≪ RTI ID = 0.0 >

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