Exclusive pairing technique for short-range communication devices

• US 8,750,796 B2
• Filed: 05/17/2007
• Issued: 06/10/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 05/17/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Johnson & Johnson Surgical Vision, Inc. (Johnson & Johnson)
• Original Assignee: Abbott Medical Optics Incorporated (Johnson & Johnson)
• Inventors: Claus, Michael J., Hunter, Timothy, Lee, Fred, Mar, Dung
• Primary Examiner(s): HSIEH, PING Y
• Application Number:
  US11/750,294
• Publication Number:
  US 20080287062A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,581 Days
• Field of Search: 455/41.1, 455/41.2, 455/41.3, 455/88, 455/411, 455/569.1, 455/569.2
• US Class Current: 455/41.2
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/02 Protecting privacy or anonymity, e.g. protecting personally identifiable information [PII]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/06 Authentication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/50 Secure pairing of devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/71 Hardware identity
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/18 Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks

Abstract

A method and system of establishing communications between at least two independent software modules in a safety critical system, such as a medical system, is provided. The design comprises providing an exclusive Bluetooth connection between at least two wireless devices. A master wireless device is configured with Bluetooth master device functionality and a slave wireless device is configured with Bluetooth slave device functionality. The wireless devices are employed in performing procedures in a safety critical environment. The method further comprises acquiring a stored unique address from the slave wireless device over the Bluetooth connection, comparing the stored unique address to a master wireless device unique address available at the master wireless device, and exclusively pairing the master wireless device and the slave wireless device when the unique address acquired from the slave wireless device is found to identically match the master wireless device unique address.

Claims

1. A method for exclusively pairing wireless devices, comprising:

providing a connection between at least two wireless devices, wherein a master wireless device is configured with master device functionality and at least one slave wireless device is configured with slave device functionality;

providing a master personal identification number of the master wireless device to the slave wireless device and at least one slave personal identification number of at least one slave wireless device to the master wireless device;

storing, at one slave wireless device, a unique master wireless address received from the master wireless device;

acquiring, at the master wireless device, the stored unique master wireless address from the one slave wireless device over the connection;

comparing, at the master wireless device, the stored unique master address from the one slave wireless device to a unique master wireless address stored at the master wireless device;

generating, at the master wireless device, a key based on the slave personal identification number of one candidate slave wireless device;

transmitting the key from the master wireless device to the one candidate slave wireless device;

exclusively pairing said master wireless device and the one candidate slave wireless device when both;

the key acquired from the master wireless device corresponds to the personal identification number of the one candidate slave wireless device, and

the one candidate slave wireless device provides an authentication message to the master wireless device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein exclusively pairing enables a master-slave communications path to connect one master wireless device to one slave wireless device.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the master wireless device further establishes a single exclusive pairing with one slave wireless device at one time.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

retrieving a master wireless device unique address from one slave wireless device; and

sending said master wireless device unique address from the one slave wireless device to the master wireless device when requested by the master wireless device.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the comparing further comprises determining whether one from a plurality of received slave addresses for exclusive pairing matches more than one wireless unique address in the listing of slave wireless device unique addresses.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising explicitly un-pairing one master wireless device and one slave wireless device when the acquired stored unique slave address does not match one from a plurality of received slave addresses.

7. An exclusive pairing system for pairing a Bluetooth compliant slave device to a computing platform comprising a Bluetooth pairing utility and an exclusive pairing utility, the exclusive pairing system comprising;

a device controller configured to control communications between the computing platform and the Bluetooth compliant slave device over a wireless communications network and enable exclusive pairing between the computing platform and the Bluetooth compliant slave device;

wherein the device controller is configured to receive an address from an instrument host and

receive at least one slave personal identification number of at least one Bluetooth compliant slave device and generate and transmit a key based on the slave personal identification number of one candidate Bluetooth compliant slave device;

wherein the computing platform is configured to establish exclusive pairing between the computing platform and one Bluetooth compliant slave device over the wireless communications network when a slave device unique address of the Bluetooth compliant slave device matches one slave device unique address maintained by the instrument host, the key transmitted from the device controller corresponds to the personal identification number of the one candidate Bluetooth compliant slave device, and the one candidate Bluetooth compliant slave device provides an authentication message to the device controller.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the Bluetooth pairing utility comprises a graphical user interface for managing Bluetooth device discovery and authentication.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the exclusive pairing utility further comprises a graphical user interface for managing the configuration and operation of exclusively connected non-fixed slave devices.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein the controller comprises device functionality capable of transmitting information to and receiving information from the Bluetooth complaint slave device.

11. The system of claim 7, wherein the Bluetooth compliant slave device includes Bluetooth slave device functionality capable of transmitting information to and receiving information from the controller.

12. The system of claim 7, wherein the computing platform and controller are configured to exclusively pair the computing platform to a plurality of slave devices having Bluetooth functionality.

13. A method for providing exclusive Bluetooth communication between a computing platform controller and a wireless device, comprising:

receiving, at the computing platform controller, an address from an instrument host and at least one wireless device personal identification number of the wireless device;

generating a key based on the at least one wireless device personal identification number of the wireless device;

transmitting the key to the wireless device;

receiving a unique address of the wireless device from the wireless device; and

establishing an exclusive pairing between the computing platform controller and the wireless device when the received unique address of the wireless device matches a unique address of the wireless device maintained by the instrument host.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the Bluetooth communication is formed in accordance with a Bluetooth discovery and authentication specification.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the establishing further comprises sending the unique address from the wireless device over a wireless network in response to queries from the computing platform controller.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein establishing the exclusive pairing further comprises selecting one from a plurality of wireless devices for exclusive pairing when more than one unique address matches addresses in the list of addresses maintained at the computing platform controller.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein the Bluetooth master and slave devices establish an exclusive communications path when the unique address acquired from the wireless device is found by the computing platform controller to be an identical match with one unique address in the list of addresses maintained at the computing platform controller.

18. The method of claim 13, further comprising explicitly un-pairing wireless device from the computing platform controller when the unique address acquired from the wireless device is found by the computing platform controller to not match any address in the list of addresses maintained at the computing platform controller.

19. The method of claim 13, wherein pairing devices enables a master-slave communications path to connect a single master device to a single slave device.

20. The method of claim 13, wherein the computing platform controller further establishes a single exclusive pairing with a single wireless device at any one time.