Patent ID: 8554863

Claim:
A slave device included in a communication system in which communication is performed between a master device and one or more slave devices by transmitting and receiving a plurality of commands and a response, the slave device comprising: a master-device interface unit configured to communicate with the master device, wherein the master-device interface unit includes a parameter display unit configured to store a communication capability parameter indicating a communication capability of the slave device, and a parameter setting unit configured to store a communication setting parameter to be used for communicating with the master device, when having received, as a broadcast command to be received by all the slave devices that are connected in the communication system in a communicable manner, a parameter setting command for setting a parameter to be used by the parameter setting unit, the master-device interface unit sets the communication setting parameter of the parameter setting unit based on a value of a payload added to the received parameter setting command, and transmits a parameter setting command to which a payload storing a value of the set communication setting parameter of the parameter setting unit has been added, before receiving and transmitting the parameter setting commands and when having received a parameter obtaining command to which a payload has been added, as another broadcast command to be received by all the slave devices that are connected in the communication system in a communicable manner, the master-device interface unit transmits a parameter obtaining command to which a payload generated based on the payload added to the received parameter obtaining command has been added, wherein the master-device interface unit compares a parameter value stored in the payload added to the received parameter obtaining command with a parameter value of the communication capability parameter stored by the parameter display unit, and sets a smaller one of the parameter values into the payload added to the parameter obtaining command to be transmitted and transmits the parameter obtaining command to which the payload storing the smaller value has been added.