Patent ID: 8759999

Claim:
A powerline communication control system for controlling a light emitting diode (LED) lighting unit, the powerline communication control system comprising: at least one master controller including: a lighting control processor configured to receive a lighting unit control input from a plurality of different conventional dimmer lighting controllers and configured to generate corresponding lighting unit command outputs in a lighting system command format in response to an indication of a user-adjusted setting of any of the interconnected plurality of different conventional dimmer lighting controllers received from a conventional dimmer interface of a conventional dimmer; and a power distribution system interface coupled to the lighting control processor and connected to a power distribution system configured to superimpose the lighting unit command outputs onto the power distribution system and a power signal present thereon as a lighting command signal according to a lighting unit command transmission mode, and a plurality of lighting slave units, each slave unit including: at least one LED lighting unit, a command receiving interface connected to the power distribution system configured to receive the lighting command signal, separate the lighting command signal from the power signal, and generate corresponding slave control commands, a slave control processor configured to convert the received slave control commands into lighting unit control commands, and a lighting unit interface configured to provide the lighting unit control commands to the at least one LED lighting unit to control the at least one LED lighting unit in response to a user-adjusted setting of any one of the interconnected conventional dimmers.