Patent ID: 8229596

Claim:
An airflow distribution system comprising: a device interface module including a plurality of slave ports and a plurality of master ports, a processor, and logic instructions on computer readable media executable to cause the processor to: receive a request message from one of a plurality of controller devices via one of the master ports; decode the request message to determine one of a plurality of cooling devices to receive the request message; determine a communication protocol required by the cooling device from among a plurality of cooling device communication protocols; convert the request message to the determined communication protocol; output the converted request message to the cooling device via one of the slave ports; receive a response message from the cooling device via the one of the slave ports; decode the response message to determine a receiving controller of said plurality of controller devices to receive the response message; determine a controller communication protocol required by the receiving controller to receive the response message from among a plurality of controller communication protocols; convert the response message to the determined controller communication protocol; output the response message to the receiving controller via the one of the master ports; determine whether communication with a first controller has failed by determining whether a threshold time between a request to the first controller and said processor has been exceeded; save current operation setpoints of the cooling device; and write safe operation setpoints to pre-configured registers that are read and used by a fail-safe controller.