Bit encoding in home control systems

Abstract

A system for electronic communications using electrical power lines in a building includes a plurality of components that are connected for communications among themselves through the electrical power lines. A control transmitter is associated with at least one of the components for transmitting a data stream over the electrical power lines as a series of state changes. The data stream has a sequence of binary elements that each have one of two possible binary values. The control transmitter is configured to encode the binary elements as a series of three different state intervals on the transmission medium, depending on the value of the current binary element, the immediately preceding binary element, and the immediately following binary element. A control receiver is configured to decode the original data stream based on the state intervals. The encoding scheme allows a bit rate that is equal to the baud rate of the transmission medium.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.