System and method for lighting control network recovery from master failure
First Claim
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1. A lighting control network recovery system for a wireless network of lighting elements, comprising:
- a plurality of ballasts, each ballast of the plurality of ballasts being configurable as one of a slave element and a network master control unit;
wherein one ballast is configured as the network master control unit to control each ballast that is configured as a slave element, and, when the network master control unit is no longer in communcation with one or more of the ballasts, one of the ballasts that is configured as a slave unit is configured to be the network master control unit.
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Abstract
The present invention provides a master-slave architecture for a radio frequency RF networked lighting control system having all slave elements (ballasts) configured as backups for a network master control unit. In the system and method of the present invention a slave element can become the network master network unit without reconfiguring the network and without any human intervention. Similarly, both a master and one or more slave elements may recover from a temporary outage without necessitating reconfiguration of the network and without any human intervention.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. A lighting control network recovery system for a wireless network of lighting elements, comprising:
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a plurality of ballasts, each ballast of the plurality of ballasts being configurable as one of a slave element and a network master control unit; wherein one ballast is configured as the network master control unit to control each ballast that is configured as a slave element, and, when the network master control unit is no longer in communcation with one or more of the ballasts, one of the ballasts that is configured as a slave unit is configured to be the network master control unit. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A method for recovery control of a wireless lighting control network in which a master ballast is configured to facilitate communication of commands from a plurality of control elements to a plurality of ballasts based on a pairing-link table that includes a plurality of associations between control elements and ballasts in the network, comprising:
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communicating the pairing-link table from the master ballast to each of a plurality of slave ballasts, monitoring, at each of a plurality of slave ballasts in the network, for an indication that a master ballast is present in the network, and if a first slave ballast of the plurality of slave ballasts fails to receive the indication within a given period of time, configuring the first slave ballast to become a new master ballast in the network, and facilitating communication of commands from the control elements to the ballasts via the new master ballast, based on the pairing-link table previously received by the new master ballast. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification