KR20060089854A - Living network control system - Google Patents

Abstract

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a living network control system, for example, in which a user located inside or outside a home is provided with a living network such as an RS-485 network, a small output RF network, and a power line network installed in a home. By controlling the operation of various home appliances, such as a refrigerator or a washing machine, or by monitoring the operating state, the user can be provided with the convenience of remote control and monitoring, as well as the microcomputer provided in the home appliance. By using only the minimum resources of the controller, it is a very useful invention to be able to perform the control operation on the living network more simply and efficiently.

Living Network Control System, LnCP Network, Home Gateway, Network Manager, LnCP Router, LnCP Adapter, Home Appliances

Description

Living network control system             

1 illustrates a configuration of a living network control system according to the present invention,

2 and 3 illustrate a master-slave based communication structure applied to the present invention,

4 illustrates a hierarchical structure of an LnCP network applied to the present invention;

5 to 7 illustrate embodiments of a communication cycle service applied to the present invention.

※ Explanation of code for main part of drawing

100: LnCP Internet server 200: communication terminal

300: Internet 400: Living Network Control System

40: home gateway 41: network manager

42: LnCP Router 43: LnCP Adapter

44: home appliances

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a living network control system. For example, a user located inside or outside a home can efficiently control home appliances such as a refrigerator or a washing machine connected to a living network. It relates to a living network control system.

In general, a home network refers to a network in which various digital home appliances are connected to each other so that a user can conveniently and economically enjoy life services at home or outside the home. Or various types of home appliances such as washing machines are increasingly digital.

On the other hand, home networks have been developed in recent years as operating system technology for home appliances and high-speed multi-media communication technologies have been applied to digital home appliances, and new types of information home appliances have emerged. have.

In addition, a network constructed to provide file exchange or Internet service between a personal computer (PC) and peripheral devices, a network between home appliances that handle audio or video information, and a refrigerator or a washing machine. Living network is a comprehensive network for controlling various home appliances and home appliances such as home automation and remote meter reading.

In addition, the main communication purpose of the small-scale data transmission for the remote control or monitoring of the operation state of various home appliances, such as refrigerators or washing machines, etc. included in the living network In the living network service, the minimum communication resources are used, and the network managers included in the living network must be directly controlled to control the connected home appliances. As it is not prepared, the solution solution is urgently required,

Accordingly, the present invention was created in view of the above situation, and for example, a user who is located inside or outside of a home may use various household appliances such as a refrigerator or a washing machine connected to a living network. It is an object of the present invention to provide a living network control system for more convenient and efficient control using only communication resources.

Living network control system according to the present invention for achieving the above object, the home gateway for connecting to the external Internet; A plurality of home appliances connected to a network installed in a home independently of the external Internet; And a network manager for controlling the operation of the home appliances or monitoring the operation state.

In addition, an adapter for connecting and connecting home appliances to a network installed in a home independently of the external internet, an RS-485 network, a low power RF network, and a power line installed in a home independently of the external internet. It further comprises a router for connecting and connecting networks,

In addition, the network manager is connected to at least one network installed in the home, and using the minimum resources of the microcontroller provided in each of the plurality of home appliances, to control the operation or operation state of the home appliances Characterized in that for monitoring,

Hereinafter, a preferred embodiment of a living network control system according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

1 illustrates a configuration of a living network control system according to the present invention. For example, a LnCP internet server 100 to which a living network control protocol (LnCP) newly defined in the present invention is applied. 1 and the living network control system 400 are connected and connected through the Internet 300 as shown in FIG. 1, and the LnCP Internet server 100 includes a personal computer (PC) and a PDA (PDA). And interface operations with various communication terminals 200 such as PCS.

Meanwhile, the living network control system 400 includes a home gateway 40, a network manager 41, an LnCP router 42, an LnCP adapter 43, And appliances 44, wherein the constituent means includes, as shown in FIG. 1, a non-standardized transmission of a data link layer such as an RS-485 network or a small output RF network. A medium (Non-Standard Transmission Medium) or power line communication or a data link layer such as IEEE 802.11 or ZigBee (IEEE 802.15.4) may be used as a transmission medium.

In addition, the living network control system 400 may be referred to as an 'LnCP network', for example, where the LnCP network is a home appliance belonging to the living network category in an independent home, as shown in FIG. 1. It consists of a standalone network that connects (Appliances) to a wired or wireless transmission medium.

On the other hand, the LnCP network, and informs the master device (Master Device) that can control the operation or monitor the operation state of the other home appliances, the function in response to the request of the master device and the information about the change of their own state A slave device having a function is connected.

And, the environment setting and management functions of the home appliances 44 connected to the LnCP network, as shown in Figure 1, will be in charge of the network manager 41, the home appliances 44, It may be directly connected to the network or indirectly through the LnCP adapter 43, and the RS-485 network, the RF network, and the power line network in the LnCP network are connected through the LnCP router 42. .

In addition, the LnCP network, by connecting to the external Internet 300 to provide a function that allows the user outside to check or control the status of the home appliances installed in the home, for this purpose LnCP network and external The home gateway 40 is responsible for the connection function between the Internet, and when the user accesses the LnCP Internet server 100 from the outside and performs an authentication process, the user checks the status of the home appliance connected to the LnCP network or Or the function to control can be used.

In addition, after accessing the LnCP Internet server 100 through the home gateway 40 from the home appliance connected to the LnCP network, the content provided by the LnCP Internet server may be downloaded, which is the main feature of the LnCP network. When described in detail as follows.

First of all, digital information appliances have a microcontroller with various performances so as to perform unique functions. In the LnCP network according to the present invention, the digital information home appliances can operate with such a microcontroller with various performances. By simplifying the function more efficiently, the microcontroller in the home appliance can be used to a minimum, and the low performance microcontroller can handle LnCP communication functions while performing the home appliance's own functions. High performance microcontroller controllers support multitasking capabilities.

In addition, the main features of the LnCP network according to the present invention, the master-slave-based communication structure, event-based communication support, a plurality of network manager support, four-layer structure, communication cycle service, flexible address management, variable length packet communication, And can be classified as providing a standard message set.

Meanwhile, the master-slave based communication structure is used as a connection communication structure between home appliances in the LnCP network, and there must be at least one master device, and the master device includes information on slave devices to be controlled and In this case, the master device controls another slave device according to a program already input or receiving input from a user.

For example, the message flow between the master device and the slave device, as shown in Figure 2, by sending a request (Request) message from the master to the slave, by sending a response message to the slave (Response) to the master In operation, the LnCP network may have a multi-master and multi-slave based communication structure, as shown in FIG. 3.

In the LnCP network, an event-driven communication service is supported, for example, a user may set an event required by the home appliance, and in the home appliance, any operation may be performed. During the execution, when an event set by a user occurs, the fact or content of the event is notified to another home appliance or, in response to the event, the operation state of the other home appliance is controlled.

In addition, the LnCP network includes at least one network manager that is responsible for environment setting and management functions of home appliances, and may support multiple network managers as needed. In order to prepare for errors, management information of home appliances should be synchronized.

In the LnCP network, as shown in FIG. 4, a four-layer structure of a physical layer, a data link layer, a network layer, and an application layer is illustrated. In the LnCP network, a service is provided in units of communication cycles. In a slave device, only one communication cycle may exist at a given time.

That is, while a communication cycle is performed in one slave device, it cannot be controlled by any master device, but in the master device, a plurality of communication cycles for a plurality of slave devices may be performed at a given time. There are four types of cycles: {1-Request, 1-Response}, {1-Request, Multi-Response}, {1-Notification}, and {Repeated-Notification}.

For example, in the {1-Request, 1-Response} communication cycle, one master transmits one request packet to one slave, and the slave responds with one response packet. As a communication cycle for transmitting a response packet, if an error occurs in a received packet, as shown in FIG. 5, the master transmits a re-request packet, and the slave responds thereto. Response Packet will be delivered again.

In addition, in the {1-Request, Multi-Response} communication cycle, as shown in FIG. 6, one master transmits one request packet having a group address to multiple slaves, and each slave transmits a request packet. The master will end the cycle when the maximum allowed time is received, and the master will ignore the error even if an error occurs in the response packet received from the slave.

The {1-Notification} communication cycle is a cycle in which the master device transmits one notification packet to one or more devices and immediately terminates communication, as shown in FIG. 7. The {Repeated-Notification} communication cycle is a cycle for terminating communication after repeatedly transmitting the same packet in order to secure transmission reliability in the {1-Notification} communication cycle.

Meanwhile, in the PnCP network, flexible address management is supported. For example, home appliances equipped with the LnCP function are assigned at the time of factory shipment to automatically configure the network without user intervention. In this case, since the same kind of home appliances are initialized with the same address, the network manager has an algorithm for assigning a unique unique address when the home appliances are connected.

In addition, in the LnCP network, by assigning a unique group address to the home appliances belonging to the same type, it is possible to enable group communication using a single message, clustering various types of home appliances according to the user's needs You can classify as (Cluster) and assign a group address to each cluster.

In the PnCP network, packet communication of variable length is supported, for example, in the case of downloading content such as an application program related to the operation of a home appliance or uploading data stored in the home appliance, The length of the packet is adjusted using the buffer size information of the home appliance.

In addition, the LnCP network provides a standard message set. For example, the message layer defines a standard message set suitable for various home appliances in the application layer so that the master device can control another home appliance. Common Area Message Set for basic LnCP communication, Product Application Area Message Set to support the unique functions of home appliances, and Developer Area to provide unique functions of manufacturers It is divided into a Developer Area Message Set.

For reference, such a message set may be extended as needed, and may also add an argument to a previously defined message. Thus, the above-described preferred embodiments of the present invention are disclosed for purposes of illustration. In the living network to which the present invention is applied, more various home appliances can be connected and connected, and those skilled in the art can further various embodiments within the technical spirit and technical scope of the present invention disclosed in the appended claims. They may be improved, modified, replaced or added.

The living network control system according to the present invention constructed and constructed as described above includes, for example, a user located inside or outside the home, such as an RS-485 network, a small output RF network, and a power line network. Through the Living Network, various home appliances, such as a refrigerator or a washing machine, can be controlled or monitored, thereby providing users with the convenience of remote control and monitoring. By using only the minimum resources of the microcontroller provided in the present invention, it is a very useful invention to be able to perform the control operation on the living network more simply and efficiently.

Claims (6)

A home gateway for connecting to and connecting to the external Internet; A plurality of home appliances connected to a network installed in a home independently of the external Internet; And Living network control system comprising a network manager for controlling the operation or monitoring the operation state of the home appliances. The method of claim 1, Living network control system, characterized in that it further comprises an adapter for connecting and connecting the home appliance to a network installed in the home independently of the external Internet. The method of claim 1, The network is a living network control system, characterized in that any one or more of an RS-485 network, a low-power RF network, and a power line network installed in a home independently of the external Internet. The method of claim 3, wherein And a router for connecting and connecting the different networks. The method of claim 1, The network manager is connected to at least one network installed in the home, and using the minimum resources of the microcontroller provided in each of the plurality of home appliances, to control the operation or monitor the operation state of the home appliances Living network control system, characterized in that. The method of claim 5, Among the microcontrollers provided in the plurality of home appliances, the low performance microcontroller performs a basic communication function on a living network, while the high performance microcontroller performs a multicasting communication function on a living network. A living network control system.

Images