Patent ID: 8466390

Claim:
A heater control structure for an ice protection system, comprising: a) a first multi-role logic block including a first scheduler to schedule the operation of an array of heaters and a first controller to control a first group of heaters within the array of heaters, wherein the first scheduler communicates with a first private data bus and the first controller communicates with a second private data bus, and wherein the first scheduler and the first controller communicate with one another over a first pair of independent inter-channel data busses; and b) a second multi-role logic block including a second controller to control a second group of heaters within the array of heaters and a second scheduler to schedule the operation of the array of heaters, wherein the second controller communicates with the first private data bus and the second scheduler communicates with the second private data bus, and wherein the second controller and the second scheduler communicate with one another over a second pair of independent inter-channel data busses.