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US 12,705,972 B2Granted
Geographic addressing of field equipment
AssigneeAclara Technologies LLC
InventorsDavid Donald Haynes, Robert W. Richardson, Peggy Rose Devereaux
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A product and method for addressing field equipment is provided. A unit of addressable field equipment considers itself selected or addressed and becomes receptive to a commanding message after determining that its determined coordinate pair lies within a geographical boundary.
Claims12
A headend comprising:
- a transceiver configured to transmit and receive messages to and from one or more units of addressable field equipment in a power distribution network;
- and,
- an addressing and commanding transmission circuit configured to:
- receive an indication of the one or more units of addressable field equipment in the power distribution network to be addressed;
- receive a selection of one or more commands to be executed by the one or more units of addressable field equipment to be addressed;
- construct an addressing and commanding message with an addressing portion including one or more coordinate pairs and a boundary indicator for the one or more coordinate pairs, and with a commanding portion including a selection of one or more executable commands from a list of commands generated by the headend and associated with a type of the one or more units of addressable field equipment;
- transmit the addressing and commanding message via the transceiver to the one or more units of addressable field equipment configured to confirm, based upon a geographical location of the one or more units of addressable field equipment, whether the one or more units of addressable field equipment is located within a selection boundary indicated in the addressing and commanding message;
- and
- receive a confirmation message containing data detailing which of the commands were successfully executed by at least one of the one or more units of addressable field equipment,
- wherein the geographical location of the one or more units of addressable field equipment is stored in memory of the one or more units of addressable field equipment during fabrication at a production facility, or by an installing engineer or technician during installation,
- wherein the addressing and commanding transmission circuit is further configured to optimize the received indication of one or more units of addressable field equipment to be addressed by determining, at the headend, that the addressing and commanding message can be constructed by translating the received indication of one or more units of addressable field equipment to the one or more coordinate pairs forming the selection boundary shaped like a polygon encompassing the units of addressable field equipment.
8 more elements
A method comprising:
- receiving, at an electronic processor of a headend of a power distribution network, an indication of one or more units of addressable field equipment in the power distribution network to be addressed;
- translating the received indication of one or more units of addressable field equipment to a set of coordinate pairs forming a selection boundary shaped like a polygon encompassing the one or more units of addressable field equipment;
- receiving, with the electronic processor, a selection of one or more executable commands from a list of commands generated by a headend and associated with a type of a unit of addressable field equipment;
- constructing, with the electronic processor, one or more messages collectively including the set of coordinate pairs, the selection boundary, and the one or more executable commands, the one or more executable commands interpretable by the one or more units of addressable field equipment;
- transmitting, with a transmitter, the one or more messages to the one or more units of addressable field equipment, and
- receiving, with a receiver, a confirmation message containing data detailing which of the one or more executable commands were successfully executed by the one or more units of addressable field equipment,
- wherein the one or more units of addressable field equipment is configured to confirm whether the one or more units of addressable field equipment is located within the selection boundary indicated in the addressing and commanding message based upon a geographical location of the one or more units of addressable field equipment, and
- wherein the geographical location of the one or more units of addressable field equipment is stored in memory of the one or more units of addressable field equipment during fabrication at a production facility, or by an installing engineer or technician during installation.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.