Systems and methods for monitoring and controlling remote devices

• US 20050243867A1
• Filed: 06/23/2005
• Published: 11/03/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 06/22/1998
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SIPCO LLC (Ideahub, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Statsignal IPC LLC (Statsignal)
• Inventors: Petite, Thomas David
• Granted Patent: US 7,697,492 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/474
• CPC Class Codes: G01V 1/364 Seismic filtering G01V1/37 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 19/4183 characterised by data acquisition, e.g. workpiece identification
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/31093 Communication between sensors, actuators and gateway
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/18 Status alarms G08B21/02 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/007 Details of data content structure of message packets; data protocols
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/009 Signalling of the alarm condition to a substation whose identity is signalled to a central station, e.g. relaying alarm signals in order to extend communication range
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 27/005 with transmission via computer network
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/15 Active relay systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/125 involving control of end-device applications over a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/14 Short messaging services, e.g. short message services [SMS] or unstructured supplementary service data [USSD]
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 90/02 Total factory control, e.g. smart factories, flexible manufacturing systems [FMS] or integrated manufacturing systems [IMS]
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 40/18 Network protocols supporting networked applications, e.g. including control of end-device applications over a network

Abstract

Systems and methods for monitoring and controlling remote devices are provided. In an embodiment, a system can comprise one or more remotely controlled sensors and actuators. The remote sensors/actuators can interface with uniquely identified remote transceivers that transmit and/or receive data. The embodiment can also comprise a plurality of transceivers each having a unique address, and a controller adapted to communicate with at least one of the transceivers in a preformatted message. A sensor can be associated with at least one transceiver to detect a condition and output a data signal to the transceiver, and an actuator can be associated with a transceiver to receive a control signal and activate a device. Other embodiments are also claimed and described.

Claims

1. A communication system to communicate command and sensed data between remote devices comprising:

a receiver address comprising a scalable address of at least one remote device;

a command indicator comprising a command code;

a data value comprising a scalable message; and

wherein a controller sends a preformatted message and the at least one remote device sends a preformatted response message.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a plurality of transceivers each having a unique address;

the controller associated with at least one of the transceivers, the controller being in communication with at least one other transceiver with a preformatted message, the preformatted message having at least one scalable field;

at least one sensor associated with at least one of the transceivers to detect a condition and output a data signal to the transceiver; and

at least one actuator associated with at least one of the transceivers to activate a device.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the controller sends the preformatted message via an associated transceiver, and at least one transceiver sends the preformatted response message.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one transceiver receives the preformatted message requesting sensed data, confirms the receiver address as its own unique address, receives a sensed data signal, formats the sensed data signal into scalable byte segments, determines the number of segments required to contain the sensed data signal, and generates and transmits the preformatted response message comprising at least one packet.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the packet further comprises:

a preface having a predetermined sequence including a first logic level and a subsequent sequence comprising at least two bytes of a second logic level; and

a postscript having a low voltage output.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein each remote device is adapted to transmit and receive radio frequency transmissions to and from at least one other transceiver.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the preformatted message comprises Manchester encoding.

8. A method of communicating between devices comprising:

sending a message;

receiving the message; and

wherein the message has a packet that comprises a command indicator comprising a command code, a scalable data value comprising a scalable message, and an error detector that is a redundancy check error detector.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the devices comprise geographically remote transceivers adapted to transmit and receive the message using radio frequency transmissions.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the devices have a unique address and the packet further comprises at least one scalable address field to contain the unique address for at least one device.

11. The method of claim 8, further comprising actuating an actuator associated with at least one of the remote devices in response to the command code.

12. The method of claim 8, further comprising sending the message via Manchester encoding.

13. The method of claim 8, further comprising determining if an error exists in one of the sent message and received message.

14. The method of claim 8, further comprising determining if the received message is a duplicate message and determining a location from which the duplicate message originated.

15. A communication system data structure to use in communicating between remote devices, the data structure comprising the following data fields:

a receiver address;

a sender address;

a command code;

data; and

a error detector.

16. The data structure of claim 15 further comprising the following data fields:

a packet length;

a total packet count;

a current packet indicator; and

a message number.

17. The data structure of claim 15 further comprising a preface before the receiver address and a post script after the error detector.

18. The data structure of claim 15, wherein the receiver address comprises a scalable address, the command indicator comprises a command code, and the data comprises a scalable message.

19. The data structure of claim 18, wherein the packet length, the total packet count, the current packet indicator, and the message number are between the sender address and the command code.

20. The data structure of claim 18, wherein at least one of the remote devices is a transceiver having a unique address and is associated with a controller that formats the receiver address and sender address.