Systems and methods for upgrading firmware in multiple devices of a wireless fire detection system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10313850-B2
Application number	US-201715657421-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 24, 2017
Priority date	Jul 24, 2017
Publication date	Jun 4, 2019
Grant date	Jun 4, 2019

Abstract

Systems and methods for upgrading firmware in multiple devices of a connected system are provided. Some systems can include a plurality of system devices in a mesh network of the connected system and a gateway device coupled to the mesh network. The gateway device can initially seed a firmware upgrade for the plurality of system devices, and some of the plurality of system devices can subsequently seed the firmware upgrade for other ones of the plurality of system devices.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system for parallel firmware upgrade of multiple system devices in a mesh network and reducing overall time for upgrading all the systems devices, comprising:
a plurality of system devices in the mesh network of a connected system;
a gateway device coupled to the mesh network;
the plurality of system devices and the gateway device having memory for storing computer-executable instructions and at least one processor in each of the plurality of the system devices and the gateway device that executes the computer-executable instructions to:
divide a firmware upgrade into a plurality of divided parts;
use, by the plurality of the system devices, time division multiplexing to send and receive the parts of the divided firmware upgrade within predefined time frames;
transmit, by the gateway device, one or more parts of the divided firmware upgrade to a first of the plurality of the system devices;
transmit, by the first of the plurality of system devices, after receiving all of the parts of the divided firmware upgrade or a first part of the plurality of the divided parts of the firmware upgrade, all or the first part of the plurality of divided firmware upgrade to a second of the plurality of the system devices;
receive, by all of the plurality of system devices, multiple parts of the divided firmware upgrade from one device or different devices simultaneously;
receive, by a secondary microcontroller of one or more of the plurality of the system devices, the firmware upgrade directly from a primary microcontroller of the one or more of the plurality of system devices through programming pins of the secondary microcontroller; and
upgrade the plurality of the system devices using the received firmware upgrade.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the connected system is a wireless fire detection system, is a security system, or includes a plurality of IoT devices.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein respective firmware of each of the plurality of system devices is upgraded simultaneously.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein, when the first of the plurality of system devices receives the first of the plurality of divided parts, the first of the plurality of system devices seeds the first of the plurality of divided parts to the second of the plurality of system devices.

5. The system of claim 4 wherein the first of the plurality of system devices seeds the first of the plurality of divided parts to the second of the plurality of system devices responsive to a request from the second of the plurality of system devices.

6. The system of claim 4 wherein the first of the plurality of system devices seeds the first of the plurality of divided parts to a third of the plurality of system devices in parallel with seeding the first of the plurality of divided parts to the second of the plurality of system devices.

7. The system of claim 4 wherein the second of the plurality of system devices receives a second of the plurality of divided parts from the gateway device or from a third of the plurality of system devices in parallel with receiving the first of the plurality of divided parts from the first of the plurality of system devices.

8. The system of claim 1 further comprising:
a primary microcontroller of the first of the plurality of system devices; and
a secondary microcontroller of the first of the plurality of system devices,
wherein the primary microcontroller directly interfaces with programming pins of the secondary microcontroller to seed the firmware upgrade to the secondary microcontroller.

9. A method for parallel firmware upgrade of multiple system devices in a mesh network and reducing overall time for upgrading all the system devices, comprising:
providing a plurality of system devices in the mesh network of a connected system;
coupling a gateway device to the mesh network;
executing computer-executable instructions by the plurality of system devices and the gateway device having memory for storing the computer-executable instructions and at least one processor in each of the plurality of system devices and the gateway device for executing the computer-readable instructions;
dividing a firmware upgrade into a plurality of divided parts;
using, by the plurality of the system devices, time division multiplexing to send and receive the plurality of divided parts of the firmware update within predefined time frames;
transmitting, by the gateway device, one or more parts of the plurality of divided firmware upgrade to a first of the plurality of system devices;
transmitting, by the first of the plurality of the system devices, after receiving all of the divided parts of the firmware upgrade or a first part of the one or more of the plurality of the divided parts of the firmware upgrade, all or the first part of the firmware upgrade to a second of the system devices;
receiving, by all of the plurality of the system devices, multiple parts of the plurality of the divided firmware upgrade from one device or different devices simultaneously;
receiving, by a secondary microcontroller of one or more of the system devices, firmware upgrade directly from a primary microcontroller of the one or more of the plurality of the system devices through programming pins of the secondary microcontroller; and
upgrading the plurality of the system devices with the received firmware upgrade.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the connected system is a wireless fire detection system, is a security system, or includes a plurality of IoT devices.

11. The method of claim 9 further comprising simultaneously upgrading respective firmware of each of the plurality of system devices.

12. The method of claim 9 further comprising, when the first of the plurality of system devices receives the first of the plurality of divided parts, the first of the plurality of system devices seeding the first of the plurality of divided parts to the second of the plurality of system devices.

13. The method of claim 12 further comprising the first of the plurality of system devices seeding the first of the plurality of divided parts to the second of the plurality of system devices responsive to a request from the second of the plurality of system devices.

14. The method of claim 12 further comprising the first of the plurality of system devices seeding the first of the plurality of divided parts to a third of the plurality of system devices in parallel with seeding the first of the plurality of divided parts to the second of the plurality of system devices.

15. The method of claim 12 further comprising the second of the plurality of system devices receiving a second of the plurality of divided parts from the gateway device or from a third of the plurality of system devices in parallel with receiving the first of the plurality of divided parts from the first of the plurality of system devices.

16. The method of claim 9 further comprising a primary microcontroller of the first of the plurality of system devices directly interfacing with programming pins of a secondary microcontroller of the first of the plurality of system devices to seed the firmware upgrade to the secondary microcontroller.

Assignees

• Honeywell Int Inc

Inventors

• Kumar Prajnith V
• Jangam Gangadharam Girish

Classifications

• H04W4/70

  Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC] · CPC title

• H04L67/10

  in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network (software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46) · CPC title

• H04L67/104

  Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks · CPC title

• H04W4/50

  Service provisioning or reconfiguring · CPC title

• G06F8/65 Primary

  Updates (security arrangements therefor G06F21/57) · CPC title