Wireless Safety Information Relay for Slave Controller Faults
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Solution Overview
Problem
In control systems, when an error occurs in the slave controller, the master controller may not receive accurate safety information, leading to inadequate control of the control target, and duplicating microcontrollers to address this issue increases design complexity and cost.
Innovation Solution
A system and method where a first slave controller generates both safety information about a control target and error information using one microcontroller, with the ability to wirelessly transmit and receive this information, including transferring error information to a second slave controller when an error occurs, allowing the master controller to receive it.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If two or more microcontrollers are equipped in the slave controller to ensure safety information transmission, then the reliability of safety information transmission is improved, but the device complexity and manufacturing cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The slave controller is divided into a first slave controller and a second slave controller, where the first handles normal operation and the second handles error conditions. This segmentation allows the system to maintain reliability through specialization without requiring multiple microcontrollers in a single controller, thus reducing internal design complexity while ensuring safety information can still be transmitted through the second controller when the first fails.
2Reliability
If two or more microcontrollers are equipped in the slave controller to ensure safety information transmission, then the reliability of safety information transmission is improved, but the manufacturing cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of duplicating microcontrollers within one slave controller (which increases cost), the patent segments the functionality across two separate slave controllers. Each controller uses a single microcontroller, maintaining individual simplicity and lower per-unit cost, while the system as a whole achieves redundancy and reliability through the distributed architecture.
3Ease of operation
If wireless transmission is used for safety information, then the ease of operation and system flexibility are improved, but the potential for transmission errors and security vulnerabilities increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies different transmission modes to different types of information: wireless transmission is used for normal safety information transmission to maintain convenience and flexibility, while error information transmission incorporates additional verification and forwarding mechanisms through the second slave controller to ensure reliability. This local quality approach optimizes each transmission path according to its specific requirements.
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed is a system for transmitting and receiving safety information, which generates first safety information about a control target and second safety information representing the occurrence or not of an error in the control target by using one microcontroller. The system includes a first slave controller generating first safety information and second safety information by using sensing data obtained from a control target and a master controller receiving the first safety information and the second safety information from the first slave controller through a wireless channel. When an error occurs in the first slave controller, the first slave controller transmits the second safety information to a second slave controller, and the second slave controller transmits the second safety information, received from the first slave controller, to the master controller.