Patent ID: 6744348
Filing Date: 2004-06-01
Classification: G08B

Abstract:
In a security system comprising a plurality of individually-addressable modules interconnected on a data bus to a control panel, a method of concurrently supervising the plurality of modules comprising the steps of:a) configuring each module with a unique zone number comprising a group number and a module number; b) initiating, for each group number, a group supervision poll sequence, wherein each group supervision poll sequence comprises the steps of: i) transmitting a group poll command comprising a group number data field, the group number data field populated by the group number currently being polled; ii) each module substantially concurrently responding to the group poll command by: determining if it is a member of the group currently being polled by comparing the group number data field to the group number portion of the zone number with which it has been previously configured; and for each module that is a member of the group being polled, setting a discrete bit appended to a group poll response message that logically corresponds to the module number for that module; and iii) determining at the control panel if any bit in the group poll response message has not been set.