Patent ID: 8232869

Claim:
A method of identifying by a control station a plurality of devices communicating along a common communications link, wherein each of the plurality of devices bears a unique identification number, the method comprising: (a) sending by the control station a broadcast identification command via the communications link, the broadcast identification command including an identifier and an identification number, the identifier indicative to a respective device of the plurality of devices to ignore the broadcast identification command if the respective device of the plurality of devices has a control station assigned address and to process the broadcast identification command by comparing the identification number with at least a part of the unique identification number and sending a response to the control station if the identification number matches with at least a part of the unique identification number if the respective device of the plurality of devices does not have a control station assigned address; (b) determining whether none, one, or more than one response was received in response to sending the broadcast identification command; (c) if more than one response was received, modifying the identification number and transitioning to (a) by sending an updated broadcast identification command including the identifier and the modified identification number; (d) if one response was received, sending an assigning command to the device that sent the response, the assigning command includes a control station assigned address, the control station assigned address being different than the unique identification number; and (e) if no responses were received, selecting a different identification number and transitioning to (a) by sending an updated broadcast identification command including the identifier and the different identification number, wherein the control station iterates through (a)-(e) until the control station assigns a control station assigned address to each of the plurality of devices.