JP5079036B2 - Home appliance adapter - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a home appliance adapter that is disposed between a home appliance and the network in order to connect the home appliance to a network such as the Internet or a home network.

  In a home appliance network system, a home appliance adapter of a type that acquires device information from the home appliance after connecting to the home appliance and downloads and obtains corresponding software from a server on the network based on the device information is known. ing. Moreover, the technique provided with the display part which displays the operation state in the household appliance adapter arrange | positioned between a household appliance and a network is known (for example, refer patent document 1).

JP 2004-229266 A (paragraph [0038], FIG. 2 etc.)

However, in the above conventional technique, the adapter software is scheduled to be downloaded only from a server on the network, and it is assumed that there is one interface for downloading. Therefore, if a problem occurs in the interface, software cannot be easily downloaded.
In addition, although the above conventional technique displays the operating state of the home appliance adapter on the display unit, the display unit does not display the debug code of the software downloaded to the home appliance adapter. Debugging software on the adapter was difficult.
The present invention has been made in response to the above-described problems, and includes a plurality of download interfaces, and displays the usage status of the interfaces, so that it can be used by a setter even when software cannot be downloaded via a network. It proposes a home appliance adapter that allows other download interfaces to be recognized and downloads without delay.
In particular, the present invention provides a home appliance adapter that can easily debug downloaded control software.

Appliances adapter of the present invention includes a device interface portion for connecting with the home appliance, a network interface unit to be connected to the controller or another device on the network, capable of downloading control software by connecting to a PC or workstation A general-purpose interface unit, a download management unit that downloads control software used to control the home appliance from the home appliance , the device on the network, or the personal computer or workstation; and the debug data of the downloaded control software and debug data storage unit for storing, e Bei and a display unit for displaying the data stored in the debugging data storage unit, the debugging data stored before Symbol debugging data storage unit, humans read It in home appliance adapter which is adapted to be displayed on the display unit of duration to allow further comprises a plurality of LED lamps respectively corresponding to each download destination of the control software, said control software by lighting of the LED lamps When the download of the control software is completed and the initialization process is in progress, all of the plurality of LED lamps blink at a first speed, and the device interface unit and the network interface unit are When the download of the control software via the network is unsuccessful, all of the plurality of LED lamps are blinked at a second speed higher than the first speed.

  The home appliance adapter of the present invention includes a device interface unit connected to the home appliance, a network interface unit connected to a controller on the network and other devices, and a control used for controlling the home appliance from the home appliances or other devices. A download management unit that downloads software, a debug data storage unit that stores the debug data of the downloaded control software, and a display unit that displays data stored in the debug data storage unit. For this reason, it is possible to easily debug the downloaded control software on the home appliance adapter.

The block diagram of the household appliance adapter which concerns on embodiment of this invention. The logical block diagram of the microcomputer which comprises the household appliance adapter of FIG. The operation | movement sequence diagram which shows an example of an effect | action of the household appliances adapter which concerns on embodiment of this invention. The operation | movement flowchart which shows an example of an effect | action of the household appliances adapter which concerns on embodiment of this invention. The display mode figure of the display apparatus in the predetermined step of the flowchart of FIG. The operation | movement flowchart which shows an example of the basic effect | action of the household appliance adapter which concerns on embodiment of this invention. The illustration figure of the data memorize | stored in the debug memory area | region of the household appliance adapter which concerns on embodiment of this invention.

Embodiment FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a home appliance adapter according to an embodiment of the present invention. The home appliance adapter 100 includes a serial communication interface 102 for communicating with the home appliance 200, a network communication interface 103 for communicating with the network 300, and a general-purpose interface for communicating with a personal computer (including a workstation) 400. 104, controls the display device 110 having three LED lamps 111 to 113 as a light emitter and one 7-segment LED display 114, each interface unit 102, 103, 104, and the display device 110, and externally. A microcomputer 120 that converts commands and data between the home appliance 200 and the network 300 based on the downloaded control software is provided. The microcomputer 120 includes a CPU 121, which is an arithmetic control device, a ROM 122 that stores programs for controlling the interface units 102, 103, and 104 and the display device 110, software and data downloaded from external devices, and a ROM 122 for control processing. It includes a RAM 123 in which various data called from is held.

  UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter) or the like can be used for the serial communication interface 102, wired media such as Ethernet or wireless LAN can be used for the network communication interface 103, and USB, serial communication, parallel communication, or the like can be used for the general-purpose interface 104. . Among these, the network communication interface 103 is connected to a controller (described later) for operating the home appliance 200 through the network 300 and other devices and servers in the network. Note that the home appliance adapter 100 is usually supplied with power from the home appliance 200.

  FIG. 2 is a logical configuration diagram of the microcomputer 120 in which the microcomputer 120 is divided into blocks for each action, paying attention to the action. 2, the device interface unit 102A is the serial communication interface 102 of FIG. 1, the network interface unit 103A is the network communication interface 103 of FIG. 1, the general purpose interface unit 104A is the general purpose interface 104 of FIG. 1, and the display unit 110A is the diagram. 1 corresponding to one display device 110.

120 A of adapter control parts are equipped with the basic control software which performs the common process which does not depend on the household appliances to connect, and the apparatus separate control software which changes for every household appliances, and performs control operation according to those software programs. In this specification, the device individual control software is simply referred to as control software. This control software is usually written in an interpreter code, and is executed by an interpreter execution environment (basic control software) installed in the adapter control unit 120A.
The download management unit 120B performs control to download the control software into the home appliance adapter 200 according to a predetermined program (including download timing and protocol) for each of the interface units 102A, 103A, and 104A.
120 C of adapter state management parts are the parts which perform the effect | action which monitors the operation state of the household appliance adapter 100, and displays the state on 110 A (specifically LED lamps 111-113). Accordingly, a signal for controlling the display mode is sent from here to the display unit 110A.

  Further, in the control processing by the adapter control unit 120A, the home appliance device object data downloaded from the outside, the command conversion table for converting the commands and data handled by the device interface unit 102A and the network interface unit 103A, the control software Debug data is stored in the data memory area 120D.

Next, the operation of the home appliance adapter 100 will be described. Here, it demonstrates based on the operation | movement sequence diagram of FIG. 3 which shows the operation example of the household appliances adapter 100 with the effect | action of the adapter state management part 120C. FIG. 3 shows an example of downloading control software from the home appliance 200.
First, when the home appliance adapter 100 is turned on (S1), the adapter control unit 120A requests home appliance information (device type or the like) from the home appliance 200 and acquires it (S2, S3). The adapter control unit 120A determines whether the control software corresponding to the model type is present in the home appliance adapter 100 (S4). If there is no control software, the adapter status management unit 120C outputs a status output of “control software not installed”. (S5) and a download request for control software is made to the download management unit 120B (S6). At this time, the adapter status management unit 120C outputs a status of “downloading control software” (S7). When the download of the control software is completed (S8), the adapter control unit 120A installs the downloaded control software and performs initialization processing of the home appliance adapter such as object data registration (S9). At this time, the adapter state management unit 120C outputs a status of “in initialization process” (S10). When this initialization is completed, normal operation of the home appliance adapter starts (S11), and the adapter state management unit 120C outputs a status of “normal operation” (S12).

  Thereafter, a data acquisition request and an acquisition response corresponding to the data acquisition request are exchanged with the home appliance 200 (S13, S14). On the way, a change in the state of the home appliance 200 is captured in the home appliance adapter 100 by communication of a data acquisition request and an acquisition response thereto (S15, S16), and a notification of the change in state is sent to the controller 500 on the network 300. (S17). On the other hand, when a setting request is issued from the controller 500 to the home appliance 200 (S18), it is sent to the home appliance 200 via the home appliance adapter 100 (S19), and the home appliance 200 is updated to the setting. . When a communication error occurs during these operations, the adapter state management unit 120C outputs a status of “abnormal state” (S20).

Next, operations of the adapter state management unit 120C and the display device 110 of the home appliance adapter 100 will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 4 is an operation flowchart showing an example of the operation of the home appliance adapter related to the adapter state management unit 120C, and FIG. 5 is a display mode diagram of the display device 110 in a predetermined step of the flowchart of FIG.
When the home appliance adapter 100 is powered on, the home appliance adapter 100 acquires device information from the home appliance 200 (FIG. 4, S31). Next, the presence / absence of control software in the home appliance adapter 100 is determined (FIG. 4, S32). If it is determined that there is no control software, all of the LED lamps 111 to 113 remain off (FIG. 5, (1)). Thereby, it can be immediately determined whether or not the control software needs to be downloaded.
Next, first, a control software download request is made to the home appliance 200 (FIG. 4, S33). While the control software is being downloaded, only the LED lamp 111 blinks slowly (FIG. 5, (2)). When the control software cannot be downloaded from the home appliance 200, a request for downloading the control software is made to the network 300 (FIG. 4, S34, S35). During the download of the control software, only the LED lamp 112 blinks slowly (FIG. 5, (3)). At this time, for example, the LED lamp 111 may be blinked at a speed different from that during downloading so that it can be understood that the control software cannot be downloaded from the home appliance 200.

  When the download from the network 300 is also unsuccessful, the process proceeds to error processing of the home appliance adapter 200 (FIG. 4, S36, S37). During this error processing, all of the LED lamps 111 to 113 blink rapidly (FIG. 5, (4)). Therefore, if it is explained in advance that this fast flashing display prompts downloading of control software via the general-purpose interface 104, the general-purpose interface 104 is quickly downloaded from a personal computer or the like based on this display. It becomes possible to do. Note that only the LED lamp 113 blinks slowly while the control software is being downloaded via the general-purpose interface 104.

On the other hand, when the download of the control software is successful (FIG. 4, S34 or S36), the home appliance adapter 100 is initialized (FIG. 4, S38). This initialization processing includes registration of objects and properties of home appliances, mapping data of home appliance interface specifications and network interface specifications, and the like. During this initialization process, all of the LED lamps 111 to 113 blink slowly (FIG. 5, (5)). When the initialization process ends, the home appliance adapter 100 moves to a normal operation (S39 in FIG. 4). During the normal operation of the home appliance adapter 100, only the LED lamp corresponding to the currently used download destination of the control software (only the LED lamp 111 corresponding to the device interface unit 102A in this example) is turned on.
Although not shown, when an abnormality occurs in the above initialization process or normal operation, if the LED lamp corresponding to the download destination blinks quickly, the operation by the control software downloaded via the interface It is also possible to recognize that an abnormal state has occurred. In addition, when the home appliance adapter 100 already has control software when the power is turned on, it is possible to recognize that there is no need for downloading by turning on the LED of the download destination downloaded last time.

In the above flow, the download to the network 300 may be performed first, and the home appliance 200 may be downloaded later. In addition, when the download from only the home appliance 200 or the network 300 is unsuccessful, it may be set so that a display prompting the download via the general-purpose interface 104 is immediately performed.
According to the home appliance adapter 100 as described above, when downloading of control software through one interface unit fails or when an error occurs during operation with the downloaded control software, from which interface Since it can be recognized that the download has failed or the control software downloaded from which interface did not operate properly, it is possible to easily retry the download using another interface unit. In the above example, a combination of turning off, lighting, blinking, and the like of a plurality of LED lamps enables many displays with a small number of lamps.

Here, we propose a configuration that can easily debug control software downloaded from outside. As a premise of this, first, a command for outputting debug code data in a memory area predetermined for debugging is incorporated in the control software. For example, when an interpreter language is used for the control software, a function “DebugPrint” that outputs a processing step number is defined as an interpreted language word for each processing step in which a command is executed. The debug code does not necessarily have to be output every time the command is executed, but if it is output every time the command is executed, the debugging accuracy is improved accordingly.
On the other hand, a debugging memory area for storing the output debug code data (an area storing “debug data” in FIG. 2) is also secured on the home appliance adapter 100 side. In this memory area, debug code data of 20 to 30 steps can be stored, and when the stored data exceeds the memory area size, the oldest one is deleted.

The control software downloaded into the home appliance adapter 100 is installed in a predetermined memory area, and configures the adapter control unit 120A together with the hardware microcomputer 120. FIG. 6 is an operation flowchart showing an example of a basic operation of the home appliance adapter 100 by the operation of the adapter control unit 120A. The storing of the debug code data in the debug memory area will be described along the flow of FIG.
First, the home appliance adapter 100 registers the home appliance object and property downloaded together with the control software (S61). This is made to correspond to the processing step number “1”, and the number “1” is stored in the debug memory area as debug code data.
Subsequently, the home appliance adapter 100 performs communication settings with the home appliance 200 (S62). This is associated with the processing step number “2”, and the number “2” is stored in the debug memory area as debug code data.
Thus, the initial setting of the home appliance adapter 100 is completed, and thereafter, the normal operation is performed.

In normal operation, the home appliance adapter 100 first receives data from the network 300 (S63). This is associated with the processing step number “3”, and the number “3” is stored in the debugging memory area as debug code data.
Subsequently, the home appliance adapter 100 creates transmission data to the home appliance 200 based on the data received from the network 300 and transmits it (S64). This is associated with the processing step number “4”, and the number “4” is stored in the debugging memory area as debug code data.
Subsequently, the home appliance adapter 100 receives data indicating the operation state and the like from the home appliance 200 (S65). This is made to correspond to the processing step number “5”, and the number “5” is stored in the debug memory area as debug code data.
Subsequently, the home appliance adapter 100 transmits the data received from the home appliance 200 to the network (S66). This is made to correspond to the processing step number “6”, and the number “6” is stored in the debug memory area as debug code data.
In the normal operation, the above steps S63 to S66 are repeated. Therefore, the state of data stored in the debug memory area of the home appliance adapter 100 is stored as illustrated in FIG.

  Further, the debug code data stored in the debug memory area as described above is displayed on the 7-segment display 114 of the display device 110. However, since it cannot be seen by humans at the same timing as the actual processing steps, the display can be continued on the 7-segment display 114 for a time that can be read by humans (approximately several hundred milliseconds) using a timer interrupt or the like. The debug code data for each processing step is displayed in order at the time interval. As a result, it is possible to easily debug the control software acquired from the outside by downloading on the home appliance adapter 100.

  The home appliance adapter 100 is provided with a changeover switch (such as a dip switch) for selecting debug display / debug non-display on the 7-segment display body 114, and the 7-segment display body 114 only when the debug display mode is selected. You may make it display with.

As mentioned above, although this invention was demonstrated according to the embodiment, this invention is connected to a network, All the household appliances which are going to perform the operation from the controller or other apparatus connected to the network, or the monitoring of an operation state Applicable to any adapter.
Further, by combining the embodiments, it is possible to monitor the operation on the home appliance adapter 100 from the download of the control software to the home appliance adapter 100 to the normal operation of the home appliance adapter 100.

Furthermore, in the embodiment, the state display is performed using the three LED lamps 111 to 113. However, if the space allows, each state may be displayed using three or more LED lamps. In addition, other light emitters may be used in place of the LED lamps. Furthermore, each state may be displayed as a number using the 7-segment display body 114. In short, any display body capable of displaying each state shown in FIG. 5 can be used, and various display modes may be set.
Further, the 7-segment display body 114 used in the embodiment may be replaced with another display device. It should be noted that the debug code data may be any data that can be distinguished from each step. Therefore, not only numbers but also alphabets and various symbols can be used.
In the embodiment, the debug code is output using the “Debug Print” function for each processing step. However, at a certain timing during the interpreter processing (for example, when the processing stack is over). The configuration may be such that the processing step being executed is output as a debug code.

  100 Home Appliance Adapter, 102 Serial Communication Interface, 102A Device Interface Unit, 103 Network Communication Interface, 103A Network Interface Unit, 104 General Purpose Interface, 104A General Purpose Interface Unit, 110 Display Device, 110A Display Unit, 111-113 LED Lamp, 114 7 Segment LED display unit, 120 microcomputer, 120A adapter control unit, 120B download management unit, 120C adapter state management unit, 120D data memory area, 121 CPU, 122 ROM, 123 RAM, 200 home appliance, 300 home network, 400 personal computer, 500 controller.

Claims (5)

A device interface unit to be connected to the home appliance, a network interface unit to be connected to the controller or another device on the network, a general-purpose interface unit capable of downloading control software by connecting to a PC or workstation, the home appliance A download management unit that downloads control software used to control the home appliance from the device on the network or the personal computer or workstation, and a debug data storage unit that stores the debug data of the downloaded control software If, e Bei and a display unit for displaying the data stored in the debugging data storage unit, before Symbol debugging data stored in the debugging data storage unit, humans and sustained possible time to read Previous In home appliances adapter so as to be displayed on the display unit,
A plurality of LED lamps corresponding to the respective download destinations of the control software;
Display the download destination of the control software by lighting each LED lamp,
When the download of the control software is completed and the initialization process is in progress, all of the plurality of LED lamps blink at a first speed,
When the download of the control software via the device interface unit and the network interface unit is unsuccessful, all of the plurality of LED lamps are blinked at a second speed higher than the first speed. Features home appliance adapter.   2. The home appliance adapter according to claim 1, wherein the debugging data is stored each time a command is executed by the home appliance adapter.   3. The home appliance adapter according to claim 2, wherein the debugging data stored every time a command is executed is held in the display unit for a predetermined time and displayed in order.   The home appliance adapter according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the display unit is configured by a 7-segment LED display, and the debugging data is numerically displayed on the LED display.   The home appliance adapter according to any one of claims 1 to 4, further comprising a switch for turning ON / OFF the display of the data on the display unit.

Images