This application is the U.S. national phase of International Application No. PCT/EP2019/067119 filed Jun. 27, 2019 which designated the U.S. and claims priority to FR Patent Application No. 1855844 filed Jun. 28, 2018, the entire contents of each of which are hereby incorporated by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a communication sharing method and system for sharing communication between the connected home automation (domotic) equipment units belonging to a first communication network and a remote equipment unit belonging to a second communication network.

The invention is positioned in the field of connected equipment or objects, and a particular application thereof lies in the field of home automation systems.

Description of the Related Art

The term “connected equipment” (unit/s) is understood to refer to any device provided with at least one telecommunication means configured so as to transmit and/or receive an electrical or electromagnetic signal based on at least one predetermined communication protocol. The equipment unit is connected to a communication network or data exchange network, and may be searchable and/or controllable remotely. The connected equipment unit is of any type. It may be, for example, an actuator, a measuring sensor, a control point, etc. Hereinafter, the equipment units connected to a communication network are said to belong to the communication network.

In a known manner, particularly in the field of home automation installations, a variety of equipment units are provided with a communication capability based on a network protocol, such as the IP (for “Internet Protocol”), and are capable of communicating with each other based on a given topology. The connection of home automation equipment units with one another forms a first communication network which is a local network or LAN (for “Local Area Network”), for example a home network. Hereinafter, the connected equipment units belonging to the local network will be referred to as “local equipment units”.

In order to communicate with external equipment units that are outside the local network—also referred to hereinafter as remote equipment units—for example servers, connected to a second communication network which is a wide area network or WAN (for “Wide Area Network”), typically the Internet network, it is normal practice to use a network equipment unit that carries out in particular an address translation between local addresses—also referred to as “private addresses”—on the local network, and addresses of the wide area network also referred to as “public addresses”. In this case, the network equipment unit is said to be implementing an address translation function or NAT (for “Network Address Translation”). It is also known practice to implement a protection functionality, referred to as “firewall” (as per the accepted terminology), in order to ensure a certain level of local network security and prevent digital piracy/hacking.

In known manner, the communication between local equipment units and remote equipment units consists of the transmission and reception of data packets formatted according to at least one chosen communication protocol. The movement of communication packets circulating over a communication network or between communication networks is referred to as network traffic.

It is possible to implement a configuration in order to open one or more communication ports of the network equipment unit so as to allow remote servers, belonging to the second network, to communicate with equipment units of the local network. But such a configuration is complex to implement for a user who is not an IT professional. In addition, the configuration of communication ports may depend on the network equipment unit used.

It is also possible to maintain active the communication sessions between local equipment units and a remote equipment unit, by using the TCP (“Transmission Control Protocol”), each session being maintained until such time as an end of session command is transmitted. This poses a problem because the maintaining of a TCP session involves significant consumption of electrical energy for local and remote equipment units, whereas in a home automation installation, some of the local connected equipment units are powered by battery.

Alternatively, a local equipment unit can use the UDP (“User Datagram Protocol”) in order to contact a remote equipment unit. This communication between a local equipment unit and a remote equipment unit creates a communication channel or communication “hole” (“UDP hole punching” as per accepted terminology) in the network equipment unit that performs the address translation and/or firewall function. This communication channel is maintained active for a predetermined time period in the absence of network traffic. In order to avoid deactivation of the communication channel as a result of a prolonged absence of network traffic, small elementary packets (“keep alive packets” as per accepted terminology) intended to maintain the communication channel active, are sent before the lapsing of the predetermined time period (or “timeout” as per accepted terminology).

Although maintaining of a UDP communication channel entails lower consumption of electrical energy for a connected equipment unit than maintaining of a TCP session, this nevertheless remains a not insignificant level of electricity consumption for a connected home automation equipment unit and more particularly for an autonomous (self-contained) connected home automation equipment unit, powered by battery or rechargeable battery.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The object of the invention is to ameliorate the communication between any connected equipment unit of a first communication network and a remote equipment unit such as a server belonging to a second communication network, while also overcoming the drawbacks of the state of the art.

To this end, the invention provides, according to a first aspect, a communication sharing method for sharing communication between the home automation (domotic) equipment units connected to a first network and a remote equipment unit belonging to a second communication network, the first communication network being connected to the second communication network by a network equipment unit that is adapted so as to enable the communication between at least one connected home automation equipment unit of the first network and said remote equipment unit. This method comprises:the determination of a communication link device for establishing a communication link from among the connected home automation equipment units of the first communication network, as a function of at least one characteristic feature of said connected home automation equipment units; andthe maintenance by said communication link device of a communication channel between the first communication network and the remote equipment unit through said network equipment unit, for the benefit of the other connected home automation equipment units of the first communication network.

Advantageously, the method of the invention makes it possible to determine a communication link device intended to maintain active a shared communication link between all of the connected equipment units of the first network and the remote equipment unit of the second communication network.

Thus, advantageously, the resources consumed by the connected equipment units of the first communication network other than the communication link device, and the resources consumed by the remote equipment unit are reduced as compared to a configuration in which all of the connected home automation equipment units of the first communication network maintain active a communication channel with the remote equipment unit. This reduction in consumption pertains to both electricity resources and computing and radiofrequency resources. Consequently, the useful life of the connected equipment units belonging to the first communication network, and in particular the autonomous connected equipment units, is increased. Likewise, there is reduction in communications passing between the first communication network and the second communication network due to the absence of transmission of small elementary packets intended to maintain active each communication channel. Network traffic is therefore also reduced.

The communication sharing method according to the invention may present one or more of the characteristic features here below, taken into consideration independently or in combination, according to any technically acceptable combinations.

The maintaining of a communication channel includes the regular sending of elementary connection maintenance packets by said communication link device to the remote equipment unit.

The determination of a communication link device depends on at least one characteristic feature from among the set of characteristic features comprising a characteristic feature related to type of electrical power supply, a characteristic feature related to on-board computing capacity, a characteristic feature related to quality of service, a characteristic feature related to spatial position in the first network, a characteristic feature related to the radiofrequency environment.

Each connected home automation equipment unit belonging to the first communication network carries out the determination of a communication link device from among the connected home automation equipment units and effectively implements:the reception of a discovery message originating from at least one other connected home automation equipment unit belonging to said first network, and comprising an identifier of said other connected home automation equipment unit and a characteristic feature value associated with each characteristic feature of said set of characteristic features for said other connected home automation equipment unit;the saving and storing of the characteristic feature values received in a table of characteristic features;the determination of the communication link device as a function of the characteristic feature values saved and stored in the table of characteristic features.

The determination of the communication link device includes a calculation of an overall score associated with said at least one other connected home automation equipment unit as a function of the saved and stored characteristic feature values, and a calculation of a specific overall score, and a comparison of the calculated overall scores, the communication link device having a maximum associated overall score.

The method includes the steps, implemented by the remote equipment unit, as follows:receiving, from at least a plurality of connected home automation equipment units belonging to the first communication network, of a set of global characteristic information items of each connected home automation equipment unit of said plurality, the set of global characteristic information items comprising an identifier of said connected home automation equipment unit and a characteristic feature value associated with each characteristic feature of said set of characteristic features for said connected home automation equipment unit;saving and storing of the values of characteristic features received in a table of characteristic features;calculation of an overall score associated with each connected home automation equipment unit among said plurality of connected home automation equipment units, as a function of the saved and stored characteristic feature values;determination of the communication link device as a function of the calculated overall scores.

The determination of the communication link device includes a calculation of an overall score associated with each connected home automation equipment unit among said plurality of connected home automation equipment units, as a function of the saved and stored characteristic feature values, and a comparison of the calculated overall scores, the communication link device having a maximum associated overall score.

The method further includes a command sending step for sending a command to maintain the communication channel to said determined communication link device.

The method further includes a command sending step for sending a disconnection command to all the connected home automation equipment units other than the determined communication link device.

The determined communication link device operationally implements a communication link function comprising:the reception of a request containing a command, an update, or an information item, to be sent to at least one receiving connected home automation equipment unit;the transmission of said request to said at least one receiving connected home automation equipment unit.

The determined communication link device operationally implements a communication link function comprising:the reception of an event message containing an information item related to the presence of a command, an update, or an information item, to be sent to at least one receiving connected home automation equipment unit;the transmission of an information message to said at least one receiving connected home automation equipment unit, and said receiving connected home automation equipment unit implements, following the reception of said information message, a direct communication channel with said remote equipment unit.

According to a second aspect, the invention relates to a communication sharing system for sharing communication between the home automation equipment units connected to a first communication network and a remote equipment unit connected to a second communication network, the first communication network being connected to the second communication network by a network equipment unit that is adapted so as to enable the communication between at least one connected home automation equipment unit of the first network and said remote equipment unit. This communication sharing system comprises modules that are capable of operationally implementing:the determination of a communication link device for establishing a communication link from among the connected home automation equipment units of the first communication network, as a function of at least one characteristic feature of said connected home automation equipment units; andthe maintenance by said communication link device of a communication channel between the first communication network and the remote equipment unit through said network equipment unit, for the benefit of the other connected home automation equipment units of the first communication network.

According to one feature, each connected home automation equipment unit belonging to the first communication network comprises a communication link determining module for determining a communication link device.

According to one feature, the remote equipment unit comprises a communication link determining module for determining a communication link device.

