Patent ID: 6694382
Filing Date: 2004-02-17
Classification: G05B

Abstract:
A method of selectively transferring data signals between signal-producing elements and signal-receiving elements, comprising:providing a first data transfer mechanism that has a plurality of input ports and a plurality of output ports, each input port being connected to one of the signal-producing elements and each output port being connected to one of the signal-receiving elements; accepting a data signal from a first signal-producing element; accessing a look-up table, which is stored in a memory, to determine what should be done with the data signal; directing the data signal to at least one of the signal-receiving elements through at least one of the output ports according to information contained in the look-up table; and wherein the first signal-producing element is a data generator that cyclically generates sequential identifiers, the method further including: connecting one of the output ports to a conversion device that converts non-digital signals into digital signals; connecting an output of the conversion device to another of the input ports; accepting one of the sequential identifiers from the data generator; accessing the look-up table to determine which non-digital signal corresponds to the one of the sequential identifiers; instructing the conversion device, through the one of the output ports to convert to a digital signal the non-digital signal that corresponds to the one of the sequential identifiers; and routing the digital signal into the other of the input ports; wherein the digital signal is transferred to at least one of the output ports according to information contained in the look-up table.