US 11,838,202 B2
Master device and communication method
Yuina Nakashio, Aichi (JP)
Assigned to MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC CORPORATION, Tokyo (JP)
Appl. No. 17/795,237
Filed by Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Tokyo (JP)
PCT Filed Mar. 13, 2020, PCT No. PCT/JP2020/011199
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Jul. 26, 2022,
PCT Pub. No. WO2021/181682, PCT Pub. Date Sep. 16, 2021.
Prior Publication US 2023/0066623 A1, Mar. 2, 2023
Int. Cl. H04L 45/00 (2022.01); H04L 12/28 (2006.01)
CPC H04L 45/20 (2013.01) [H04L 12/28 (2013.01)] 12 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A master device that is connected with a plurality of slave devices by communication cables and is included in a network system to communicate while sharing cyclic data, the master device comprising:
configuration information acquiring circuitry to acquire a phase difference of each of the slave devices determined based on a number of other slave devices to be relayed when the each slave device communicates with the master device; and
transmission timing determining circuitry to calculate a hop count from a number of other slave devices to be relayed when the each slave device communicates with the master device or another slave device based on the phase difference acquired by the configuration information acquiring circuitry and to determine a transmission timing for each slave device to transmit the cyclic data in such a way that communications with a same hop count are performed at a same timing by the plurality of slave devices using the communication cables each connecting different pairs of the slave devices.