Method for determining the configuration of detectors of a danger alarm system and for determining the system configuration of suitable detectors

A method for determining the configuration of detectors of a danger alarm system, with the detectors being in parallel connection with a central station via a two-wire communication line in form of a loop, stub or combination thereof, and with each detector including a microprocessor and a microprocessor-controlled current drain for data exchange with the central station by means of current pulses, and an address register, comprising the steps of:

• designating each detector by storing a binary serial number;
• installing the system and having the central station run the following steps:
• a) identifying and storing in an initialization routine the serial number of each detector;
• b) setting all detectors through a collective command into a discrete addressing mode and response mode for allowing each detector after being addressed by its own binary serial number to respond with a current pulse and subsequently after being addressed with the binary serial number of another detector to check the occurrence or absence of a current pulse and to store the occurrence or absence of a current pulse as binary pattern;
• c) individually addressing in a first cycle each detector by its binary serial number;
• d) polling in a second cycle the stored binary pattern from each detector and recording the address corresponding to the binary serial number of each detector in a column of a first square matrix having columns and lines which are numbered correspondingly with the binary serial numbers in the system;
• e) adding in the first matrix each column and each line to determine respective column sums and line sums and transferring each column sum and each line sum in numbered lines of a second matrix, with the numbered lines running correspondingly with the lines of the first matrix;
• f) determining a number of stubs on the basis of the column sums of the first matrix and identifying the detector arranged last in each stub;
• g) identifying the detectors of the first stub on the basis of the line sums of the second matrix and determining a sequential arrangement of the detectors in the first stub;
• h) identifying the detectors preceding each of the last detectors and combining them to a group of detectors;
• i) determining for each group from the groups of preceding detectors, through formation of intersections, those detectors which belong only to this group;
• k) upon presence of a loop, feeding in the other loop end and identifying analogous to step g) the detectors of the first stub for determining the group of detectors forming the loop;
• l) upon presence of stubs, comparing the values of the column sums of the first matrix for determining the location of the branch-off points of the stubs and the sequence of the detectors thereof;
• and
• m) assigning installation numbers to the detectors in correspondence to the identified configuration and outputting the detector configuration of the system including the installation numbers.