Central unit of a bus system, bus system and method for locating bus subscribers

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10212788-B2
Application number	US-201515127441-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 5, 2015
Priority date	Mar 20, 2014
Publication date	Feb 19, 2019
Grant date	Feb 19, 2019

Abstract

The present invention relates to a central unit of a bus system (10), to a bus system (10) and to a method for locating bus subscribers (2) in the bus system. The central unit (1) stores a generated address list containing the addresses of the bus subscribers (2). In a commissioning mode, a control unit (3) transmits control commands to the bus subscribers (2) according to the address list. A bus subscriber (2) is preferably a luminous means or has at least one luminous display. The sequential control commands are preferably such that, at any time, a selected bus subscriber (2) assumes a first luminous state which differs from a second luminous state of all other bus subscribers (2).

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for locating bus subscribers in a bus system, comprising the steps of;
a) storing an indexed address list in memory of a central processing, unit containing available addresses for numerous addressable bus subscribers connected to the central processing unit by a bus, each bus subscriber comprising a light source or having an indicator light;
b) activating all bus subscribers connected to a bus to a first detectable, illumination state;
c) using a mobile wireless device having a light sensor and spatially assigning the light sensor to a selected bus subscriber to sense the light output state of the selected bus subscriber when the light sensor is aimed at the selected bus subscriber;
d) transmitting, a run-through of control commands from the central processing unit to the bus subscribers, indexing sequentially in time in accordance with the indexed address list, until the selected bus subscriber is located and an address in the address list is commissioned to the located bus subscriber;
e) in response to receiving sequential control commands during the run-through, switching the bus subscriber at the indexed address to a second detectable, light output state, while other bus subscribers remain in the first light output state and then switching the bus subscriber at the indexed address back to the first light output state, wherein the second detectable, light output state is different from the first detectable, light output state;
f) sensing the light output level of the selected bus subscriber with the light sensor on the mobile device as the sequential control commands are transmitted sequentially to the bus subscribers during the run-through, and transmitting a wireless signal to the central processing unit representing that a change in the light output state of the selected bus subscriber has occurred for an assigned address index, wherein a given address index is assigned to the selected bus subscriber if the sensed light output level for the given index is greater than a specific threshold value when the selected bus subscriber is activated, if the sensed light output level for the given index is less than the specific threshold value when the selected bus subscriber is activated or if the sensed light output level for the given index differs from the light output level sensed when the other bus subscribers are activated by more than the specific threshold value;
g) when the wireless signal representing the change in the light output state of the selected bus subscriber is received by the central processing unit, commissioning the address corresponding to the assigned address index and to which the sequential control command was transmitted in step f) to the selected bus subscriber; and
h) repeating steps c) through g) as necessary to commission an address for each of said bus subscribers connected to the bus.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the light sensor is part of the mobile device comprising one of a smartphone or a tablet that is configured with a commissioning interface to depict located addresses of the bus subscribers on a building plan in which each of the bus subscribers commissioned with an address is listed.

3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the address list is generated through the recording of addresses that were initially permanently assigned to the respective bus subscribers in production, or through a random assignment of addresses to the bus subscribers.

4. The method according to claim 1 wherein said wireless signal is transmitted to the central processing unit wirelessly via unidirectional communication.

5. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising the step of removing the commissioned address from the stored, indexed address list after step g), and before repeating steps c) through g) to commission the address for the next selected bus subscriber.

6. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the given address index is assigned to the selected bus subscriber if the sensed light output level for the given index differs from the light output level sensed when the other bus subscribers are activated by more than the specific threshold value and the difference when the given address index is activated is greater than the difference when other address indexes are activated.

7. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the specific threshold value is adaptively set after the sequential run-through of control commands according to all of the addresses of the address list.

8. The method according to claim 1 , wherein, after the run-through of the sequential control commands according to all of the addresses of the address list, the spatially assigned bus subscribers are assigned the addresses, according, to the respective control command, for which the light sensor has detected the strongest light output for the bus subscriber.

9. The method according to claim 6 , wherein the specific threshold value is adaptively set after the sequential run-through of the control commands according to all of the addresses of the address list.

Assignees

• Tridonic Gmbh & Co Kg

Inventors

• Dünser Mathias

Classifications

• H05B47/19

  via wireless transmission · CPC title

• H05B37/0227

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H05B37/0254 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H05B37/0272

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H05B47/1965

  using handheld communication devices · CPC title