METHOD OF ASSOCIATING OR RE-ASSOCIATING DEVICES IN A CONTROL NETWORK

摘要

This invention relates to a method of associating or re-associating devices in a control network including control zones to respective zone controllers (ZCs) controlling the control zones. In a first step, an associating or re-associating timer (ZC_REASSC_TIMER) window is initialized at the (ZCs) defining the time during which said associating or re-associating of the devices takes place. In a second step, during the (ZC_REASSC_TIMER) window zone specific information (ZN_SPEC) message sage is transmitted, the (ZN_SPEC) message including information about the devices expected to be in the zones controlled by the (ZCs). In a third step, it is compared whether the zone specific information contained in the (ZN_SPEC) received by the devices includes device specific information that match with local device specific information associated to the devices. In case the comparing results in that a pre-defined matching criteria is fulfilled an association or re-association request message (RA_REQ) is sent from the devices to the zone controllers (ZCs) where the pre-defined matching criteria was met. The (RA_REQ) message including device description parameters and indicates a request from the devices to join the control zones controlled by said (ZCs). Finally, it is determined whether the association or re-association of the respective devices is to be confirmed by means of comparing, by the respective (ZCs) receiving the (RA_REQ) message, the device description parameters included in the (RA_REQ) message match with zone specific information included in the (ZN_SPEC).