×

Transmission line measuring device and method for connectivity and monitoring

  • US 9,697,724 B2
  • Filed: 09/22/2011
  • Issued: 07/04/2017
  • Est. Priority Date: 09/22/2010
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
Patent Images

1. A data acquisition device for acquiring data from a transmission line comprising:

  • at least one sensor for determining at least one of a parameter and image associated with the transmission line;

    a radio interface for communicating to at least one of a monitoring device and a neighboring data acquisition device via a radio communication link within a selected range; and

    a processing device connected to the at least one sensor and the radio interface, the processing device being programmed to receive and process inputs from the at least one sensor, and to generate messages for transmission via the radio interface;

    wherein the processing device is configured to participate in multi-hop communications via the radio communication link by receiving messages generated by other data acquisition devices, and determining from information provided in each of the messages which operation to perform from among process the message, repeat the message, and ignore the message;

    wherein a network comprises a plurality of the data acquisition device, each of the data acquisition devices being assigned a unique address, the processing device being configured with a self-assembling process that automatically configures the data acquisition device to communicate within the network of other data acquisition devices and the monitoring device byreceiving a configuration message transmitted from the monitoring device via the radio communication link,repeating the configuration message via the radio communication link,sending a reply message comprising its corresponding address via the radio communication link in response to the configuration message,receiving reply messages sent from other ones of the data acquisition devices, each of the reply messages comprising the corresponding address of the data acquisition device that generated it, anddetermining from the reply messages the corresponding address of each of the data acquisition devices within its selected range;

    wherein each of the data acquisition devices in the network is configured to perform the self-assembling process to create a table comprising the unique addresses of the data acquisition devices in its selected range;

    wherein the unique address of each of the data acquisition devices is a Media Access Control (MAC) address, the radio interface in each of the data acquisition devices is a ZigBee radio interface customized to employ the self-assembling process that assembles each of the data acquisition devices into a communication network that obviates manual configuration of the radio interface in each of the data acquisition devices, each of the data acquisition devices being configured to automatically generate the table with the MAC addresses of selected ones of the other data acquisition devices in its selected range.

View all claims
  • 1 Assignment
Timeline View
Assignment View
    ×
    ×