Wireless Fire System with Idle Mode and Gateway Redundancy

• US 20150163002A1
• Filed: 12/10/2013
• Published: 06/11/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/10/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Life Safety Distribution AG (Honeywell International Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Honeywell International Inc.
• Inventors: FRISON, Andrea, MERLI, Daniel, POLITO, Daniel
• Granted Patent: US 9,264,161 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/009 Signalling of the alarm condition to a substation whose identity is signalled to a central station, e.g. relaying alarm signals in order to extend communication range
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 3/0641 Change of the master or reference, e.g. take-over or failure of the master
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 3/0647 Synchronisation among TDM nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2827 Reporting to a device within the home network; wherein the reception of the information reported automatically triggers the execution of a home appliance functionality
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/66 Arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways
• 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 69/40 for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/70 Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 56/0015 one node acting as a reference for the others
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/18 Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks

Abstract

A method and apparatus that includes the steps of providing a plurality of wireless nodes including at least one parent node and at least one child node, a control panel sending instructions to and receiving data from the plurality of nodes through a primary gateway and a wireless subsystem of the gateway, the primary gateway synchronizing the plurality of nodes by periodically transmitting a synchronization signal and one of the plurality of nodes detecting failure of the gateway and transmitting an idle synchronization signal for so long as the one of the plurality of nodes detects failure of the gateway.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

providing a plurality of wireless nodes including at least one parent node and at least one child node;

a control panel sending instructions to and receiving data from the plurality of nodes through a primary gateway and a wireless subsystem of the gateway;

the primary gateway synchronizing the plurality of nodes by periodically transmitting a synchronization signal; and

one of the plurality of nodes detecting failure of the gateway and transmitting an idle synchronization signal for so long as the one of the plurality of nodes detects failure of the gateway.

2. The method as in claim 1 further comprising the idle synchronization signal inhibiting message traffic from the other of the plurality of nodes.

3. The method as in claim 1 further comprising a backup gateway detecting the idle synchronization signal from the one node and entering an active state.

4. The method as in claim 3 further comprising the backup gateway synchronizing the plurality of nodes by transmitting a synchronization signal.

5. The method as in claim 4 further comprising the one node detecting the synchronization signal from the backup gateway and synchronizing to the backup gateway.

6. The method as in claim 5 further comprising the backup gateway exchanging messages between at least some of the plurality of nodes and the control panel.

7. The method as in claim 1 wherein the one node further comprises a directly coupled child node of the gateway.

8. The method as in claim 1 further comprising the plurality of wireless nodes arranging themselves into a mesh network.

9. The method as in claim 1 further comprising the plurality of nodes communicating with the gate way under a time division multiplex (TDM) format.

10. The method as in claim 1 wherein the plurality of nodes and gateway operating as a security system.

11. The method as in claim 1 further comprising at least some of the plurality of nodes detecting a fire and reporting the detection to the control panel through the gateway.

12. An apparatus comprising:

a plurality of wireless nodes including at least one parent node and at least one child node;

a primary gateway; and

a control panel that sends instructions to and receives data from the plurality of nodes through the primary gateway and a wireless subsystem of the gateway, wherein the primary gateway synchronizes the plurality of nodes by periodically transmitting a synchronization signal and wherein one of the plurality of nodes detects failure of the gateway and transmits an idle synchronization signal for so long as the one of the plurality of nodes detects failure of the gateway.

13. The apparatus as in claim 12 further comprising a processor of each of the plurality of wireless nodes that inhibits message traffic from the node.

14. The apparatus as in claim 12 further comprising a backup gateway that detects the idle synchronization signal from the one node and entering an active state.

15. The apparatus as in claim 14 further comprising a processor of the backup gateway that synchronizes the plurality of nodes by transmitting a synchronization signal.

16. The apparatus as in claim 15 further comprising a processor of the one node that detects the synchronization signal from the backup gateway and synchronizes to the backup gateway.

17. The apparatus as in claim 16 further comprising a processor of the backup gateway that exchanges messages between at least some of the plurality of nodes and the control panel.

18. The apparatus as in claim 12 wherein the one node further comprises a directly coupled child node of the gateway.

19. The apparatus as in claim 12 arranged into a mesh network.

20. An apparatus comprising:

a plurality of wireless nodes including at least one parent node and at least one child node;

a primary gateway that synchronizes each of the plurality of wireless nodes to the primary gateway;

a control panel that sends instructions to and receives data from the plurality of nodes through the primary gateway and a wireless subsystem of the gateway, and wherein one of the plurality of nodes detects failure of the gateway and transmits an idle synchronization signal for so long as the one of the plurality of nodes detects failure of the gateway; and

a backup gateway that synchronizes the plurality of nodes and that exchanges messages between the plurality of wireless nodes in place of the primary gateway upon detection of the idle synchronization signal.