Lighting control subsystem for use in system architecture for automated building

• US 6,297,724 B1
• Filed: 03/07/1996
• Issued: 10/02/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 09/09/1994
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: CommScope Technologies, LLC (CommScope Holding Company, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: The Whitaker Corporation (Meggitt PLC)
• Inventors: Bryans, Darryl J., Jump, Lance B.
• Primary Examiner(s): Horabik, Michael
• Application Number:
  US08/613,828
• Time in Patent Office: 2,035 Days
• Field of Search: 340/825-6-8, 340/825.5, 340/825.52, 307/38-42, 315/291, 315/294, 315/295, 315/312-315, 364/492
• US Class Current: 340/3.51
• CPC Class Codes: H05B 47/18 via data-bus transmission

Abstract

An electrical power control system is adapted for controlling power and lighting in a building. Switch controls have either relays or triacs, controlled by microprocessors, to switch power on electrical branch circuits. An interface device 122 communicates with the switches 124,126, arranged in a multidrop configuration, with variable length data packets over serial branch circuits or data buses 142. In addition to being controlled by the interface device 122, the switch controls also have local switch actuators. The actuation of the local switch controls can be used by the interface device 122 as a control inputs to initiate other actions. Adaptive polling of switch controls is used to minimize system response time, and both transmit and receive signals are carried between the switch controls and the interface device 122 at different times on the same twisted pair wires. The interface device 122 can also communicate with a home automation system controller.

Claims

1. A system for switching electrical power to a plurality of loads on a plurality of hot AC lines, the system comprising:

a plurality of switching control devices, each containing a power switching element, each switch control device being physically located on a hot AC line extending between a source and a load, the power corresponding hot AC lines to a load attached to the switch conttrol device;

a control switch input on each switch control device;

a control interface, and;

at least one signal branch extending from the control interface, a plurality of switch control devices being attached to each signal branch so that control signals can be communicated bewtween the control interface and the switch control devices, the control interface polling selected ones of the switch control devices, and transmitting output signals to other switch control devices so that the power switching element in one switch control device can be controlled by control switch inputs on another selected switch control device.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the control interface polls a limited number of switch control devices on each signal branch.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the signal branch is a serial branch.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein a control switch input on a switch control device controls power switching elements on multiple switch control devices.

5. The system of claim 4 wherein the control switch input controls the power switching element on the switch control device to which it is attached.

6. A network for controlling electrical power comprising a bidirectional half duplex serial link between a master interface and a plurality of slave nodes on the serial link, the master interface being capable of communicating with first and second slave nodes, the first slave node comprising a first switch control slave node having a first on/off power switching element with two positions, the master interface communicating with the first switch control slave node with a first packet consisting of a single switch control header byte including the first slave node address and at least one bit characteristic of the two positions and a single checksum byte, the master interface communicating with the second slave node including a switching element continuously variable between and upper and a lower limit with a second multibyte packet including a header byte with

7. The network of claim 6 wherein the first switching element is a relay and the second switching element is a triac.

8. The network of claim 6 wherein the master interface can distinguish between the first and second slave nodes.

9. The network of claim 6 wherein the master interface can communicate with multiple first and second slave nodes having unique addresses on the same multidrop serial link.

10. The network of claim 6 wherein the master interface communicates with the second slave node with a variable length packet including a plurality of bits specifying the length of the packet.

11. The network of claim 6 wherein the master interface polls the first and second slave nodes with a single byte control poll.

12. The network of claim 6 wherein the first and second packets each include a checksum byte.