WO2008128374A1

WO2008128374A1 - Method and device for remote control of an appliance

Info

Publication number: WO2008128374A1
Application number: PCT/CN2007/001247
Authority: WO
Inventors: Zhigang Zhang; Huanqiang Zhang
Original assignee: Thomson Licensing
Priority date: 2007-04-18
Filing date: 2007-04-18
Publication date: 2008-10-30

Abstract

The invention concerns a gateway device (204, 604) for controlling an appliance (206, 606) on a first communication network, comprising: an interface to the first network, the first network comprising at least one appliance (206, 606); an interface to a second network, the second network comprising a user controllable terminal device (202, 602); a control module for providing voice information to the terminal device via the second communication network, for receiving coded control data from the terminal device for control of the at least one appliance and for transmitting control data to at least one appliance in response to said coded control data. The invention also concerns a corresponding method.

Description

Method and device for remote control of an appliance

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention generally relates to communication technologies, and particularly to a method and device for the remote control of an appliance.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

When network techniques advance dramatically, network applications merge broadly into the daily life of people. More electrical appliances now contain tiny embedded systems that support network interfaces within the home. Consequently, remotely controlling an appliance, e.g. an information appliance (IA) in a home network has become a major demand for nowadays consumers. information appliance' in the present context means any appliance connected to the network.

Currently, the most commonly proposed method for remotely controlling an information appliance is to configure it through a web interface. Fig. 1 is a schematic view of the network architecture of a web control method according to the prior art.

As shown in Fig. 1, for instance, when a user wants to control an intelligent air conditioner at his home from his office, he must start a browser on a personal computer, type in the air conditioner's URL, and then try to connect with the device. If he succeeds, the browser will return a webpage that gives the user detailed - -

instructions about how to control it by typing in data and clicking on the right buttons on the page.

For example, on the webpage, the user can power on the air conditioner by clicking the Power_0n button, power it off by clicking the Power_Off button, ask it to automatically start to function at 6:00 PM by typing in

"6PM" after the "start to work at " string and then clicking the "Confirm" button. After receiving control commands from the user end, the air conditioner will execute them accordingly. All these data flows are transmitted through the Internet.

While the method provides a way to enable the user to control IAs at home remotely, it has also the following drawbacks:

At first, it requires users to be able to access to Internet from the remote site. Under current network deployment reality, this requirement can't always be met when they are at isolated locations, or in a taxi or bus.

Secondly, the IA must have a global IP address to make it accessible via Internet. With a limited IPv4 address pool, this usually isn't the case in many developing countries such as China.

Finally, the user must know how to use the Internet and be able to read the words in the WebPages. It will make illiterates and many people who have no Internet experiences unable to use this solution.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

To solve one or more problems above-described, the invention provides a system and a method for remote control of an appliance and a gateway, a user can control the IAs as long as he or she has the access to Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) network, and as long as the user can hear and understand the voice instruction, he or she will be able to control IAs at home.

An object of the invention is gateway device for controlling an appliance on a first communication network, comprising:

an interface to the first network, the first network comprising at least one appliance;

an interface to a second network, the second network comprising a user controllable terminal device;

a control module for providing voice information to the terminal device via the second communication network, for receiving coded control data from the terminal device for control of the at least one appliance and for transmitting control data to at least one appliance in response to said coded control data.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the device further comprises a memory for storing registration information related to the at least one appliance;

According to an embodiment of the invention, said voice information comprises voice information for instructing a user on control input for controlling an appliance .

According to an embodiment of the invention, voice information relevant for a given appliance is received by said gateway device from the given appliance. According to an embodiment of the invention, the device further comprises a module for user identification.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the second network is a phone network and wherein the device further comprises means for converting said voice information into audio signals for transmission to the terminal device.

According to an embodiment of the invention, said coded control data is coded in DTMF.

The invention also concerns a method for controlling an appliance connected to a first communication network using a terminal device connected to a second communication network, wherein both networks are connected by a gateway device, said method comprising the steps, at the level of the gateway device, of:

transmitting audio data pertaining to the control of the appliance to the terminal device for playback to a user;

receiving appliance control data sent by the terminal device in response to a user input;

transmitting said appliance control data to the appliance .

The terminal may be a digital terminal and the control information and voice data is sent/received in digital form. The terminal may also be an analog terminal, e.g. a phone on a PSTN network, and in that case, the audio data is coded according to a standard compatible with the PSTN network and decodable by the terminal, while the control data is e.g. in DTMF format. The invention enables a user to remotely control

IAs at home through a telephone. The only device to be added to the infrastructure is a phone control gateway, which according to an embodiment of the invention is located at the user's home..

Compared with the conventional web control method, the present invention has the following advantages :

At first, the IAs can be controlled as long as the user has the access to a PSTN or other type of telephone network (GSM, CDMA, UMTS...) .

Secondly, the method doesn't require each IA must have a global IP address.

Lastly, as long as a user can hear and understand the voice instructions, he or she will be able to control IAs at home.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings which are included to provide a further understanding of the invention and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this application illustrate embodiment (s) of the invention together with the description which serves to explain the principle of the invention. In the drawings:

Fig. 1 shows a block diagram of a network architecture of Web control method according to the prior art;

Figs. 2A to 2C show block diagrams of the system for remote control of an information appliance according to one embodiment of the invention; Figs 3 to 5 show flow charts of the method for remote control of an information appliance according to one embodiment of the invention;

Fig. 6 shows a block diagram of the system for remote control of an information appliance according to another embodiment of the invention;

Fig. 7 shows a flow chart of a sample control procedure of the method for remote control of an information appliance according to another embodiment of the invention;

Fig. 8 shows a flow chart of the basic processing procedure for the phone control gateway according to another embodiment of the invention;

Fig. 9 shows a block diagram of the hardware architecture of the phone control gateway according to another embodiment of the invention;

Fig. 10 shows a block diagram of the software components of the phone control gateway according to another embodiment of the invention;

Fig. 11 shows a block diagram of the hardware architecture of IA' s phone control client part of another embodiment of the invention; and

Fig. 12 shows a block diagram of the software components of IA' s phone control client part of another embodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

The technical features of the present invention will be described further with reference to the embodiments . The embodiments are only preferable examples without limiting the invention. It will be well understood by the skilled person in the art upon reading the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings .

It is to be noted that the embodiments are based on the use of a public switched telephone network (PSTN) . The invention may also be employed in a digital communication network such as a GSM network.

Figs . 2A to 2C show block diagrams of the system for remote control of an information appliance according to one embodiment of the invention.

Basically, the whole system comprises three devices

(terminal, gateway and IAs) and two networks (PSTN network and IP network) . This solution will make it possible that a user remotely controls IAs at home by a

PSTN phone, instead of a PC.

As shown in Fig. 2A, the system for remote control of an information appliance comprises: a terminal 202 for sending control instructions inputted by a remote user to a gateway via the PSTN network and providing voice information for guiding the remote user to identify and authenticate himself or input the control instructions from the gateway to the remote user; the gateway 204 for conducting user identification/authentication and sending the voice information to the terminal, and controlling the information appliance via IP network according to the control instructions from the terminal ; and the information appliance 206 for providing voice information to the terminal via the gateway and executing corresponding actions under the control of the gateway. As shown in Fig. 2B, the gateway 204 comprises an authentication module 204-2 for conducting user identification/authentication; a database 204-4 for storing the information related to the information appliance and the voice information for guiding the remote user to authenticate and input the control instructions; and a control module 204-6 for providing the voice information to the remote user of the terminal via PSTN network and controlling the corresponding information appliance according to the control instructions from the terminal.

In the present detailed embodiment, 'authentication' means checking user access rights. The user selects a specific gateway through the PSTN phone number of the gateway. He may also call a specific server and then select one among a plurality of gateways based on the selection information provided by the server (e.g. a list of gateways) . He is then connected to the selected gateway. This avoids having to memorize telephone numbers of different gateways.

The control module 204-6 comprises an analyzing and searching module 204-6a for analyzing the control instructions inputted by the remote user to obtain the information related to the information appliance and searching the database to find the matching information appliance; a transforming module 204-6b for transforming the control instructions in ^Λanalog' format (e.g. the instructions are coded according to DTMF signals) from the terminal into digital format and sending the control instructions in digital format to the information appliance via IP network, and transforming the voice information in digital format from the information appliance into analog format and sending the voice information in analog format to the terminal via PSTN network. Modules 204-2, 4 and 6 are typically implemented by software running on an appropriately configured microprocessor.

As shown in Fig. 2C, the information appliance 206 comprises a parsing module 206-2 for parsing the control instructions from the gateway, and sending the parsed control instructions to a device control module; and the device control module 206-4 for controlling the information appliance to execute corresponding actions according to the control instructions.

Fig. 3 shows a flow chart of the method for remote control of an information appliance according to the first embodiment. As shown in Fig. 3, the method for remote control of an information appliance comprises:

Step 302, an information appliance registering with a gateway and the gateway storing information related to the information appliance in a database (The IA related information typically may include the extension number of the IA (or another identifier or address of the IA on the network usable to send a message to the appliance) , a device type identifier of the IA and/or a list of functions and control instructions supported by the IA, as well as audio files containing instructions and possible choices to be announced to the user) ;

Step 304, when a terminal connects to the gateway, the gateway conducts terminal authentication;

Step 306, if the user identification/authentication succeeds, the gateway sends voice information which will guide the remote user to authenticate or input control instructions to control the information appliance via PSTN network, and the terminal sending the control instructions inputted by the remote user under the guide of the voice information to the gateway; and

Step 308, the gateway controlling the information appliance via IP network according to the control instructions from the terminal.

If there is more than one information appliance, then the authentication step is followed by a selection step (not illustrated) of an information appliance among the available appliances registered with the gateway.

As shown in Fig 4, step 304 comprises: step 304-2, the terminal connecting with the gateway; and step 304-4, the remote user inputting a password for user identification/authentication under the guidance of the voice information from the gateway; and step 304-6, the gateway judging whether the password is correct, and if it is correct, the authentication succeeds, if not, the authentication fails.

As shown in Fig 5, step 308 comprises step 308-2, the gateway analyzing the control instructions received from the terminal, the step 308-3 of searching the database to find the matching information appliance' s address and sending the analyzed control instructions to the information appliance; step 308-4, the information appliance analyzing the control instructions from the gateway and sending back voice information in digital format for guiding the remote user to input the control instructions to the gateway; step 308-6, the gateway sending the voice information to the terminal after transforming the voice information in digital format into analog format; step 308-8, the terminal sending the control constructions inputted by the remote user according to the voice information to the gateway; step 308-10, the gateway sending the control instructions to the information appliance after transforming the control instructions in digital format into analog format; and step 308-12, the information appliance executing corresponding actions according to the control instructions .

The audio information to be used during control of a given appliance may be preloaded into the gateway at the time of registration of the appliance, according to the variant embodiment.

In the invention, the control instructions sent by the terminal is in the form of DTMF signal. The gateway- is a network device with a local IP address. The appliance has a local IP address.

Fig. 6 shows a block diagram of the system of another embodiment of the invention, wherein the terminal is a PSTN phone. As shown in Fig. 6, the system comprises a PSTN phone 602, a phone control gateway 604 and Information appliances 606.

In this system, from the PSTN network point of view, the phone control gateway is a PSTN phone which has a phone number, or an extension phone which is accessible by dialling the home's main phone number and then the extension number. From the home IP network perspective, the phone control gateway is a network device with a local IP address. A control procedure of the system for remote control of an information appliance according to another embodiment of the invention is shown in Fig. 7. The sample interaction process indicates how a user controls an intelligent IA via a phone control gateway and a PSTN phone .

The following are the steps needed for the operation, wherein all the messages between IA and phone control gateway are encapsulated in IP packets:

Step 702: When an IA is installed at home, a program on it will send a "Registration Request" to the phone control gateway to tell the gateway it supports advanced phone control functions, and register an extension number. If the registration procedure is successfully performed, the gateway stores the IA related information into a local memory. The IA related information typically may include the extension number of the IA (or another identifier or address of the IA on the network) , a device type identifier of the IA and/or a list of functions supported by the IA, etc... as in the embodiment of figures 2 to 5.

Step 704: A user at a remote site picks up a PSTN phone and dials the phone number of the phone control gateway.

Step 706: After receiving ring signals from the PSTN network, the phone control gateway automatically picks up and sends back the first voice instruction to the remote user. The voice asks the user to input a password by dialling numbers on the phone's panel. If the authentication succeeds, the instruction will guide the user to dial different numbers in order to control different IAs at home. According to the present embodiment, the voice message may be: "welcome to the phone control gateway, please dial 1 to control the air conditioner, dial 2 to control the refrigerator, dial 3 to control the video recorder".

Step 708: The user dials a number on the phone's panel (In this case, assume the user dials 1 to inform the gateway he wants to control the air conditioner at his home) .

Step 710: The phone control gateway learns what the number is by analyzing the DTMF signal it received through the PSTN network. It will then prepare the information appliance for control, e.g. by sending an appropriate message requesting such control.

Step 712: The IA analyzes the packets received from the gateway, and sends back the first digital voice , instructions, coded according to a known voice codec format such as G.711 or G.723, or a compressed form decodable by the gateway, to the gateway. According to the present embodiment, the message is: "welcome to the control menu of the intelligent air conditioner, please dial 5 to start air conditioner at 5:00 PM, dial 6 to start air conditioner at 6:00 PM and dial 7 to start air conditioner at 7:00 PM".

Step 714: After receiving digital voice instruction packets from the IA, the gateway will decode and convert the voice data into analog format, and play the message to the remote user via PSTN network.

Step 716: The user hears the instructions via his phone, and dials the number accordingly. For example, on a hot summer afternoon, the user would dial 6 at the phone to ask the air conditioner to start to work at 6:00 PM so that the home will be cool enough when he is back at home at 7:00PM. Then the phone will send the number in DTMF signal to the remote gateway through PSTN network.

Step 718: The gateway analyzes the received DTMF signals, learns the ^• corresponding number the user dials, and sends IP packets to notify the IA which number it has gotten.

Step 720: The IA receives the IP packet from the gateway, executes the action which matches the control commands the packet contains, and then sends back a voice response to transmit the execution result to the gateway.

For example, it will start to work at 6:00 PM if it receives a packet that indicates the user dialed 6 remotely.

Step 722: The gateway receives the voice response, converts it into analog format, and sends it to the phone.

Step 724: Finally, the user hangs up, and the gateway sends a packet to IA (in this case, the air conditioner) to stop the whole control operation, then the IA will respond accordingly.

Accordingly, the interaction procedure between the phone control gateway and IA is called the ^λphone control protocol' . On the one hand, the main responsibility of the phone control gateway is to analyze DTMF signals from the

PSTN network to learn which number a user has dialled on the phone's keyboard, encapsulate it in IP packets to send to the destination IAs.

On the other hand, the phone control gateway gets IP packets, which contain the specific voice instructions to the remote user about how to control the IA or the command execution results, from IAs, then decodes the digital format voice in the packets, then converts it into analog format, and finally sends the converted voice messages to the remote user via PSTN network.

In addition, the gateway supports basic user authentication functionality, that is, the user may be asked to input a password to control IAs at home. The basic processing procedure of the phone control gateway is illustrated in Fig. 8.

As shown in Fig. 8, the basic processing procedure comprises: the phone control gateway is in idle mode (step 802); when it receives an event (step 804), the phone control gateway judges whether it is a registration request (step 806); if it is a registration request, it checks the IA' s identification (step 808) and judges whether the check succeeds or not(step 810). I If the check fails, then it returns to step 802 (step 812), else if the check succeeds, then it sends back a "registration success" message (step 814) . If the event is not a registration request, the phone control gateway judges whether it is a call received over the PSTN network (step 816). If this is not the case, it returns to step 802. If it is the case, it takes the call, sends the initial voice instructions and proceeds with the authentication of the user (step 818) . It then judges whether the authentication succeeds (step 820), and if that is the case, it judges whether the remote user hangs up (step 822). If yes, the phone control gateway notifies the corresponding IA (step 824), if not, the phone control gateway receives the input number in DTMF format from the user (step 826) , sends control messages in an IP packet form to the corresponding IA (step 828), eventually receives digital responses from the IA, and if these responses contain audio, converts the audio files and plays them back to the user (step 830) .

To realize these functions, the phone control gateway has the following interfaces: PSTN line interface (RJIl) : The gateway connects to PSTN network with the interface; Ethernet RJ45 interface or WLAN (IEEE802.il a/b/g) interface: The interface is used to connect with IAs through home TCP/IP network.

Accordingly, its internal hardware architecture is shown in Fig. 9. The functional modules are: basic system modules comprising a CPU, ROM and RAM memories A/D (Analog-digital converter) , D/A (Digital-analog converter) module for telephone voice; Ethernet or WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) module.

Fig. 10 depicts the detailed software components of the phone control gateway. For the software implementation on the above hardware platform, the Operating System (OS) module in the phone control gateway offers the basic operating environment for the whole system. The phone control protocol module implements the phone control processing procedure and offers the functionality of controlling the remote IAs. And the VoIP gateway module offers the conversion functionality between IP network and PSTN network, such as transforming IP voice packets to analog voice and detecting DTMF signals.

To support the phone control features, the IA has the following interfaces: Ethernet RJ45 interface or WLAN (IEEE802.il a/b/g) interface (optional); the interface is used to connect with IAs through home TCP/IP network.

The hardware architecture in the IA' s phone control client part is shown in Fig. 11. The functional modules are: basic system modules comprising CPU, ROM and RAM memories; Ethernet module or WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) module (optional); and interface with IA' s other parts .

Fig. 12 depicts the detailed software components of the IA' s phone control client part. For the software implementation on the above hardware platform, the OS module in the IA' s phone control client part offers the basic operating environment for the whole system. The implementation of the client end of the phone control protocol offers the functionality of receiving and parsing the control commands from the phone control gateway, sends the control command to the device control module, and sends back the response from the device control module to the remote phone control gateway. The device control module takes the interpreted control command from the phone control protocol module, execute it in the residing IA, and sends back the execution result to the phone control protocol module. Compared with the conventional web control method, the phone control method according to the presented embodiments has the following advantages:

At first, the IAs can be controlled as long as the user has the access to a PSTN network. With the worldwide fixed line and mobile phone network, it is unquestionable that PSTN network has wider coverage than Internet, and phone has higher penetration rate than PC.

Secondly, in this case, the whole system can work if the IA has a local IP address. It doesn't require that each IA have a global IP address.

At last, as long as a user can hear and understand the voice instructions, even if he doesn't know anything about Internet surfing, or he is an illiterate, he will be able to control IAs at home.

Whilst there has been described in the foregoing description preferred embodiments and aspects of the present invention, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that many variations in details of design or construction may be made without departing from the present invention. The present invention extends to all features disclosed both individually, and in all possible permutations and combinations.

Claims

CIAIMS

1. A gateway device (204, 604) for controlling an appliance (206, 606) on a first communication network, comprising:

an interface to the first network, the first network comprising at least one appliance (206, 606) ;

an interface to a second network, the second network comprising a user controllable terminal device (202, 602);

a control module for providing voice information to the terminal device via the second communication network, for receiving coded control data from the terminal device for control of the at least one appliance and for transmitting control data to at least one appliance in response to said coded control data. The invention also concerns a corresponding method.

2. Device according to claim 1, further comprising a memory (204-4) for storing registration information related to the at least one appliance;

3. Device according to claim 1, wherein said voice information comprises voice information for instructing a user on control input for controlling an appliance.

4. Device according to claim 3, wherein voice information relevant for a given appliance is received by said gateway device from the given appliance.

5. Device according to claim 1, further comprising a module (204-2) for user identification.

6. Device according to claim 1, wherein the second network is a phone network and wherein the device further comprises means for converting said voice information into audio signals for transmission to the terminal device.

7. Device according to claim 1, wherein said coded control data is coded in DTMF.

8. Method for controlling an appliance connected to a first communication network using a terminal device connected to a second communication network, wherein both networks are connected by a gateway device, said method comprising the steps, at the level of the gateway device, of:

transmitting said appliance control data to the appliance.

9. Method according to claim 8, comprising the step of controlling access permission by a user.

10. Method according to claim 8, wherein said audio data is received by the gateway from the appliance in response to control data transmitted to the appliance.

11. Method according to claim 10, wherein the second network is a phone network and the audio data sent by the gateway is coded according to an audio compression format compatible with the phone network.

12. Method according to claim 11, wherein the first network is an IP network, said method further comprising the step of converting audio data coded according to a first compression format to a second compression format before transmission on the second network.

13. Method according to claim 8, wherein the appliance control data received by the network is DTMF coded.