Method for Controlling a Device in a Network of Distributed Stations, and Network Station

• US 20070239821A1
• Filed: 04/14/2005
• Published: 10/11/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 04/20/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: InterDigital Patent Holdings, Inc. (InterDigital, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Thomson Licensing (Vantiva SA)
• Inventors: Huettner, Ingo
• Granted Patent: US 8,316,140 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/201
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2805 Home Audio Video Interoperability [HAVI] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2809 indicating that an appliance service is present in a home automation network monitoring functionality H04L43/0817; discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services, H04L67/51
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/281 indicating a format for calling an appliance service function in a home automation network for remote control or remote monitoring of applications H04L67/025
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2814 Exchanging control software or macros for controlling appliance services in a home automation network arrangements for maintenance or administration involving configuration of the network and network elements H04L41/08
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/2841 Wireless
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/2843 Mains power line
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/2849 Audio/video appliances
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/285 Generic home appliances, e.g. refrigerators
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/75 Indicating network or usage conditions on the user display
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

The invention relates to the technical field of home networks. A home network based on the current UPNP (Universal Plug and Play) standard allows data to be interchanged between network subscriber stations. An extension to this standard also provides for the interchange of AV data (Audio/Video data). One of the basic ideas of the UPNP specification is that it is possible to control any UPnP device using a standard HTML browser. To this end, every UPnP device has a web server on which the HTML pages for controlling the device are stored. It is permissible to embed a “JAVA applet” into the HTML page in order to control the device. This means that device control can be made very convenient. However, when it is necessary to control a device which needs to interchange data on the basis of the UPN P-AV standard, the JAVA applet first needs to know whether and, if so, which devices of the MediaRenderer or MediaServer type are present in the network. The JAVA security restrictions prevent the requests required for this purpose from being made from the JAVA applet, however. The invention implements an additional device ascertainment service in the device for control in order to make these requests possible. This device ascertainment service communicates with the loaded JAVA applet in the remote control device using standard SOAP messages. It is thus possible to use the advantageous method of embedding a JAVA applet into an HTML page even to control UPnP-AV devices.

Claims

1. A method for controlling a device in a network of distributed stations in which the functionalities of a device for control are made available on a web server in the form of one or more information pages generated using a description language and are preselected by a remote control device in order to control the device which is to be controlled, wherein an additionally implemented device ascertainment module in the device for control is used to find the network stations of a particular type.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the implemented device ascertainment module communicates with a module for creating the information pages generated using a description language, and the ascertained devices are displayed using an information page which has been created by this module and reloaded.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the information page incorporates an executable software module which is started in the remote control device in order to control the device.

4. The method as claimed in claim 3, wherein the executable software module is produced in the form of a JAVA applet.

5. The method as claimed in claim 3, wherein the software module communicates with the device ascertainment module in the device for control, and the ascertained devices are displayed on the remote control device by virtue of the software module inserting them in the information page which incorporates the software module.

6. The method as claimed in claim 3, wherein an additionally implemented forwarding module in the device for control is used to interchange messages from and to the remote control device with one or more network stations.

7. The method as claimed in claim 6, wherein the software module communicates with the device ascertainment module and/or with the forwarding module using standardized SOAP commands, with SOAP standing for Simple Object Access Protocol.

8. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the network stations are designed to communicate on the basis of the UPnP standard, with UPnP standing for Universal Plug and Play.

9. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the device ascertainment module and the forwarding module are in the form of an UPnP-standard-compliant UPnP service.

10. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the description language for producing information pages is of the HTML type, and HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language.

11. A network station as device for control when carrying out the method as claimed in claim 1, having a web server on which one or more information pages generated using a description language are provided for controlling the network station, wherein the network station additionally has a device ascertainment module implemented in it which finds the network stations of a particular type in the network.

12. The network station as claimed in claim 11, wherein the information page incorporates an executable software module which can be loaded and executed by a remote control device in order to control the network station.

13. The network station as claimed in claim 12, wherein the executable software module is in the form of a JAVA applet.

14. The network station as claimed in claim 12, wherein the software module is designed to communicate with the device ascertainment module in the device for control, and the ascertained devices can be displayed on the remote control device by virtue of their being inserted by the software module.

15. The network station as claimed in claim 12, wherein a forwarding module is provided in the network station and supports the interchange of messages between an external network station and the executable software module in the remote control device.

16. The network station as claimed in claim 15, wherein the JAVA applet communicates with the device ascertainment module and/or with the forwarding module using standardized SOAP messages, with SOAP standing for Simple Object Access Protocol.

17. The network station as claimed in claim 11, wherein the network station is designed for data interchange on the basis of the UPnP standard, where UPnP stands for Universal Plug and Play.

18. The network station as claimed in claim 11, wherein the device ascertainment module and the forwarding module are in the form of a UPnP-standard-compliant UPnP service.

19. The network station as claimed in claim 11, wherein the device ascertainment module is designed such that it finds devices of the UPnP type MediaRenderer when the network station itself is of the UPnP type MediaServer, and finds devices of the UPnP type MediaServer when the network station itself is of the UPnP type MediaRenderer.

20. The network station as claimed in claim 11, wherein the description language for generating information pages is of the HTML type, where HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language.