Patent ID: 11925149
Assignee: RAIN BIRD CORPORATION
Field: Other special machines (Mechanical engineering)
Classification: CPC A  G  H | IPC A  G  H

Claim 26:
27. An irrigation control unit for use with irrigation devices connected to a multi-wire path in an irrigation system comprising:
a modulator configured to provide an output power signal modulated with data;
a multi-wire interface coupled to the modulator and configured to electrically couple to the multi-wire path extending into a landscape and to which the irrigation devices are connected, the irrigation devices each having a unique address and configured to derive operational power from the output power signal and demodulate the data; and
a control circuit coupled to the modulator and configured to execute an automated device discovery process configured to:
cause the modulator to modulate the data comprising iterations of discovery messages on the output power signal, the discovery messages each indicating a respective portion of an address to match and prompting a response from one or more of the irrigation devices in which a corresponding portion of the unique address matches the respective portion of the address to match, wherein responses to each iteration of the discovery message result in a modification of the respective portion of the address to match for subsequent discovery messages, and
wherein the discovery message comprises a data portion defining a number of address bits in the respective portion of the address to match and defining a value of the address bits of the respective portion of the address to match.