Patent ID: 7912080

Claim:
A method for transmitting useful data in a cycle-based communication system between users of the system via a data bus, to which the users are connected, having method steps of: transmitting the useful data within cyclically repeating timeframes each with at least two timeslots, and in each timeslot transmitting one message; storing at least some of the useful data in memory in the message, and assigning each message an identifier; transmitting the messages in timeslots of fixed length; storing the identifier in memory in the message as part of the message; in each message, storing data about a cycle in memory; in at least one of the timeslots of a timeframe, transmitting different messages offset from one another in various cycles, and in the at least one timeslot, transmitting those messages that are not intended for transmission in every cycle offset from one another; using either additional cycle data integrated with the identifier, or using a separate cycle counter integrated in the message; additionally assigning each message time data that pertain to a timeslot and that can be learned from the identifier; and preventing messages transmitted over the communication system whose identifier matches a predetermined identifier but which are of no interest to the user according to the data about the cycle contained in the message, from being loaded into the user, wherein data pertaining to a current cycle are additionally stored in memory in each message; that the messages transmitted over the data bus in the timeslots of the timeframes are observed by the users of the communication system; that either the identifiers or the data pertaining to the current cycle of the messages are compared with predeterminable values respectively, stored in memories of the observing users, for the identifier and the data pertaining to the current cycle, and at least the useful data of a transmitted message are received by the user only if the identifier and the data pertaining to the current cycle of the message match the predeterminable values, stored in the memory of the user, for the identifier and the data pertaining to the current cycle.