Patent ID: 7076310

Claim:
An electronic apparatus forming one of a sensor, an actuator and a control that communicates with at least one additional electronic apparatus via a data bus using a pre-determined communications protocol, the electronic apparatus comprising: a bus interface; a control engine that comprises: an application-specific engine that controls the electronic apparatus independently of the pre-determined communications protocol; and a bus protocol-specific engine that transmits and receives data via a bus interface; wherein said application-specific engine and said bus protocol-specific engine are decoupled from one another and said bus protocol-specific engine exchanges application-specific data with said application-specific engine via a standardized interface; wherein data received via the standardized interface is converted into the pre-determined communications protocol by the bus-protocol-specific engine and data received via the bus interface is converted into corresponding application-specific data by the bus-protocol-specific engine; wherein the control engine includes a plurality of bus protocol-specific engines and a plurality of bus protocols, each of the bus protocol-specific engines being associated with a bus protocol and wherein each bus protocol-specific engine converts application-specific data into the associated bus protocol and converts data received via the bus interface in the associated bus protocol into application-specific data; wherein at least some of the bus protocol-specific engines are associated with a single bus interface and a selection unit selects a respective bus protocol-specific engine to be used; and wherein the bus protocol-specific engine is automatically selected using the selection unit based on a currently implemented bus protocol.