Title: Method and apparatus for controlling and supervising electronic devices
Abstract: A method and apparatus for controlling and supervising electronic devices, such as devices that receive, transmit and process signals in radio relay systems. The method comprises the steps of controlling each peripheral unit of the device through a controller; identifying a plurality of data to be handled for carrying out the control and the supervision of the device; and generating/receiving, through said controllers, messages each containing one or more of said data to be handled, wherein it further comprises the step of connecting said controllers via a common bus and wherein the format of said controller- generated/received messages is pre-established and substantially independent of the size of data contained therein.
Patent Number: 6,973,354 Issued on 12/06/2005 to Mirelli, et al.
| Inventors:
|
Mirelli; Giacomo (Carugate, IT);
Barzaghi; Giorgio (Vaprio d'Adda, IT);
Rodella; Vincenzo (Melzo, IT)
|
| Assignee:
|
Alcatel (Paris, FR)
|
| Appl. No.:
|
898066 |
| Filed:
|
July 5, 2001 |
Foreign Application Priority Data
| Jul 07, 2000[IT] | MI2000A1534 |
| Current U.S. Class: |
700/20; 340/825.21 |
| Intern'l Class: |
G05B 011/01 |
| Field of Search: |
700/9,19,20,100
340/825.21
455/7
|
References Cited [Referenced By]
U.S. Patent Documents
| 4988989 | Jan., 1991 | Goto.
| |
| 5341131 | Aug., 1994 | Hoshino et al.
| |
| 5479406 | Dec., 1995 | Matsutani.
| |
| 6510350 | Jan., 2003 | Steen et al.
| |
| 6728821 | Apr., 2004 | James et al.
| |
| 2001/0031621 | Oct., 2001 | Schmutz.
| |
| Foreign Patent Documents |
| 0 325 080 | Jul., 1989 | EP.
| |
| 0 507 947 | Oct., 1992 | EP.
| |
| 0 772 107 | May., 1997 | EP.
| |
Primary Examiner: Picard; Leo
Assistant Examiner: Kosowski; Alexander
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Sughrue Mion, PLLC
Claims
1. A method for controlling and supervising an electronic device, comprising
one or more peripheral units, through an apparatus comprising at least two controllers,
said method comprising the steps of:
controlling each peripheral unit of the device by means of a controller of said
at least two controllers;
identifying a plurality of data items which have to be handled in order to carry
out control and supervision of the device;
generating/receiving messages of the same pre-established format, through said
controllers, each message containing one or more of said data items to be handled;
connecting said controllers through a common bus; and
interchanging the data items between said at least two controllers through said
common bus,
wherein the pre-established format of said messages generated by/received from
the controllers is substantially independent of the size of data items contained therein.
2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the step of identifying a plurality
of data items which have to be handled comprises the step of arranging all data
in storage registers, each register having the same size, each data item being
univocally identified by an identifier of a register containing it and by an identifier
that identifies a position of the data item inside the register itself.
3. A method according to claim 2, wherein it further comprises the step of identifying
a subset of data arranged in registers, said data subset being composed of one
or more registers and corresponding to data for control/supervision of a partially
equipped device.
4. A method according to claim 1, wherein it further comprises the steps of:
providing a concentrator connected to said one or more controllers by said common
bus; and
providing said concentrator with information concerning said data items and their
arrangement in registers.
5. A method according to claim 4, wherein the step of providing said concentrator
with information comprises the steps of defining use relations between each of
said data items and at least one controller specifying an information flow direction
relative to a supervision entity producing or using said data item.
6. A method according to claim 5, wherein each controller validates only a pre-established
part of a message, in accordance with the corresponding use relation.
7. A method according to claim 4, wherein it further comprises a step of disconnecting
said concentrator once a start up step is finished.
8. A method according to claim 1, wherein it further comprises a step of providing
each of the controllers with a computer software program, said software program
comprising: a first control module, which is the same for all the controllers and
independent of the handled data; a second processing module for each single data
item and which is usable in any controller that handles such a data item; and a
platform module which is the same for all the hardware of the same type, capable
of driving the peripheral units.
9. A method according to claim 1, wherein said device is a device for receiving,
transmitting and processing signals in radio relay systems.
10. A computer software program comprising program code means designed to carry
out the steps of claim 1 when said program is run on a computer.
11. A computer-readable medium having a computer software program recorded thereon,
said computer-readable medium comprising program code means designed to carry out
the steps of claim 1 when said program is run on a computer.
12. An apparatus for controlling and supervising, through the handling of a plurality
of data items, an electronic device, the device comprising one or more peripheral
units, the apparatus comprising:
at least two controllers, each peripheral unit being controlled through a controller; and
means for generating/receiving, through said controllers, messages of the same
pre-established format, each message containing one or more of said data items
to be handled,
wherein it further comprises a common bus connecting said controllers to each
other, said bus providing interchange of data items between said controllers, and
wherein the same pre-established format of said messages generated/received by
the controllers is substantially independent of the size of data items contained therein.
13. An apparatus according to claim 12, wherein it further comprises storage
registers for storing therein the data items to be handled, each register having
the same size, each data item being univocally identified by an identifIer of the
register containing it and by an interval identifying the position of the data
item inside the register itself.
14. An apparatus according to claim 10, wherein it further comprises a concentrator
connected to the controllers via a common bus, said concentrator receiving information
concerning said data items and their arrangement in registers.
15. An apparatus according to claim 12, wherein each controller comprises a computer
software program, said software program comprising: a first control module, with
the first module being the same for all the controllers and unrelated to the handled
data; a second processing module for each of said data items and which is usable
in any controller handling such a data item; and a platform module, with said platform
module being the same for hardware of the same type, capable of driving the peripheral units.
16. An apparatus according to claim 12, wherein said device to be controlled/supervised
is a device for receiving/transmitting and processing signals in radio relay systems.
17. A method for controlling and supervising an electronic device, comprising
one or more peripheral units, through an apparatus comprising at least two controllers,
said method comprising the steps of:
controliing each peripheral unit of the device by means of a controller of said
at least two controllers;
identifying a plurality of data items which have to be handled in order to carry
out control and supervision of the device;
generating/receiving messages of a pre-established format through said controllers,
each message containing one or more of said data items to be handled; and
connecting said controllers through a common bus;
wherein the pre-established format of said messages generated by/received from
the controllers is substantially independent of the size of data items contained therein;
wherein it further comprises the steps of:
providing a concentrator connected to said one or more controllers by said common
bus; and
providing said concentrator with information concerning said data items and their
arrangement in registers;
wherein the step of providing said concentrator with information comprises the
steps of defining use relations between each of said data items and at least one
controller specifying an information flow direction relative to a supervision entity
producing or using said data item.
wherein each controller validates only a pre-established part of a message, in
accordance with the corresponding use relation.
Description
INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE OF PRIORITY DOCUMENT
This application is based on and claims the benefit of Italian Patent Application
No. MI2000A001534, filed on Jul. 7, 2000, which is incorporated by reference herein.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for controlling and supervising
electronic devices.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The modem systems for the control and supervision of electronic devices have
the task of managing a lot of data coming from a variable number of sources. The
data that are handled are often greatly heterogeneous with one another, as to both
electrical nature and information content, and further they are greatly dependent
on the different configurations of the system.
An example of electronic device that must be controlled and supervised could
be
instruments that receive, transmit and process signals in radio relay systems.
In such instruments it is necessary to control the alarms that could be possibly
generated, it is necessary to collect and analyze the various operating conditions
and to perform configurations.
The strict relation with the controlled apparatus causes the current control
and supervision methods and systems to be very specific, hardly re-employable in
other applications and moreover of low maintainability in case there are subsequent
variations of the system, of the peripheral units or of the data to be managed.
The current main solutions use one of two different control methodologies.
The first methodology, termed distributed-controller methodology, consists in
using a number of controllers, with each controller controlling a system portion
through a dedicated software program. Therefore, each controller is able to control
a definite number of peripheral units. All the controllers are interconnected with
a single concentrator with whom they interchange data associated with the controlled
peripheral units in the form of messages. The exchanged messages are structured
in a different way according to the handled data typology and to the features of
the communication protocol that is used. The messages that are handled by each
controller will contain only the data essential to the controller to be able to
manage the portion of the system assigned thereto and therefore they will have
a format and an information content pre-established at the beginning.
The second methodology consists in using a sole very powerful controller able
to manage the whole system. All the system peripheral units are mapped to specific
addresses and directly driven by means of read and write cycles through a single
bus interconnecting them to the controller. Each peripheral unit has at its disposal
a number of unique data inside the system. The controller will access any of the
available data in the controlled system in a mutually exclusive manner.
Both methodologies exhibit intrinsic drawbacks.
The first control methodology leads to a high number of software programs all
different from one another, each of which is dependent not only upon the controlled
peripheral units, but also upon the format of the handled messages containing the
data associated with the controlled peripheral units. It follows that, in order
to control another system having the same data but a different connection between
the system peripheral units and the handled data, a complete reorganization of
the messages will be necessary, with a consequent poor re-employment of the software
which was developed for the first system, notwithstanding it has both the same
data and type of peripheral units.
The second control methodology leads to a strict connection between the controller
and the peripheral units to be controlled, all the associations between peripheral
units and data being defined in the controller software. By excluding the controller
from the system, all the system peripheral units become unserviceable since they
are not traceable back to any system data. Moreover, the controller has a physical
dependence with the peripheral units because it accesses them through an absolute
address which is not necessarily associated with the same data in different systems.
In such a way, a controller software which is strictly dependent on the controlled
system architecture is obtained.
Therefore, in essence, the drawback that is common to all the solutions
adopted so far derives from the fact that once the hardware architecture and the
necessary peripheral units of the system to be controlled have been defined, a
special data format, optimized for that special system architecture and for each
handled data topology, should be defined. In this way, an efficient control software
is provided but such a software will be hardly re-employable in other hardware
architecture systems or with different data typologies.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is the main object of the present invention to provide a more efficient method
for controlling and supervising electronic devices which overcomes the deficiencies
of the methods known so far, or it is easily re-usable to control other devices
with different peripheral units or with the peripheral units arranged in a different manner.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a method for controlling
and supervising electronic devices which, once a starting time interval has elapsed,
is independent of the controller, thus making easier the factory testing operations
and the installation on field.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for controlling
and supervising electronic devices which overcomes the deficiencies of the systems
known so far.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for controlling
and supervising electronic devices which, once a starting time interval has elapsed,
is independent of the controller, thus facilitating the testing operations in the
factory and the installation in the field.
These and further objects and advantages are achieved by a method and apparatus
as claimed in the appended claims. All the claims are intended to be an integral
part of the present description.
The basic idea of the present invention consists in using a distributed control
system based on the data interchange between control entities dedicated to the
management of system portions or peripheral units. A further peculiarity is given
by the fact that data are sorted in registers, all the registers having the same
size (namely, the same number of bits) apart from the typology and size of the data.
The invention will certainly become clear after reading the following detailed
description, given by way of a mere non limiting example, to be read with reference
to the attached drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
In the drawings:
FIG. 1 schematically shows the state of the art configuration with distributed
controllers and concentrator;
FIG. 2 schematically shows the state of the art configuration comprising a simple
controller that directly controls the peripheral units;
FIG. 3 diagrammatically shows the overall set of data that the various controllers
of the present invention exchange with the concentrator; and
FIG. 4 diagrammatically shows the configuration of the apparatus of the present invention.
BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION
For better clarity, before describing the present invention, the known control
and supervision apparatus and methodologies will be briefly described again with
reference to FIG. 1 and FIG. 2.
The first known methodology (FIG. 1) provides for a plurality of controllers
(C
1, C
2, C
3, . . . , Cn), in the illustrated case there is
a controller for every peripheral unit (PER#
1, PER#
2, PER#
3,
. . . , PER#n) forming the system or electronic device (DEV) to be controlled.
As it can be easily noticed, the messages M exchanged between the concentrator
CONC and the controllers C are structured in a different way according to the typology
of the handled data and the features of the communication protocol adopted. The
messages handled by each controller will contain only data essential to the controller
to be able to manage the system portion assigned thereto and therefore they will
have a format and an information content that is pre-established at the beginning
and that can not easily be changed.
In the second known configuration, on the contrary, there is a unique controller
(CONTR) that is interconnected, via a bus, to the various peripheral units PER#
1,
PER#
2, . . . , PER#n.
As said above, the basic idea of the present invention consists first in using
a distributed control system based on data interchange between controllers which
are dedicated to the management of system portions, i.e. one or more peripheral units.
A further peculiarity is given by the fact that data are sorted in registers
(REG#
1,
REG#
2, REG#
3, . . . , REG#n) all having the same size (namely, the
same number of bits) apart from the typology and the size of the data. All the
messages M that are exchanged between the concentrator and the various controllers
have the same format. Every controller, however, will validate only the data which
it is able to provide or which it needs to know.
For better clarity, without restricting anyway the scope of the invention, the
following description will particularly refer to the control/supervision of devices
used in telecommunications radio relay systems (typically, devices for receiving,
transmitting and processing telecommunication signals).
The control and supervision of an electronic device, and in particular of a device
for radio relay systems, implies the step of exchanging a plurality of data (
1,
2,
3, . . . ) typically of different nature and size. In accordance
with the invention, such data are sorted in registers (REG#n) of a pre-established
size. By way of example, each register REG#n could have a length of six bytes.
The set of all data, sorted in registers, forms a data set P (FIG. 3).
Each single data (
1,
2,
3, . . . ) will thus be univocally
identified by the register ID, REG#x (with 1≦x≧n), of the register
that contains it and by a bit (or byte) interval that identifies the position of
the data inside the register and consequently its size. Such a classification will
be performed only once for each data to be handled, apart from the architecture
of the system to be controlled and apart from the peripheral unit which will be
associated therewith.
The same data will occupy a unique position inside a unique register and, moreover,
any register position will contain one data at most, whatever the controlled system
may be.
In FIG. 3 all data have been represented by means of boxes having a different
size and inserted into registers or larger "containers" of fixed size. A finite
set of elements (data) is thus obtained.
Each typology of controlled device (DEV) is defined by a subset A of elements
of P. In other words, typically every device to be controlled and supervised generates/requires
a number of data less that P: For instance, in principle a radio relay system has
the possibility to transmit through a number of radio channels but a transceiver
is often provided in an under-equipped arrangement, namely in a configuration that
allows the transmission over a lower number of channels and/or with reduced alarms.
The controller CONC according to the invention is aware of the format of P and
therefore is capable of handling data of any different set of peripheral units,
all data being described as a subset of P.
With reference to FIG. 3, the subset A
1 comprises data (
1 to
8)
of the first register whereas A
2 comprises the data (
1 to
24)
of the first four registers. In a fully equipped device configuration, A will coincide
with P and it will comprise the data of all the registers.
A "use relation", denoted by r, will now be defined, such a use relation assigning
to each controller the data belonging to registers contained in the subset A defining
the system to be controlled.
Each data of subset A will therefore be r-related to at least one controller
belonging to the system. In the case depicted in FIG. 3 and FIG. 4, the subset
of data essential to the control/supervision of a device comprising n peripheral
units (PER#
1, . . . , PER#n) is the subset Al (register REG#
1) which
comprises the data
1,
2,
3, . . . ,
8. The data
1
is related to controller C
1 and to controller Cn; data
2 is related
to C
1 only; data
3 and
4 are related to C
2 only, data
5 is related to C
2 and Cn; data
6 is related to C
3
and Cn; finally, data
7 and
8 are related to C
3 only.
For each data which is related to the use relation r, every controller C must
further specify the direction of the information flow from and/or towards it. In
other words, data
1 could be produced by C
1 and used by Cn; data
5 could be produced by Cn and used by C
2, an so on. The concentrator,
from the analysis of these pieces of information determines, for each data of the
system, what is the source entity (source controller) and what are the destination
entities (destination controller(s)).
Then, a logic interconnection network is defined between the data of the various
controllers that perform the whole information flow according to the aforesaid
relations r. Once the interconnection network is established, each entity may know
which further entities, if any, wish to use data produced thereby. In other words,
each controller knows to which controller(s) a data item produced by it shall be
sent and also, when the data item is produced by a different controller, from which
controller the data item will be received. In this way, should for instance a further
controller Cx, that necessitates data
1 produced by C
1, be added,
one should take care of only one part of the software of Cx and not of that of
C
1, Cn or concentrator, unlike what happened in the past. Moreover, the
variation of the value of a data in the system leads to the updating of the same
in all the entities using it.
The concentrator, by defining a global use relation R over all the data of A,
is able to access all data of the system.
The supervision software is capable of handling all the data belonging to P which
will not change for any system typology that is characterized as a subset A of P.
As said above, each controller C of the apparatus APP exchanges messages M of
the same register format with the concentrator CONC. In the case illustrated, all
the data for the supervision of the system are contained in the subset A
1,
i.e. in the first register REG#
1 of P. The messages M
1, M
2,
. . . , Mn exchanged will have a single register format. The further peculiarity
is represented by the fact that every controller C will write or read only at special
locations of such registers where there are data which it is in relation with.
Thus, according to what said above, C
1 will write only in the interval assigned
to data
1 and read in the interval assigned to data
2, without taking
care of the rest of the register (which in FIG. 4 is represented by oblique hatching).
The apparatus APP according to the present invention, in addition to what said
above, further comprises a communication bus (BUS) for interconnecting all the
various controllers C one to each other. The adopted communication protocol shall
transfer the registers among the controllers through messages M. Typically, each
controller C comprises a microprocessor. Basically, the application software of
the various controllers is the same, only the use relation r relating the various
data of the subset A to them is different.
The advantage lies in that a unique application software which implements a controller
is to be designed. Such a software, upon reception of any data, will call a procedure
external to such a software, expressly realized for the handling of the specific
data received for the specific peripheral unit controlled.
Moreover, for every data produced by that specific controller, a procedure
external to such a software, expressly realized for the acquisition of the specific
data to be sent, will be called. The interconnection network will guarantee the
data updating on all the controllers that use it.
Thus, every controller C will have at its disposal a modular software composed
as follows: a control module SW
1 which is equal for all the controllers
and fully independent of the handled data; a module SW
2 for processing each
single data and which is employable in any controller handling such a data; and
a platform module SW
3, such a module being the same for hardware of the
same type, capable of driving the peripheral units.
The concentrator CONC comprises first means (for instance implemented via software)
performing the functions of use relation acquisition and interconnection network
set up, and second supervision means (possibly being realized via software as well)
specific for that type of device.
At the startup of the apparatus, each controller C transfers its use relation
r to the concentrator or supervision entity CONC.
The set of use relations r that are received by each controller allows the supervision
entity to know A, namely the data of the controlled system.
In a complete apparatus, a supervision entity CONC and at least one control entity
C will be present, hence all the data of set A characterizing the controlled device
will be present in at least two entities at the same time.
After a first startup, the control system becomes independent of the supervision
entity CONC, the logic connections between the entities that control the system
being already established. Therefore, in a "static" condition, the concentrator
or supervision entity is no longer necessary. This results in a big advantage since
the steps of configuring and testing the apparatus could be carried out at the
factory and the installation in field would not require to repeat such operations.
Should a new controller be inserted in the control/supervision apparatus according
to the invention (for instance because the device to be controlled, partially unequipped
at the beginning, has become fully equipped), a new interconnection network will
be defined, thus increasing the cardinality of the set A (for instance passing
from A
1 to A
2), if the new controller utilizes data of P not belonging
to A.
The format of the controlled data, which is the same for any data typology and
for any system typology, permits of realizing the software of the entities and
of choosing a communication protocol among them, without having to know what system
has to be controlled.
Once all the controllable data (i.e. the P) are defined, a software module capable
of managing all the data contained in the set P and hence totally re-employable
for the control of any electronic device whose data to be controlled are contained
in A, defined as subset of P, will be developed.
The result is that, in order to control a further device having the same data
but a different association between the peripheral units and the handled data,
no reorganization of the messages is necessary and a complete re-employment of
the software which was developed for the first device is possible.
After a first startup, the apparatus is no longer dependent on the supervision
entity, which can even be removed without jeopardizing the control functionalities.
Furthermore, any physical modification of the system peripheral units
does not require any change in the supervision software.
Having defined the data in an univocal format, it is possible to realize application
programs for the simulation, testing and generation of totally re-employable data
structures for any device typology realized which is completely independent of
the control architecture utilized.
At this point one could argue that the present invention does not utilize an
optimal
format of the messages used for the interconnection between the controllers. In
the worst case, a certain device would provide for the use of only one data for
each register, and this would imply a waste of storage and a reduction in the efficiency
of the communication protocol utilized. Such a disadvantage is however irrelevant
when defining a suitable size of the registers and a homogeneous definition of
data also considering that the modern technologies permit of having low cost memories
and high-speed data transfer.
The method and apparatus according to the invention provide for a large re-employment
of the software developed for previous devices, thus reducing the development and
testing times.
There have thus been shown and described a novel method and a novel apparatus
for controlling/supervising electronic devices, in particular transceivers for
radio relay systems, which fulfill all the objects and advantages sought therefor.
Many changes, modifications, variations and other uses and applications of the
subject invention will, however, become apparent to those skilled in the art after
considering the specification and the accompanying drawings which disclose preferred
embodiments thereof. All such changes, modifications, variations and other uses
and applications which do not depart from the spirit and scope of the invention
are deemed to be covered by the invention which is limited only by the claims which follow.
*
