Patent ID: 8902885
Filing Date: 2014-12-02
Classification: H04B,H04L

Abstract:
1. A communication method via a power line communication channel between a collecting unit and a plurality of control devices, each of which is associated with an electrical device, the method comprising steps of: exchanging progressive messages between said collecting unit and each of said control devices via said power line communication channel, each of said progressive messages comprising a progressive message number, an addressee identification number indicating a specified one of said control devices to which a progressive message is finally addressed, and at least one of a portion of informative content and executable commands; wherein said progressive messages received by said control devices are defined as received progressive messages, and when one of said control devices receives one of said received progressive messages containing an addressee identification number corresponding to its own specific identification number, said control device is identified as the specified control device and, after a delay that is unique to said specified control device relative to other of said control devices, generates and transmits a reply message in which the progressive message number contained in the reply message is equal to the progressive message number contained in the received progressive message incremented upward to a next sequential value; wherein when each of said control devices other than the specified one of said control devices receive the received progressive message containing an addressee identification number differing from its own specific identification number, said other of said control devices are non-specified control devices and said non-specified control devices compare the progressive message number in the received progressive message to progressive message numbers from previous received progressive messages, and further wherein if the progressive message number in the received progressive message is different from progressive message numbers in previous received progressive messages, said non-specified control devices re-generate the received progressive message as an echo and, after a delay that is unique to the respective non-specified control device relative to the other of said control devices, arbitrarily transmit said echo on said power line communication channel; wherein each non-specified control device generates and transmits echoes of received progressive messages until a reply message message in which the progressive message number is equal to the progressive message number contained in the received progressive message incremented upward to the next sequential value is received from the specified control device; and wherein each progressive message and each echo includes the addressee identification number of only the specified control device to which the progressive message was initially finally addressed such that a progressive message is transmitted from the collecting unit to the specified control device via one or more intermediate non-specified control devices without using the identification numbers of the intermediate non-specified control devices.