Building Bus Addressing via Quantitative Feedback

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Solution Overview

Problem

The existing addressing methods for bus participants in building technology devices, particularly for lighting devices compatible with DALI or DSI standards, are time-consuming due to the need for iterative searches to find the smallest or largest provisional address, requiring multiple iterations until an exact match is found, leading to prolonged search times.

Innovation Solution

The method involves bus participants providing quantitative responses with address difference information, allowing the control unit to directly determine their randomly generated address and assign a further address, such as a DALI or DSI short address, by reducing the search space after each response, thereby skipping unnecessary iterations.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Productivity

If iterative search with qualitative responses is used to find bus participant addresses, then the search process is simple to implement, but the search time becomes excessively long

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveaddress search speedVSAvoidsearch time
Core Design Contradiction:
ProductivityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The patent implements feedback by having bus participants provide quantitative responses containing address difference information (the numerical difference between their address and the search address) rather than simple qualitative presence/absence indicators. This feedback mechanism allows the control unit to directly calculate the target address in a single step, eliminating iterative searching and dramatically reducing search time while maintaining implementation simplicity.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #23Feedback

2Reliability

If multiple iterations are performed to achieve exact address match, then the address allocation is reliable, but the search process becomes time-consuming

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveaddress allocation accuracyVSAvoidsearch time
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies preliminary action by having bus participants pre-calculate and store the difference between their address and any given search address. When a search is initiated, participants immediately provide this pre-computed difference information, allowing the control unit to determine the exact target address in a single iteration without requiring multiple approximation steps, thus achieving both reliability and speed.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

3Productivity

If quantitative address difference information is requested from bus participants, then the search process is accelerated, but the communication protocol becomes more complex

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveaddress search speedVSAvoidprotocol complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
ProductivityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent changes the parameter of the response data from simple qualitative indicators (presence/absence) to quantitative address difference values. This parameter transformation enables the control unit to compute the exact target address directly using the formula: target address = search address + address difference. The increased information content in each response justifies the moderate increase in protocol complexity by eliminating the need for multiple iterative exchanges.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #35Parameter changes

Data Source

PatentEP3139575B1Addressing method for building technology bus participants
Publication Date: 2018.04.11 TRIDONIC GMBH & CO KG
  • EP3139575B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP3139575B1 patent drawingFigure 2
  • EP3139575B1 patent drawingFigure 3

AI summary

The invention provides an addressing method for bus participants of a bus for building technology equipment, in particular control gear for lighting devices, wherein the bus participants are connected via the bus to at least one control unit, comprising the steps: A.) the bus participants each internally assign themselves a randomly generated address or are provided with one externally, B.) the control unit performs a search in an address search space and sends a search address that limits the address search space, C.) each bus participant whose randomly generated address lies in the address search space sends a response to the control unit upon receiving the signal, D.) the control unit reduces the address search space and performs steps B.) to D.) until, in step C.), only one bus participant responds. In step C.Each bus participant sends their address or address difference information with their response, indicating how far their address is from the search address.