Bus Controlled Lighting System Using Gateway Nodes
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing lighting systems, particularly in automotive applications, face challenges in efficiently managing high adaptation rates of brightness and color due to limitations in bus communication bandwidth, especially when using low-bandwidth bus systems like LIN.
Innovation Solution
The proposed lighting system architecture includes multiple nodes arranged in a serial network, where at least one gateway node stores the lighting plan comprising various scenarios. This system uses lookup table indices to convey color and intensity information, reducing the need for extensive data transmission and allowing for faster updates across the network.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If a LIN bus system is used to connect LED nodes and controllers, then the system cost is reduced and implementation is simpler, but the number of controllable LEDs is limited and communication bandwidth is insufficient for high adaptation rates
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the network into multiple LIN sub-buses, each managed by a gateway node. This allows the overall system to control more LEDs than a single LIN bus could handle, while each individual sub-bus maintains the simplicity and low cost of LIN communication. The segmentation enables scalability without sacrificing the ease of manufacture of individual bus segments.
Solution Approach 2:
Gateway nodes are introduced as intermediaries between the master controller and slave LED nodes. These gateways aggregate multiple LIN sub-buses and communicate with the master controller, enabling the system to control a large number of LEDs while maintaining LIN's simplicity. The gateways handle the complexity of managing multiple nodes, leaving the individual LIN connections simple and cost-effective.
2Adaptability or versatility
If a CAN bus system is used to connect LEDs and controllers, then the number of controllable LEDs increases and communication bandwidth improves, but the system becomes complex and expensive to implement and repair
Solution Approach 1:
The system divides the network into multiple LIN sub-buses, each with a manageable number of nodes. This segmentation allows the system to control many LEDs overall while keeping each individual bus segment simple and easy to manage. The complexity is distributed across multiple simple LIN segments rather than concentrated in a single complex CAN system.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses multiple inexpensive LIN bus segments that can be easily replaced or reconfigured if needed. Rather than investing in a single complex CAN system that would be expensive to repair, the invention uses multiple simple, low-cost LIN sub-buses that can be individually maintained or replaced, reducing the overall cost and complexity burden.
3Manufacturing precision
If extensive color and intensity data is transmitted over the bus to update lighting scenarios, then the lighting accuracy is improved, but the update time increases due to limited bus bandwidth
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts only the essential control parameters (such as scenario identifiers or compressed color/intensity values) and transmits them over the LIN bus, while the detailed lighting data is stored locally in the slave nodes. This extraction approach maintains lighting accuracy by preserving the necessary control information while dramatically reducing the amount of data that needs to be transmitted over the bandwidth-limited bus, thus reducing update time.
Solution Approach 2:
The slave nodes pre-load and store lighting scenario data, color palettes, and intensity profiles in their local memory before they are needed. When a lighting scenario update is requested, the nodes simply receive a command or identifier rather than the full data set, and they retrieve the pre-stored data locally. This preliminary action eliminates the need to transmit extensive data over the bus during scenario changes, maintaining accuracy while reducing update time.
Data Source
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AI summary
The present invention relates to a lighting system comprising a plurality of nodes arranged in a serial network. The lighting system comprises : - a master node (11), - one or more gateway nodes (12), - a first communication bus (20) connecting the one or more gateway nodes to the master node, - a plurality of slave nodes (13), each slave node being connected to a lighting source (14) and arranged for conveying data messages, - one or more second communication buses (21,22,23), each connecting one of the gateway nodes with one or more slave nodes of said plurality. The master node is arranged for conveying a unique network address to the one or more gateway nodes via the first communication bus (20) and the one or more gateway nodes are arranged for conveying a unique network address to the plurality of slave nodes via one of the second communication buses. At least one gateway node is arranged for storing a lighting plan for lighting one or more slave nodes connected to that gateway node.