ENERGY-SAVING OPERATION OF A COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

• US 20170012797A1
• Filed: 02/09/2015
• Published: 01/12/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 02/20/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Robert Bosch GmbH
• Original Assignee: Robert Bosch GmbH
• Inventors: Mueller, Andreas
• Granted Patent: US 10,200,211 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/12 Arrangements for remote connection or disconnection of substations or of equipment thereof
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/40039 Details regarding the setting of the power status of a node according to activity on the bus
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4035 in which slots of a TDMA packet structure are assigned based on a contention resolution carried out at a master unit TDM/TDMA multiplex systems per se H04J3/1694; hybrid switching systems H04L12/64
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/417 with deterministic access, e.g. token passing
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/50 in wire-line communication networks, e.g. low power modes or reduced link rate

Abstract

The invention relates to a method for operating a communication system (100) having a plurality of communication units (300, 301, 302, 303, 304) which are connected to a communication medium (110), wherein access to the communication medium (110) is granted to the communication units (300, 301, 302, 303, 304) in a predefined order, wherein, after the end of a standby mode, a communication unit (300, 301, 302, 303, 304) checks whether it is granted access and changes to the standby mode again for a pause duration (T1, T2) until access is likely to be granted to it again if the communication unit (300, 301, 302, 303, 304) does not require access to the communication medium (110) or is not granted access.

Claims

1. A method for operating a communication system (100) which has a plurality of communication units (300, 301, 302, 303, 304) which are connected to a communication medium (110), the method comprising:

granting the communication units (300, 301, 302, 303, 304) access to the communication medium (110) in a predefined sequence,

wherein, after the end of a standby mode, each of the plurality of communication units (300, 301, 302, 303, 304)

checks whether it is granted access to the communication medium; and

switches to the standby mode once more for a pause duration (T1, T2) until the respective communication unit is likely to be granted access again, if the respective communication unit (300, 301, 302, 303, 304) does not require access to the communication medium (110) or it is not granted access to the communication medium.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the respective communication unit (300, 301, 302, 303, 304), if it is granted access to the communication medium (110), accesses the communication medium (110) and thereafter switches back to standby mode for the pause duration.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein a unit-specific offset or a unit-independent offset is taken into account in determining the pause duration (T1, T2).

4. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the pause duration (T1, T2) corresponds to a time duration after which the respective communication unit (300, 301, 302, 303, 304) is again granted access to the communication system (110) according to the sequence, if none of the intermediate communication units (300, 301, 302, 303, 304) accesses the communication medium (110).

5. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the pause duration (T1, T2) corresponds to a time duration after which the respective communication unit (300, 301, 302, 303, 304) is again granted access to the communication system (110) according to the sequence, if a predetermined number of intermediate communication units (300, 301, 302, 303, 304) access the communication system (110) for a predetermined access duration.

6. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein, when the pause duration (T1, T2) is calculated, the respective communication unit (300, 301, 302, 303, 304) takes account of a time at which the communication unit (300, 301, 302, 303, 304) is likely to receive a message.

7. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the communication system (100) comprises a control unit (200), wherein the communication unit (300, 301, 302, 303, 304) is granted access to the communication medium (110) by means of a polling message (21, 22, 23, 24) from the control unit (200).

8. The method as claimed in claim 3, wherein the pause duration (T1, T2) is controlled by the control unit (200).

9. The method as claimed in claim 3, wherein the standby mode of the respective communication unit (300, 301, 302, 303, 304) is controlled by the control unit (200).

10. The method as claimed in claim 3, wherein the respective communication unit (300, 301, 302, 303, 304) switches to standby mode only after receiving a standby message from the control unit (200).

11. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the respective communication unit (300, 301, 302, 303, 304) switches to standby mode again only if the pause duration (T1, T2) is greater than a predetermined threshold value.

12. The method as claimed in claim 3, wherein the respective communication unit (300, 301, 302, 303, 304) switches to standby mode again only if the pause duration (T1, T2) is greater than a predetermined threshold value, wherein the threshold value is statically or dynamically predefined by the control unit (200).

13. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the communication medium (110) comprises a bus.

14. A processing unit which is configured to carry out a method as claimed in claim 1.

15. A computer readable medium storing a program which causes a processing unit to carry out a method as claimed in claim 1 when executed on a processing unit.

16. (canceled)