Systems And Methods For Conveying Information Using A Control Signal Referenced To Alternating Current (AC) Power

Abstract

Systems and methods convey information from a controller to at least one slave unit using a single wire referenced to an alternating current (AC) power supply. A control signal has a high voltage and a low voltage. The high voltage is greater than a voltage midpoint of the AC power supply and the low voltage is less than the voltage midpoint. The control signal is conveyed through the single wire to each of the at least one slave unit. At each slave unit, a comparison voltage, representative of the voltage midpoint, is generated by dividing substantially midway the potentials between the power lines of the AC power supply and the control signal is compared to the comparison voltage to determine low and high states of the control signal; the low and high states represent the information.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method for transmitting information to a plurality of application circuits via a single wire referenced to alternating current (AC) power, each of the application circuits having a dedicated slave unit for operating the application circuit, the method comprising:
 generating a plurality of slave unit control signals based upon the information, each slave unit control signal comprising
 a high voltage greater than a voltage midpoint of the AC power, the voltage midpoint defining a voltage potential substantially midway between potentials of the AC power, and 
 a low voltage that is less than the voltage midpoint, 
 wherein the high and low voltages vary to embed serial data within the slave unit control signal; 
   transmitting, from the controller, the plurality of slave unit control signals through the single wire to each of the dedicated slave units, wherein each dedicated slave unit is independently controlled based upon address information encoded within the serial data.