Differentiated upgrading method for communication module of power dual-mode communication network

Abstract

The invention discloses a differentiated upgrading method for a communication module of a power dual-mode communication network, and the method comprises the steps: dividing a FLASH space region into a plurality of different program regions, carrying out the independent compiling of a code of each program region, and obtaining an original upgrading package; compressing the original upgrade package to obtain a compressed upgrade package, wherein the compressed upgrade package comprises upgrade indication information and a plurality of compressed data fragments; and sending the at least one compressed upgrade package to the STA module, so that the STA module updates the at least one program area indicated by the upgrade indication information according to upgrade data obtained by decompressing the compressed data fragments to complete remote upgrade of the STA module. According to the method, the code clustering property can be improved while the code coupling property is reduced, and the size of the upgrade package file can be further reduced. In addition, the method and the device do not need to limit an upgraded version while being compatible with full-quantity upgrading, and can improve the efficiency and convenience of remote upgrading.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This application relates to the technical field of remote upgrade, and particularly to a differential upgrade method for a communication module of a power dual-mode communication network. Background Art

[0002] Nowadays, the technical requirement documents of power grid metering automation systems all stipulate that each manufacturer must implement the remote upgrade (OTA) function. Although the file transfer protocol is specified in the corresponding communication protocol, there is no restriction on the method for upgrading the communication module of the file transfer content. Therefore, each manufacturer can flexibly formulate an upgrade plan according to its own situation.

[0003] The existing remote upgrade methods mainly include full upgrade and differential upgrade. The upgrade package for full upgrade is relatively large. Even if only part of the code is modified, the entire file needs to be transferred to the communication module during upgrade. While differential upgrade can only upgrade a certain version on-site, and the size of the upgrade package is unpredictable. Therefore, the upgrade packages involved in the above two remote upgrade methods have an impact on the efficiency of remote upgrade. Summary of the Invention

[0004] The purpose of this application is to provide a differential upgrade method for a communication module of a power dual-mode communication network, so as to solve the technical problem in the prior art that the size of the upgrade package of the existing remote upgrade method results in low efficiency and complex process of remote upgrade. The many technical effects that can be produced by the preferred technical solutions provided in this application are described in detail below.

[0005] To achieve the above purpose, this application provides the following technical solutions:

[0006] In a first aspect, a differential upgrade method for a communication module of a power dual-mode communication network provided by this application includes: dividing the FLASH space area into multiple different program areas, independently compiling the code of each of the program areas to obtain at least one original upgrade package corresponding to the program area, where the program area includes a bootloader area, a system and driver area, a protocol stack program area, and an application program area; compressing at least one of the original upgrade packages to obtain the same number of compressed upgrade packages as the original upgrade package, where the compressed upgrade package includes upgrade indication information for indicating the program area corresponding to the original upgrade package and multiple compressed data shards; sending at least one of the compressed upgrade packages to the STA module for the STA module to update at least one of the program areas indicated by the upgrade indication information according to the upgrade data obtained by decompressing the compressed data shards, so as to complete the remote upgrade of the STA module.

[0007] In some embodiments, the upgrade indication information includes manufacturer information, hardware version number, software version number, number of compressed data fragments, CRC check value, and the size, start address, and decompression target address of each of the compressed data fragments.

[0008] In some embodiments, the method includes: obtaining the program area corresponding to the compressed upgrade package by identifying the decompression target address of the upgrade indication information.

[0009] In some embodiments, the step of compressing at least one of the original upgrade packages to obtain a corresponding number of compressed upgrade packages includes: compressing the original upgrade package using a compression algorithm according to a preset fragment size to obtain a plurality of the compressed data fragments corresponding to the original upgrade package; adding the upgrade indication information according to the compression situation to obtain the compressed upgrade package.

[0010] In some embodiments, the compression algorithm includes one of the RLE algorithm, LZMA algorithm, LZO algorithm, or Huffman coding.

[0011] In some embodiments, the boot program area is used for system startup and update; the system and driver program area is used to provide interfaces for an embedded operating system, wireless physical layer communication driver, carrier physical layer communication driver, and conventional peripheral drivers; the protocol stack program area is used to process wireless and carrier physical layer data and handle protocol stack-related matters, and provides interfaces for data transmission and reception, channel access, network access, and network organization; the application program area is used to handle matters related to specific services.

[0012] In some embodiments, function calls or data transfers between the respective program areas are performed through system calls or API interfaces.

[0013] In a second aspect, the present application provides a computer program product, which is stored on a data carrier and is designed to execute the differential upgrade method of the power dual-mode communication network communication module as described above.

[0014] In a third aspect, the present application provides a computer-readable storage medium, on which a computer program is stored, and when the computer program is executed, it implements the differential upgrade method of the power dual-mode communication network communication module as described above.

[0015] In a fourth aspect, the present application provides a processing device, including: one or more processors; a memory for storing one or more computer programs, and the one or more processors are used to execute the one or more computer programs stored in the memory, so that the one or more processors execute the differential upgrade method of the power dual-mode communication network communication module as described above.

[0016] Implementing one of the above technical solutions of this application has the following advantages or beneficial effects: In this application, by dividing the FLASH space into multiple program areas that implement specific functions and independently compiling the original upgrade package, the code coupling can be reduced while the code cohesion can be improved. The code can be modified for the corresponding original upgrade package to avoid affecting the entire FLASH code. At the same time, by compressing the original upgrade package, the size of the upgrade package file can be further reduced. In addition, this application can specify some or all of the program areas for remote upgrade. While being compatible with full-scale upgrade, there is no need to limit the upgraded version, which can improve the efficiency and convenience of remote upgrade. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0017] To more clearly illustrate the technical solutions of the embodiments of this application, the following will briefly introduce the drawings required for the description of the embodiments. Obviously, the following drawings are only some embodiments of this application. For those of ordinary skill in the art, without creative efforts, other drawings can also be obtained based on these drawings. In the drawings:

[0018] Figure 1 is a flowchart of the differential upgrade method for the power dual-mode communication network communication module in the embodiments of this application;

[0019] Figure 2 is a structural diagram of the FLASH space in the embodiments of this application;

[0020] Figure 3 is a schematic diagram of the compressed upgrade package format in the embodiments of this application;

[0021] Figure 4 is a schematic diagram of the format of the upgrade indication information in the embodiments of this application;

[0022] Figure 5 is a structural block diagram of the processing device in the embodiments of this application.

[0023] In the figure: 1. Processing device; 10. Memory; 11. Processor. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS

[0024] In order to make the objectives, technical solutions and advantages of the present application clearer and more understandable, various exemplary embodiments to be described below will refer to the corresponding drawings, which form a part of the exemplary embodiments and describe various exemplary embodiments that may be adopted to implement the present application. Unless otherwise indicated, the same numbers in different drawings represent the same or similar elements. The embodiments described in the following exemplary embodiments do not represent all embodiments consistent with the present disclosure. It should be understood that they are only examples of processes, methods, devices, etc. consistent with some aspects of the present application disclosed in detail in the appended claims. Other embodiments may also be used, or structural and functional modifications may be made to the embodiments listed herein without departing from the scope and essence of the present application.

[0025] In the description of the present application, it should be understood that terms such as "center", "longitudinal", "lateral", etc. indicate the orientation or positional relationship based on the drawings shown, and are only for the convenience of describing the present application and simplifying the description, rather than indicating or implying that the elements referred to must have a specific orientation, be constructed and operated in a specific orientation. Terms such as "first", "second", etc. are only used for descriptive purposes and cannot be understood as indicating or implying relative importance or implicitly indicating the quantity of the indicated technical features. The meaning of the term "plurality" is two or more. The terms "connected" and "coupled" should be understood in a broad sense. For example, it may be a fixed connection, a detachable connection, an integral connection, a mechanical connection, an electrical connection, a communication connection, a direct connection, an indirect connection through an intermediate medium, and may be the communication or the interaction relationship between two elements inside the two elements. The term "and / or" includes any and all combinations of one or more of the related listed items. For those of ordinary skill in the art, the specific meanings of the above terms in the present application can be understood according to specific circumstances.

[0026] In order to illustrate the technical solutions described in the present application, the following will be described by specific examples, and only the parts related to the embodiments of the present application are shown.

[0027] The embodiments of the present application can be applied to the remote upgrade of a power dual-mode communication network. A dual-mode communication network (DualMode Communication Network) refers to a communication network that works in coordination through two paths, namely, low-voltage power lines and space radiation, to achieve the aggregation, transmission, and interaction of power consumption information of low-voltage power users and energy consumption information of other energy-consuming users. Remote upgrade (OTA) refers to a process in which the master station initiates and distributes the upgrade software to the STA (Station) module via the concentrator and the CCO (Central Coordinator) to complete the software update of the broadband carrier communication module.

[0028] The CCO may refer to the master node role in a communication network, which is responsible for functions such as network formation control and network maintenance management. The corresponding device entity is the local communication module installed in the concentrator.

[0029] The STA module may refer to the slave node role in a communication network. The corresponding device entities include devices such as the power meter communication module, the Type-I collector communication module, or the Type-II collector. Embodiments of this application can be used for remote upgrading of multiple STA modules on-site. The STA module can update the program area specified by the compressed upgrade package by receiving the compressed upgrade package.

[0030] Such as Figure 1 As shown, this application provides a differential upgrade method for a power dual-mode communication network communication module, including the following steps (Step S1 to Step S3):

[0031] S1. Divide the FLASH space area into multiple different program areas, and independently compile the code of each program area to obtain at least one original upgrade package corresponding to the program area. Among them, as Figure 2 shown, the program areas include the bootloader area, the system and driver area, the protocol stack program area, and the application program area.

[0032] In some embodiments, the program area may refer to the area where the CPU fetches instructions during operation after the microcontroller unit boots up. The program area may be located in the FLASH space area of the microcontroller unit. Specifically, when the MCU starts, the bootloader can be run first. The bootloader can be used to load the code in the program area into the RAM for execution, that is, when the CPU runs, it can load the code in the program area into the RAM.

[0033] In some embodiments, during the software development stage, the compilation toolchain can be configured to divide the FLASH space area into multiple program areas. It can be divided according to different specific functions so that each program area realizes a specific function. The compilation toolchain may refer to the tools used in software development, which are used to convert code into an executable program through collaborative work. The compilation toolchain may include a compiler, an assembler, a linker, and a library manager, etc.

[0034] In summary, after this application divides the FLASH space area into multiple different program areas, it then independently compiles the code of the program areas. In this case, it can reduce the code coupling while increasing the code cohesion, and can improve the controllability of the area affected by code modification, thereby reducing the situation where the entire FLASH space area is affected when the code modification is small.

[0035] In some embodiments, the bootstrap area can be used for system startup bootstrapping and updates. The update can refer to the update of the FLASH space area of the system.

[0036] In some embodiments, the system and driver area can be used to provide interfaces for an embedded operating system, a wireless physical layer communication driver, a carrier physical layer communication driver, and a general peripheral driver. Specifically, the embedded operating system can provide a driver model or framework for the development and integration of drivers, and the drivers can interact with the embedded operating system through the device file system. The interface of the wireless physical layer communication driver is generally a network protocol stack interface for transmitting and receiving data. The carrier physical layer communication driver generally needs to support power line communication protocols such as G3-PLC, etc. The interface of the general peripheral driver can be a general input / output interface or a serial interface, etc.

[0037] In some embodiments, the protocol stack program area can be used to process wireless and carrier physical layer data and handle protocol stack-related matters, and provide interfaces for data transceiver, channel access, network access, and network organization.

[0038] In some embodiments, the application program area can be used to handle matters related to specific services. For example, the application program area can be used to handle remote meter reading, power outage and restoration reporting, curve data freezing, querying asset codes, etc.

[0039] In some embodiments, the size of the original upgrade package is directly related to the size of the corresponding program area. That is to say, when upgrading one or more program areas, the corresponding original upgrade package of the appropriate size can be obtained according to the size of the independently compiled program area. On the one hand, compared with full-scale upgrades, the present application can miniaturize the original upgrade package, which helps to improve the efficiency of the update process and reduce the use of network bandwidth; on the other hand, compared with differential upgrades, the embodiments of the present application do not need to consider the on-site program version or the situation where there are multiple on-site program versions, and at the same time, the size of the original upgrade package is controllable, which can make the upgrade process more convenient.

[0040] In some embodiments, function calls or data transfers can be made between the respective program areas through system calls or API interfaces. Thus, the respective areas can be completely decoupled, thereby enabling optimization of the upgrade package size.

[0041] S2. Compress at least one original upgrade package to obtain the corresponding number of compressed upgrade packages, where as Figure 3 shown, the compressed upgrade package includes upgrade indication information for indicating the program area corresponding to the original upgrade package and a plurality of compressed data shards.

[0042] In some embodiments, compressing at least one original upgrade package to obtain a corresponding number of compressed upgrade packages may include: according to a preset shard size, using a compression algorithm to compress the original upgrade package to obtain multiple compressed data shards corresponding to the original upgrade package; adding upgrade indication information according to the compression situation to obtain a compressed upgrade package. In this case, the compression algorithm can further reduce the size of the original upgrade package, and at the same time, by setting the preset shard size of the compression process, it can be avoided that the STA module occupies too much RAM resources when decompressing the compressed upgrade package.

[0043] In some embodiments, as Figure 4 shown, the upgrade indication information may include manufacturer information, hardware version number, software version number, the number of compressed data shards, CRC check value, and the size, start address, and decompression target address of each compressed data shard.

[0044] Among them, the manufacturer information, hardware version number, and software version number can be used to avoid the situation where the STA module upgrades with upgrade packages from other manufacturers or incorrect versions, resulting in device damage. The number of compressed data shards can represent the number of compressed data shards in the compressed upgrade package, that is, the STA module can obtain the number of compressed data shards according to the upgrade indication information.

[0045] In some embodiments, the CRC check value may include the CRC check value before decompressing the compressed data and the CRC check value after decompressing the compressed data. The CRC check value can be used to provide the check value of the compressed data for the STA module to avoid upgrading with an upgrade package damaged due to transmission or decompression errors. Thus, the accuracy of the upgrade process can be improved. The CRC check value may also include the CRC check value of the upgrade indication information, which is used to provide the check value of the entire upgrade indication information for the STA module. Thus, it can be avoided using the upgrade indication information damaged due to transmission errors.

[0046] In some embodiments, the start address may refer to the start address of the compressed data shard in the compressed upgrade package. The decompression target address may include the decompression target start address and the decompression target end address of the compressed data shard. The decompression target start address can be used to represent the storage address of the data after decompressing the compressed data shard, and the decompression target end address can be used to represent the end address of the data after decompressing the compressed data shard.

[0047] In some embodiments, if the compressed upgrade package includes n compressed data shards, then the upgrade indication information may at least include the size, start address, and decompression target address of compressed data shards 1 to n.

[0048] In some embodiments, the compression algorithm may include one of the RLE algorithm, the LZMA algorithm, the LZO algorithm, or Huffman coding. Preferably, the compression algorithm may be the LZMA algorithm. The LZMA algorithm can be used to compress a large amount of data and can provide a high compression ratio. The core of the LZMA algorithm is a variant of the LZ77 compression algorithm and the LZ78 compression algorithm. The LZMA algorithm combines the advantages of these two algorithms and is optimized.

[0049] S3. Send at least one compressed upgrade package to the STA module, so that the STA module can update at least one program area indicated by the upgrade indication information according to the upgrade data obtained by decompressing the compressed data shards, thereby completing the remote upgrade of the STA module.

[0050] In some embodiments, multiple compressed upgrade packages can be sent to the corresponding multiple STA modules to complete the remote upgrade of the multiple STA modules.

[0051] In some embodiments, after saving the compressed upgrade package, the STA module can perform a software reset and then enter the bootloader. The bootloader of the STA module can update the FLASH code content of the specified code area according to the upgrade indication information in the compressed upgrade package. The upgrade indication information can be used to indicate a partial program area or the entire program area. Thus, the embodiments of the present application can be compatible with full-scale upgrades.

[0052] In some embodiments, the differential upgrade method for the power dual-mode communication network communication module may include: obtaining the program area corresponding to the compressed upgrade package by identifying the decompression target address of the upgrade indication information. In this case, it is possible to avoid defining redundant information such as the partition ID, partition name, and partition file mode of the upgrade package, making the compressed upgrade package more concise and efficient.

[0053] In the existing dual-mode communication network of the power grid metering automation system, the network broadcast throughput is usually between 50 and 100 kB / s, and the size of the station (STA) firmware is usually about 450 kB. Assuming that there are 500 stations (STA) in a certain field that need to be remotely upgraded (OTA) and the dual-mode network broadcast throughput is 75 kB / s, when the faulty code only occurs in a certain program area and needs to be updated:

[0054] If the existing full-scale upgrade method is adopted, the estimated time spent is 450 kB × 500 ÷ 75 kB / s ÷ 60 = 50 minutes;

[0055] If the differential upgrade method of the force dual-mode communication network communication module involved in the embodiments of the present application is adopted, the partition space of the system and driver program area is set to 128 kB, the partition space of the protocol stack program area is 256 kB, the partition space of the application program area is 128 kB, the compression ratio of the compression algorithm is 70%, and the space utilization rate of each layer is 88%.

[0056] When the system and driver program area needs to be updated, the size of the compressed upgrade package is 128 kB × 0.70 × 0.88 = 78 kB, and the estimated upgrade time is 78 kB × 500 ÷ 75 kB / s ÷ 60 = 8.6 minutes.

[0057] When the protocol stack program area needs to be updated, the size of the compressed upgrade package is 256 kB × 0.70 × 0.88 = 158 kB, and the estimated upgrade time is 158 kB × 500 ÷ 75 kB / s ÷ 60 = 17 minutes.

[0058] When the application program area needs to be updated, the size of the compressed upgrade package is 128 kB × 0.70 × 0.88 = 78 kB, and the estimated upgrade time is 78 kB × 500 ÷ 75 kB / s ÷ 60 = 8.6 minutes.

[0059] In summary, the embodiments of the present application can predictably reduce the size of the upgrade package, thereby saving the time required for the upgrade process, and are applicable to various scenarios where a large number of STA modules need to be remotely upgraded.

[0060] In the present application, by dividing the FLASH space into multiple program areas with specific functions and independently compiling to obtain the original upgrade package, the code coupling can be reduced and the code cohesion can be improved at the same time. The code can be modified for the corresponding original upgrade package to avoid affecting the entire FLASH code. At the same time, by compressing the original upgrade package, the size of the upgrade package file can be further reduced. In addition, the present application can specify some or all of the program areas for remote upgrade, which is compatible with full-scale upgrade and does not require restrictions on the upgraded version, and can improve the efficiency and convenience of remote upgrade.

[0061] The present application also provides a computer program product which is stored on a data carrier and is designed to execute the differential upgrade method of the power dual-mode communication network communication module as described above. Therefore, the computer program product according to the present application has the same advantages as those described in detail with reference to the device according to the present application. The computer program product can be executed as computer-readable instruction codes in each appropriate programming language such as JAVA, C++. In addition, the computer program product can be provided on a network, such as the Internet, or a network user can download the computer program product from a network, such as the Internet, when needed. The computer program product can be implemented either by means of a computer program, i.e., software, or by means of one or more dedicated electronic circuits, i.e., hardware, or in any hybrid form, i.e., by means of software components and hardware components, or in a hybrid form of software, hardware, or software and hardware.

[0062] Those of ordinary skill in the art can understand that all or part of the features / steps of implementing the above method embodiments can be achieved by a method, a data processing system, or a computer program. These features can be implemented without using hardware, entirely using software, or using a combination of hardware and software. The aforementioned computer program can be stored in one or more computer-readable storage media. When the computer program stored on the storage medium is executed (such as by a processor), it executes the steps of the differential upgrade method embodiment of the power dual-mode communication network communication module as described above.

[0063] The aforementioned storage media that can store program codes include: a static hard disk, a solid-state drive, a random access memory (SRAM), an electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), a programmable read-only memory (PROM), a read-only memory (ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, a flash memory, a magnetic disk or an optical disc, and / or a combination of the above devices, that is, it can be implemented by any type of volatile or non-volatile storage device or a combination thereof.

[0064] As Figure 5 shown, the present application also provides an embodiment of a processing device 1, including one or more processors 11 and a memory 10; wherein, the memory 10 is used to store one or more computer programs, and the one or more processors 11 are used to execute the one or more computer programs stored in the memory 10, so that the processor 11 executes the features / steps of the differential upgrade method embodiment of the power dual-mode communication network communication module as described above.

[0065] The above are only the preferred embodiments of the present application. Those skilled in the art will understand that various changes or equivalent substitutions can be made to these features and embodiments without departing from the spirit and scope of the present application. Additionally, under the teachings of the present application, these features and embodiments can be modified to adapt to specific circumstances and materials without departing from the spirit and scope of the present application. Therefore, the present application is not limited by the specific embodiments disclosed herein, and all embodiments falling within the scope of the claims of the present application belong to the protection scope of the present application.

Claims

1. A method for differential upgrade of a communication module in a dual-mode power communication network, characterized in that, including: divide the FLASH space area into multiple different program areas, independently compile the codes of each of the program areas to obtain at least one original upgrade package corresponding to the program areas, where the program areas include a bootloader area, a system and driver area, a protocol stack program area, and an application program area; compress at least one of the original upgrade packages to obtain the same number of compressed upgrade packages as the original upgrade packages, where the compressed upgrade packages include upgrade indication information for indicating the program areas corresponding to the original upgrade packages and multiple compressed data shards; send at least one of the compressed upgrade packages to the STA module, so that the STA module updates at least one of the program areas indicated by the upgrade indication information according to the upgrade data obtained by decompressing the compressed data shards, to complete the remote upgrade of the STA module.

2. The differential upgrade method of the power dual-mode communication network communication module according to claim 1, wherein The upgrade indication information includes manufacturer information, hardware version number, software version number, number of compressed data shards, CRC check value, and the size, start address, and decompression target address of each of the compressed data shards.

3. The differential upgrade method of the power dual-mode communication network communication module according to claim 2, characterized in that The method includes: obtaining the program area corresponding to the compressed upgrade package by identifying the decompression target address of the upgrade indication information.

4. The differential upgrade method of the power dual-mode communication network communication module according to claim 1, characterized in that The step of compressing at least one of the original upgrade packages to obtain the same number of compressed upgrade packages as the original upgrade packages includes: compressing the original upgrade package using a compression algorithm according to a preset shard size to obtain multiple compressed data shards corresponding to the original upgrade package; adding the upgrade indication information according to the compression situation to obtain the compressed upgrade package.

5. The differential upgrade method of the power dual-mode communication network communication module according to claim 4, characterized in that The compression algorithm includes one of the RLE algorithm, LZMA algorithm, LZO algorithm, or Huffman coding.

6. The differential upgrade method of the power dual-mode communication network communication module according to claim 1, characterized in that The bootloader area is used for system startup boot and update; the system and driver area is used to provide interfaces for an embedded operating system, wireless physical layer communication driver, carrier physical layer communication driver, and conventional peripheral drivers; The protocol stack program area is used to process wireless and carrier physical layer data and handle protocol stack-related matters, and provide interfaces for data transceiver, channel access, network access, and network organization; the application program area is used to handle matters related to specific services.

7. The differential upgrade method of the power dual-mode communication network communication module according to claim 1, characterized in that Function calls or data transfers between each of the program areas are performed through system calls or API interfaces.

8. A computer program product, characterized in that, The computer program product is stored on a data carrier and is designed to execute the differential upgrade method of the power dual-mode communication network communication module according to any one of claims 1-7.

9. A computer-readable storage medium, characterized in that, A computer program is stored on the storage medium, and when the computer program is executed, it implements the differential upgrade method of the power dual-mode communication network communication module according to any one of claims 1-7.

10. A processing device, characterized in that, including: one or more processors; a memory for storing one or more computer programs, and one or more of the processors are used to execute the one or more computer programs stored in the memory, so that one or more of the processors execute the differential upgrade method of the power dual-mode communication network communication module according to any one of claims 1-7.

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