| CPC G06F 11/141 (2013.01) [G06F 11/3027 (2013.01); G06F 11/3051 (2013.01); G06F 11/0757 (2013.01); G06F 11/2005 (2013.01)] | 18 Claims |
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1. A system for fault identification and fault handling in a multiport power sourcing device, the system comprising:
the multiport power sourcing device comprising a plurality of ports,
wherein the plurality of ports comprises a plurality of slave ports and a master port,
wherein power distribution across the plurality of ports in the multiport power sourcing device is controlled by circuitry functioning as a coordinated pair of master and slaves using a request-response communication over a shared communication interface placed within the multiport power sourcing device, wherein the master is protocol agnostic and has one instance and the slaves have one instance per port,
wherein the slaves perform power delivery over a physical interface and the master maintains a record of power allocated to each of the slaves and controls power distribution across the plurality of ports,
wherein each of the plurality of ports comprises a processor associated with the master and the slaves executing corresponding instructions,
wherein the master is configured to send a slave discovery request to each of the plurality of slave ports, receive a slave discovery response from a plurality of slave ports that are physically present on the multiport power sourcing device, and add data associated with each of one or more discovered slave ports to a slave port list in a master database upon receiving the slave discovery response from the plurality of slave ports;
wherein the master is configured to reset a watchdog timer in each of the plurality of ports together by sending a watchdog refresh instruction periodically to each of the plurality of ports;
wherein each of the plurality of ports generates a watchdog timer timeout notification upon failing to receive the watchdog refresh instruction from the master due to at least one first fault associated with the multiport power sourcing device;
each of plurality of ports generates its corresponding port reset upon the watchdog timer timeout notification to resolve at least one first fault associated with a corresponding port;
each of the plurality of ports comprises a role change staggered timer which is triggered upon the watchdog timer timeout notification of the corresponding port, which is reset upon receiving the watchdog refresh instruction from the master, wherein the role change staggered timer times out upon failing to receive the watchdog refresh instruction, thereby indicating at least one second fault associated with the multiport power sourcing device; and
one of the plurality of slave ports, for which the role change staggered timer times out first, performs a role change to start functioning as a new master port and redistribute power to the plurality of ports for restoring power equilibrium in the multiport power sourcing device, each of the plurality of ports monitors and delivers power to one or more connected devices, for handling the at least one first fault, the at least one second fault, at least one third fault, or a combination thereof corresponding to one of temporary or permanent faults, within the multiport power sourcing device.
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