Panasonic Corporation

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.

Qualcomm Atheros Inc.

Sony Corporation

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation

Stmicroelectronics Gmbh

Spidcom Technologies

Gigle Networks Iberia, S.l.

Hisilicontechnologies Ltd.

Akio Kurobe

Koji Ikeda

Hisao Koga

Go Kuroda

Yuji Igata

Stefano Galli

Kensuke Yoshizawa

Gou Kuroda

Nobutaka Kodama

Shoichi Masaki

Shigeo Yoshida

Masato Ohura

Tomohiro Kimura

Lawrence W Yonge, Iii

Srinivas Katar

Takehiro Sugita

Oleg Logvinov

Hiroshi Tominaga

William E Earnshaw

Masahiro Maki

Mutsuhiko Oishi

Toshiyuki Wakisaka

Shigeru Takasu

Hirotoshi Yamada

Hiromu Okamoto

Mayumi Shinoda

Jose Abad Molina

Junichi Ohshima

Paul Dixon

Olivier Isson

Yoshinori Mizugai

Masao Ikezaki

Yuki Fujiwara

Hiromasa Nakatsu

Masatoshi Nakano

Hiroshi Harada

Keiji Ogawa

Nobuo Sugino

Yosihisa Mochida

Contactless power receiverincludes power reception unit having a contactless power reception function using electromagnetic induction; communication unit separately transmitting a plurality of data items in the vicinity of a zero cross point of an alternating current voltage from commercial power supply; and power reception side message division unit dividing a transmission message into a plurality of data items. Contactless power feeder includes power feeding unit having a contactless power feeding function using electromagnetic induction; communication unit separately receiving a plurality of data items in the vicinity of a zero cross point of an alternating current voltage from commercial power supply; and power feeding side message combination unit generating a reception message by combining a plurality of data items. Each of the plurality of data items which are divided by power reception side message division unit and are combined by power feeding side message combination unit has a size transmittable in the vicinity of the zero cross point. According to this configuration, it is possible to accurately perform communication having a large amount of information without being affected by a noise due to contactless power transmission.

Contactless power receiver, contactless power feeder, and contactless power transmission system provided with same

Non-contact power supplying appliance includes a plurality of power supply units, communication unit that sends and receives a communication packet, and controller that controls the power supply units and the communication unit, in order to contactlessly transmit power to non-contact power receiving appliance. Communication unit sends a response-request message for placement detection, and thereafter receives a corresponding response message, so that communication unit completes placement detection of non-contact power receiving appliance. After sending a response-request message for identifying a placement location of the non-contact power receiving appliance, communication unit receives a corresponding response message, so that controller identifies a combination of non-contact power receiving appliance and some of power supply units. Controller controls power supply unit in accordance with a corresponding response message received by communication unit after communication unit sends a response-request message for power control. According to the present aspect, high-precision communication and safe power transmission become possible.

Non-contact power supplying appliance and non-contact power receiving appliance, and non-contact power transmitting system provided therewith

In communication method for communicating via a transmission channel to which first communication apparatuses communicating based on a first communication system, second communication apparatuses communicating based on a second communication system, and third communication apparatuses communicating based on a third communication system are connected, a data transmission domain and a notification domain for notifying a data transmission within the data transmission domain are allocated to the first communication apparatuses, the second communication apparatuses, and the third communication apparatuses, respectively. In the communication method, notices of the data transmission for each of the first communication apparatuses, the second communication apparatuses and the third communication apparatuses are transmitted within the notification domain, and the data transmission domain is reallocated in accordance with the notices transmitted from the first, second and third communication apparatuses.

Communication apparatus, integrated circuit, and communication method

Within a domain of a master device, devices that share a power line as a communications medium monitor signal detection windows to sense network status. The devices transmit sensed network status to the master device. The master device allocates channel resources based on the network statuses communicated by the devices within the domain.

Managing coexistence on a shared power line medium

A frequency band is divided into N subchannels. Sub-channels are first allocated for a power line communication system having a higher priority, such as public communication or the like. Sub-channels for a power line communication system having a relatively low priority, such as in-home communication or the like, are allocated from free subchannels. In this case, the subchannels used by the power line communication system having the high priority are limited to a plurality of consecutive subchannels from an upper side or a lower side of the frequency band.

Communication apparatus enabling coexistence of systems

A communication system includes communication protocols that allow a single network or multiple neighboring networks to increase resource sharing and reduce mutual interference and increase their overall throughput. Various protocols apply to homogenous networks in which all power line communication (PLC) devices of multiple networks are interoperable with respect to full power line communication in a common PHY and to heterogeneous networks having non-interoperable PLC networks which do not employ a common PHY. As to heterogeneous networks, a protocol herein enables coexistence via a special signaling scheme. In homogeneous networks, all nodes can communicate with each other using a common PHY, so that information about one PLC network can be transferred to another PLC network. In heterogeneous networks, not all PLC networks can exchange information using their own native PHY.

Master communication device in a power line communication system and slave communication device in a power line communication system

A coexistence controller which performs management and control of time division for coexistence, is provided in a power line communication modem which has a function as a QoS controller for a QoS type communication system and a power line communication modem for a best-effort type communication system. In the QoS type communication system, by controlling allocation of a communication band in accordance with priorities given to the communication systems by cooperation of the coexistence controller and the QoS controller, the power line communication systems having different schemes can coexist.

Communication apparatus enabling temporal coexistence of systems

A medium access control method is provided in which a control station transmits one specific frame to terminal stations, thereby arranging a schedule of a data transmission time of the control station and each of the terminal stations and allowing a time zone unused by a station for data transmission to be allocated to another station. The control station transmits a schedule frame having defined therein a time occupied by each of the terminal stations, thereby reducing overhead. Also, the completion of the preceding communication performed by another station is detected, thereby effectively using an idle time of a medium and improving transmission efficiency.

Medium access control method and system

A communications device, which performs data communication, includes an AC cycle sensorwhich is connected to a power linesupplied with an a.c. voltage and generates a synchronous signal SS at timing of an a.c. voltage waveform AC of the power line; a data communicatorfor performing data communication; and a communications controllerwhich performs communication of a control signal including information showing at least one of a communications device and a communications standard and controls the data communicator. When the a.c. voltage supplied to the power lineis an N-phase and when the cycle of the a.c. voltage waveform is T, data communication to be performed in a communication period subsequent to the period is controlled on the basis of the control signal included in the period of T/2M on condition that M is a natural multiple of N.

Communications device and communications method

Communication systems that use different physical layer (PHY) protocols can coexist on a communication medium (e.g., a powerline medium) by using an Inter-PHY Protocol (IPP). The different protocols may use different signal modulation schemes but still may have some features in common. The IPP includes a resource sharing mechanism that regulates access to the communication medium by devices functioning as communication devices (for example, devices communicating over a power line). A subset of devices that communicate among each other form a logical network that shares the medium with other logical networks that use either the same PHY protocol or a different PHY protocol.

Managing coexistence among signaling protocols on a shared medium

A communication system includes communication protocols that allow a single network or multiple neighboring networks to increase resource sharing and reduce mutual interference and increase their overall throughput. Various protocols apply to homogenous networks in which all power line communication (PLC) devices of multiple networks are interoperable with respect to full power line communication in a common PHY (specifications, signaling capabilities, modulation scheme, coding scheme, bandwidth, etc.) and to heterogeneous networks in which devices of some PLC networks are not interoperable with PLC devices of other PLC networks with respect to full power line communication given that the devices of the different networks do not employ a common PHY. With respect to heterogeneous networks, a protocol is provided to enable coexistence via a signaling scheme common to all of the devices of the network that allows resource sharing between the devices of the multiple heterogeneous networks. Homogeneous networks are those in which all nodes can communicate with each other using a common PHY, so that information about one PLC network can be transferred to another PLC network. Heterogeneous networks are those in which not all PLC networks can exchange information using their own native PHY, such as where users in different apartments or houses use different devices having different specifications, different signaling capabilities, modulation scheme, coding scheme, bandwidth and the like.

Method, system, integrated circuit, communication module, and computer-readable medium for achieving resource sharing including space and time reuse within a power line communication system

Communication apparatus, communication method, circuit module and integrated circuit

A communication apparatus, which is capable of allowing a plurality of communication systems respectively having different types of communication modes to coexist with one another on a single communication medium, satisfying Qos requirements with the use of only a simple configuration thereof, and minutely setting an exclusive use rate of a medium, is provided. A coexistence signal cycle Tis divided into M time periods by a communication slot unitwhich is constituted of N communication slots. At least one communication slot in the communication slot unitis defined as a 'D-Slot' which can obtain a communication right M/X times during the coexistence signal cycle T, and remaining communication slots other than the D-Slot in the communication slot unitis defined as 'S-Slots' which can obtain the communication right M times during the coexistence signal cycle T. A communication band to be used exclusively in one communication system is allocated in a unit of 1/X of the communication slot D-Slot, and also in a unit of one of the communication slots S-Slots.

Growing community of inventors

Osaka, Japan

Akio Kurobe