Method and system for the detection, transmission and analysis of safety-related signals

• US 8,948,034 B2
• Filed: 07/02/2010
• Issued: 02/03/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 07/07/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Elan Schaltelemente GmbH & Co. KG. (K.A. Schmersal GmbH & Co. KG)
• Original Assignee: Elan Schaltelemente GmbH & Co. KG. (K.A. Schmersal GmbH & Co. KG)
• Inventors: Hotz, Stephan, Koch, Jrg, Schlotzhauer, Bjrn
• Primary Examiner(s): MATTIS, JASON E
• Application Number:
  US13/382,927
• Publication Number:
  US 20120201161A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,677 Days
• Field of Search: 370/252, 370/328
• US Class Current: 370/252
• CPC Class Codes: H01H 47/002 Monitoring or fail-safe circuits
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/06 using space diversity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/22 using redundant apparatus to increase reliability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/243 at the transmitter, using a loop-back
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/40013 Details regarding a bus controller
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/40169 Flexible bus arrangements arrangements for maintenance or administration involving management of faults; events, alarms H04L41/06; automatic restoration of network faults H04L41/0654
• 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 69/16 Implementation or adaptation of Internet protocol [IP], of transmission control protocol [TCP] or of user datagram protocol [UDP]

Abstract

The invention relates to a method and a system for detecting, transmitting, and analyzing at least one safety-related signal (S1 . . . Sn), wherein the at least one safety-related signal (S1 . . . Sn) is detected using at least one detection unit (EE1 . . . EEn) and is transmitted to at least one analyzing unit (AE1 . . . AE4) via a radio system (FS). In order to simplify the detection of safety-related signals and improve the transmission thereof via a faulty radio path, at least two safety-related signals (S1, S2) are independently detected and transmitted to the analyzing unit (AE1 . . . AE4) via the radio system (FS) so as to allow a dangerous action to be carried out, and an output signal (FRS) for allowing a dangerous action to be carried out is generated by logically combining the received safety-related signals (S1 . . . Sn).

Claims

1. A method for the detection, transmission and analysis of at least one safety-related signal (S1 . . . Sn), whereby the at least one safety-related signal (S1 . . . Sn) is detected with at least one detection unit (EE1 . . . EEn) and transmitted via a radio system (FS) to at least one analysis unit (AE2),

wherein the safety-related signal (S1 . . . Sn) emitted by the at least one detection unit (EE1 . . . EEn) is received by transceiver units (TRA1 . . . TRAn) arranged in a spatially distributed manner, whereby the transceiver units are connected via a bus system (BUS) to a processing unit (VE2) of the analysis unit (AE2), wherein the processing unit (VE2) cyclically transmits a message in the form of a frame (TOKEN) into the ring bus (BUS), and wherein the frame (TOKEN) is processed by each transceiver unit (TRA1 . . . TRAn) which has received a valid radio message, whereby a first transceiver unit (TRA) enters the received data into the frame (TOKEN) and replaces an RSSI value and a reception identification character (RxID) if a reception quality of the transceiver unit (TRA1 . . . TRAn) is greater than a reception quality indicated via a frame cyclically received by the receiver unit.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the transceiver units (TRA1 . . . TRAn) arranged in a spatially distributed manner prepare the received radio signals and transmit them in digital form via the bus system (BUS) to the processing unit (VE2) (base station).

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein a transmitting/receiving quality for each of the transceiver units (TRA1 . . . TRAn) is determined, and wherein only the transceiver unit (TRA1 . . . TRAn) with the highest transmitting/receiving quality is used for the radio transmission to the processing unit (VE2).

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the frame (TOKEN) successively passes all transceiver units (TRA1 . . . TRAn) with a defined transit time.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein each transceiver unit (TRA1 . . . TRAn) increments a counter in the header of the frame (TOKEN).

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein a transmitting of a message takes place by a transceiver unit (TRA1 . . . TRAn), wherein the processing unit (VE2) enters the reception identification character (RxID) of the transceiver unit with the highest reception quality of the last frame (TOKEN), in a transmitter identification field (TxID) of the frame (TOKEN), and wherein the transceiver unit, whose identification character (ID) is entered in the transmitter identification field (TxID), transmits the input message (TXT).

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the processing unit transmits the message every 25 ms.