ELECTRONIC HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCE HAVING A CONTROL SYSTEM

Abstract

An electronic household appliance has a control system which has a plurality of internal control units and a communication network between the plurality of internal control units. A selected internal control unit of the plurality of internal control units contains a controller and is additionally provided with a communication device which is configured for data communication with at least one external administrative unit without intermediate storage of the data to be communicated. The controller of the selected internal control unit is also configured to control data communication between the at least one external administrative unit and the plurality of internal control units of the control system via the communication device.

Claims

1. An electronic household appliance, comprising: a control system having a plurality of internal controller systems and a communication network connected between said plurality of internal controller systems; said plurality of internal controller systems including a selected internal control system having a controller and a communication device configured for data communication with at least one external administrative unit without buffering data to be communicated; and said controller of said selected internal control system is further configured to control data communication between the at least one external administrative unit and said plurality of internal controller systems of said control system via said communication device.

2. The electronic household appliance according to claim 1, wherein said communication device has a communication module with at least one module interface for data communication with the at least one external administrative unit and a connection interface for data communication with said controller of said selected internal control system.

3. The electronic household appliance according to claim 2, wherein said communication module has said at least one module interface for a wireless communication connection to the at least one external administrative unit.

4. The electronic household appliance according to claim 2, wherein said communication module has said at least one module interface for a direct connection to the at least one external administrative unit.

5. The electronic household appliance according to claim 1, wherein said communication device has at least one control interface for directly connecting said controller of said selected internal control system to the at least one external administrative unit.

6. The electronic household appliance according to claim 1, wherein said selected internal control system is an operating apparatus having an input device and/or a display device for a user of the household appliance.

7. The electronic household appliance according to claim 6, wherein said controller of said selected internal control system is configured to control said input device and/or said display device for exchanging information relating to data communication via said communication device.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWING

[0024] FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a structure of a control system for a household appliance according to a first exemplary embodiment of the invention;

[0025] FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the structure of the control system for the household appliance according to a second exemplary embodiment of the invention; and

[0026] FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the structure of the control system for the household appliance according to a third exemplary embodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0027] Referring now to the figures of the drawings in detail and first, particularly to FIG. 1 thereof, there is shown a first embodiment of a control system 10 according to the invention for an electronic household appliance.

[0028] The control system 10 contains a plurality of internal control units 12, 14, one of which is used as a selected internal control unit 12, and the other internal control units are connected as submodules to this selected internal control unit 12 via a communication network 16. In the embodiment of FIG. 1, the communication network 16 is a bus system and some of the submodules 14 are connected in the form of a tree structure. The bus system 16 may be wired or wireless or may be partially wired and partially wireless.

[0029] The selected internal control unit 12 contains, for example, a CPU as a controller 18 and a non-volatile memory 22 connected to this controller 18. The controller 18 has a network interface 20 for connection to the bus system 16.

[0030] The selected internal control unit 12 is, for example, an operating apparatus of the household appliance that is equipped with an input device 40 and a display device 42. The input device 40 and the display device 42 are connected to the controller 18.

[0031] As illustrated in FIG. 1, the selected internal control unit 12 is also equipped with a communication device 24. The communication device 24 is preferably integrated in or connected to the control unit 12. The internal control units 12, 14 of the control system 10 can carry out data communication with external administrative units 26, 28 via this communication device 24 in order to receive software updates or to provide usage data, for example.

[0032] For this purpose, the communication device 24 has a simple communication module 30 which has a module interface 32 for the wireless communication connection to an external administrative unit 26 (e.g. Internet, cloud, laptop with Bluetooth, etc.), a module interface 34 (e.g. USB connection, memory card slot, etc.) for the direct connection to an external administrative unit 28 (e.g. USB stick, SD memory card, laptop with USB cable, etc.) and a connection interface 36 (e.g. SDIO, SPI, I2C, UART, etc.) for connection to the controller 18. The communication device 24 illustrated in FIG. 1 also has a control interface 38 (e.g. USB connection, memory card slot, etc.) for directly connecting the controller 18 to an external administrative unit 28 (e.g. USB stick, SD memory card, laptop with USB cable, etc.). In other embodiment variants of the invention, only some of these components 24, 38 of the communication device 24 or only some of the module interfaces 32, 34 of the communication module 24 are present.

[0033] The data communication between the internal control units 12, 14 and the external administrative units 26, 28 is controlled by the controller 18 of the selected internal control unit 12. The data to be communicated are not buffered in a non-volatile manner inside the communication device 24 or in the memory 22 of the control unit 12. In the event of a power interruption during data communication via the communication device 24, the data communication must be newly carried out. If there is sufficient storage space, however, the data to be communicated can possibly also be completely or partially buffered in a volatile manner in the memory 22 of the control unit 12.

[0034] FIG. 2 shows a second embodiment of a control system according to the invention for an electronic household appliance.

[0035] The control system 10 of FIG. 2 differs from the first embodiment of FIG. 1 only in the configuration of the communication network 16. In the embodiment of FIG. 2, the communication network 16 is in the form of a daisy chain.

[0036] For the rest, the control system of FIG. 2 corresponds to that of the first embodiment, in which case some components of the selected internal control unit 12 have been omitted in FIG. 2 for the sake of simplicity.

[0037] FIG. 3 shows a third embodiment of a control system according to the invention for an electronic household appliance.

[0038] The control system 10 of FIG. 3 likewise differs from the first embodiment of FIG. 1 only in the configuration of the communication network 16. In the embodiment of FIG. 3, the communication network 16 is in the form of a star.

[0039] For the rest, the control system of FIG. 3 corresponds to that of the first embodiment, in which case some components of the selected internal control unit 12 have been omitted in FIG. 3 for the sake of simplicity.

[0040] The following is a summary list of reference numerals and the corresponding structure used in the above description of the invention:

10 Control system
12 Selected internal control unit
14 Internal control units
16 Communication network

18 Controller of 12

[0041] 20 Network interface

22 Memory of 12

[0042] 24 Communication device
26 External administrative unit (wirelessly connected)
28 External administrative unit (directly connected)
30 Communication module
32 Module interface for the wireless communication connection
34 Module interface for the direct connection
36 Connection interface
38 Control interface for the direct connection
40 Input device of 12
42 Display device of 12