REMOTE CONTROL OF A PLURALITY OF DEVICES

• US 20120185064A1
• Filed: 08/19/2010
• Published: 07/19/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 08/25/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Signify Holding B.V. (Signify N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Geeraerts, Sam
• Granted Patent: US 9,251,702 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 700/71
• CPC Class Codes: G08C 2201/50 Receiving or transmitting feedback, e.g. replies, status updates, acknowledgements, from the controlled devices
• CPC Class Codes: G08C 25/02 by signalling back receiving station to transmitting station
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 9/04 Arrangements for synchronous operation

Abstract

A system and method are described for controlling a plurality of devices (150) by a remote control apparatus (105). The remote control apparatus (105) transmits a same sequence of commands individually to each of the plurality of devices (150) to execute a relative increase or decrease of a parameter thereof with a certain value. There is two-way communication between the remote control apparatus (105) and the devices (150). The devices (150) acknowledge the correct reception of a command by transmitting an acknowledgement message to the remote control apparatus (105). The remote control apparatus (105) repeats the transmission of a command to a device (150) in case of not receiving an acknowledgement message from the device (150). In this way, it is guaranteed that all controlled devices (150) receive the same commands and the controlled parameters thereof are kept in synchronization.

Claims

1. Remote control apparatus for controlling a plurality of devices, the remote control apparatus comprising:

a transmitter for transmitting a sequence of commands individually to each of the plurality of devices, each of the commands of the sequence instructing the respective device to execute a relative increase or decrease of a parameter thereof with a certain value and

a controller for generating the commands and controlling the transmission of the sequence of commands, the controller controlling the transmitter to repeat the transmission of a command to a device in case of not receiving an acknowledgement message from the device.

2. Remote control apparatus according to claim 1 wherein the controller controls the transmitter to transmit a command of the sequence to each of the plurality of devices before starting the transmission of a next command of the sequence and, in case of not receiving the acknowledgement from one or more devices after transmission of the command, to transmit the command first to all devices to which the command has not been transmitted yet and thereafter repeat the transmission of the command to the one or more devices from which no acknowledgement has been received.

3. Remote control apparatus according to claim 1 wherein the controller controls a value of the increase or decrease instructed by the commands as a function of the time period needed to transmit one or more commands of the sequence of commands to each of the plurality of devices.

4. Remote control apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the value of the relative increase or decrease is proportional to the time period.

5. Remote control apparatus according to claim 3, wherein, for an initial command, the controller controls the value of the relative increase or decrease instructed by the command based on conditions of a transmission medium over which the command will be transmitted and based on the amount of devices to which the command will be transmitted.

6. Remote control apparatus according to claim 3, wherein for commands subsequent to the initial command the controller controls the value of the relative increase or decrease based on a monitored time period needed to transmit one or more previous commands to the plurality of devices.

7. Remote control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein, for a final command, the controller sets the relative increase or decrease to a predetermined value.

8. Remote control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the commands are transmitted as long as this is requested by a user.

9. System comprising a remote control apparatus according to claim 1 and a plurality of devices controlled by the remote control apparatus, the devices comprising:

a receiver for receiving a sequence of commands from the remote control apparatus instructing the device to execute a relative increase or decrease of a parameter thereof with a certain value,

a transmitter and

a controller for controlling the execution of the relative increase or decrease of the parameter, according to the value of each of the commands of the sequence and generating an acknowledgement message to be transmitted by the transmitter in case of correctly receiving a command.

10. System according to claim 9, wherein if the value of the relative increase or decrease according to the command is larger than a threshold value, the controller smoothes the relative increase or decrease.

11. System according to claim 9, wherein the controller controls the execution of the relative increase or decrease according to the value of each of the commands of the sequence and a scaling factor.

12. Method for controlling a plurality of devices by a remote control apparatus comprising the following steps performed by the remote control apparatus:

causing transmission of a same sequence of commands individually to each of the plurality of devices, each of the commands of the sequence instructing the respective device to execute a relative increase or decrease of a parameter thereof with a certain value and

repeating the transmission of a command to a device in case of not receiving an acknowledgement message from the device.

13. Method according to claim 12 comprising the following steps performed by one of the plurality of devices:

receiving the sequence of commands from the remote control apparatus instructing the device to execute a relative increase or decrease of a parameter thereof with a certain value,

controlling the execution of the relative increase or decrease of the parameter, according to the value of each of the commands of the sequence and

transmitting an acknowledgement message in case of correctly receiving a command.

14. (canceled)