KR20040110941A - Remote controlling method for device in home network - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method of remotely controlling a device in a home network. In particular, the present invention relates to a device discovery interworking function without requiring a resource for maintaining a connection between a UDCOWEB agent and a server. The purpose is to improve. The present invention for this purpose, in the UPnP home network control method for directly controlling the remote control by connecting directly to the corresponding device in the home network through the URL of the device included in the specification information stored in the web server, the device in the home network to find the specification information A first step of extracting; a second step of receiving a public address from a home gateway and converting address information in the specification information; and a third step of connecting to a web server to transmit the specification information and disconnecting from the web server. Characterized in that configured to perform the steps.

Description

REMOTE CONTROLLING METHOD FOR DEVICE IN HOME NETWORK}

The present invention relates to UPnP ^™ technology, and more particularly to a method for remotely controlling a device in a home network.

The communication between two or more devices in a home is called a home network.

The proliferation of home networking has transformed the existing PC-oriented network environment from home to the environment where various sub-network technologies are used, and the necessity of a technology that can network these home appliances in an independent and unified manner using IP protocol. UPnP ^™ (hereinafter, abbreviated as UPnP) technology has been proposed by MS.

UPnP technology is based on distributed and open networking architectures, enabling each appliance in a home network to be seamlessly peer-to-peer without management.

In this case, the UPnP technology adopts standard networking technologies such as IP and HTTP as components of distributed and open networking structures, so that the UPnP technology can operate independently of an operating system, a platform, and a transmission medium.

Currently, UPnP devices based on UPnP device architecture 1.0 have large addressing, discovery, specification, control, and event (as shown in the signal flow diagram showing the UPnP networking step of FIG. 1). Plug & Play function is available through 6 functions of Event) and Presentation.

The discovery step allows discovery of the desired UPnP device to occur distributed and independent using IP multicast without a centralized database (DB) with only information on the network.

The specification step stipulates that the user and the other device provide the information in an XML (eXtensible Markup Language) manner so that detailed product information and service information can be queried.

In the control step, the user can control the device using the information obtained in the specification step.

However, since the discovery structure of UPnP devices using IP multicast cannot guarantee that IP multicast services are normally performed in the Internet range, the control of UPnP devices using information obtained through the discovery of UPnP devices is also possible through the Internet. You will not.

Accordingly, UPnP Device Control Over WEB enables UDCOWEB to control the UPnP device through the Internet by establishing and maintaining a connection between an agent in a home network and a server on the Internet. A structure has been proposed.

An example of such a prior art is 2003 Patent Application No. 25185 (application date April 21, 2003).

That is, the conventional UPnP device control service through the Internet discovers UPnP devices on the network through the device discovery interworking function between the UDCOWEB agent in the home network and the UDCOWEB server existing on the Internet, and establishes a connection between the agent and the server to authenticate the user. If this succeeds, it sends the description information of the device found in the home network to the server while maintaining the connection, and the user connects to the server and checks the presentation URL in the specification information after authentication. Connects to a UPnP device and controls the device.

However, in the related art, the UDCOWEB server is required to allocate resources for maintaining a connection, but there is a problem in that it is limited in extending server processing capacity by always maintaining the connection between the home gateway and the UDCOWEB server.

Accordingly, the present invention improves the processing power of the server by saving the resources of the UDCOWEB server by performing a device discovery interworking function without requiring resources for maintaining a connection between the UDCOWEB agent and the server in order to improve the conventional problems. An object of the present invention is to provide a method for remotely controlling a device in a home network.

1 is a signal flow diagram illustrating a general UPnP networking process.

2 is a block diagram of a system for an embodiment of the present invention.

3 is a signal flow diagram illustrating a UDCOWEB networking process in an embodiment of the invention.

4 is an operational flowchart of a UDCOWEB specification transmission step in an embodiment of the present invention.

5 is an operational flowchart of a new UDCOWEB specification transmission step after address release in an embodiment of the present invention.

Explanation of symbols on the main parts of the drawings

211: home gateway 212: UDCOWEB agent

220: UDCOWEB server

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a method of controlling a UPnP home network, the method comprising: discovering a device in a home network and extracting specification information; receiving a public address from a home gateway and converting address information in the specification information; A second step of connecting to a web server, transmitting the specification information and releasing a connection with the web server, and a corresponding URL in the home network through a URL of a device included in the specification information stored in the web server. It is configured to perform a fourth step of connecting directly to the device to remote control.

In addition, in order to achieve the above object, in the UPnP home network control method of remotely connecting to a corresponding device in a home network via a URL of a device included in specification information stored in a web server, Checking whether there is a public address change event; converting the address information in the current specification information into a newly changed public address when the public address change event is confirmed; and connecting the web server to the specification information in which the public address is changed. And transmitting and disconnecting the web server.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a system for an embodiment of the present invention, as shown therein, which stores specification information for devices 213 and 214 in a home network, and the specification when a user is connected and authenticated on the web. UPnP Device Control Over WEB (UDCOWEB) server 220 that provides information, and devices 213 and 214 in the home network are found to extract specification information of the corresponding device 213 and 214 and the UDCOWEB server 220 And the UDCOWEB agent 212 storing the specification information of the devices 213 and 214 extracted above in the UDCOWEB server 220 and then releasing the connection with the UDCOWEB server 220. When the UDCOWEB agent 212 is connected to the UDCOWEB server 220 at the request of the UDCOWEB agent 212 and is connected from the remote device 230 using the URL of the device identified by the UDCOWEB server 220, the home is accessed. Net The configuration includes a home gateway 211 for connecting to the device in size.

Referring to the operation and effect of the embodiment of the present invention configured as described above are as follows.

In FIG. 2, the remote device 230 may be configured as a portable terminal such as a desktop PC, a notebook PC, a PDA, a mobile communication terminal, and the like.

First, the UDCOWEB agent 212 is present in the home network, and the UPnP device in the home network advertises its presence or directly searches for the UPnP device in the discovery phase of the UPnP device architecture 1.0. Discovers UPnP device 213 (214).

Subsequently, the UDCOWEB agent 212 establishes a connection to the UDCOWEB server 220 and authenticates based on the home agent authentication information, and then specifies the specification information of the UPnP devices 213 and 214 found in the home network. To send). At this time, if the URL-based address information in the description information is private address information due to the use of NAT, the UDCOWEB agent 212 obtains public address information from the NAT module of the home gateway 211 to obtain address information in the specification information. Replace with public address information.

Thereafter, the UDCOWEB agent 212 transmits the specification information to the UDCOWEB server 220 and releases the connection with the UDCOWEB server 220.

Accordingly, the UDCOWEB server 220 classifies and manages device specification information transmitted from the UDCOWEB agent 212 based on HomeNetBind table information using the user authentication information as a search key.

Thereafter, the user accesses the UDCOWEB server 220 using the notebook PC 230, authenticates the user, checks the presentation URL in the specification information, connects to the corresponding UPnP device in the home network, and controls the device. do. At this time, the user authentication information (username) used when accessing the UDCOWEB server 220 is used as a search key of the homenet bind table in the UDCOWEB 220 so that the UDCOWEB agent 212 passes through the authentication step with the UDCOWEB server 220. It is used to retrieve the authentication information and device specification information to be transmitted.

That is, in the embodiment of the present invention, the networking process between the UDCOWEB agent 212 and the UDCOWEB server 220 is shown in Figure 3, the description (Description), home network connection (HomeNetworkBind), remote control (RemoteControl) It is operated in steps, which will be described in detail for each step as follows.

The description step is a step of notifying the UDCOWEB server 220 of the specification information of the UPnP device 213 and 214 in the home network discovered by the UDCOWEB agent 212, and checking whether the UPnP device uses a private address. According to the check result, the same operation as that in the operation flowchart of FIG. 4 is performed.

If the UPnP devices 213 and 214 are using a private address, the UDCOWEB agent 212 obtains a public address from the NAT module of the home gateway 211 and converts the address information in the specification information. At this time, if the home gateway 211 is a UPnP IGD (Internwt Gateway Device), the public address is granted using the AddPortMapping action. If the home gateway 211 is a general gateway other than the UPnP IGD, the public gateway is given a public address using telnet communication.

However, when the public address used by the home gateway is released after a certain idle period has elapsed and a new public address is assigned, the address information of the specification document is converted and transmitted to the server again.

The home network connection step may include specification information of a device corresponding to a home network to which a user belongs based on information on a HomeNetBind table whose user authentication information is a search key among device specification information provided by the UDCOWEB agent 212. It is a step of finding them separately. This means that a user remotely located outside the home network successfully completes user authentication after accessing the UDCOWEB server 220 using the notebook PC 230, thereby obtaining device specification information in the home network classified based on user identification. It means to inquire.

The remote control step is to directly control a device by accessing a corresponding UPnP device in a home network using a presentation URL in a device specification that is inquired remotely.

When the service provider provides the home network, the user releases the address in order to alleviate the IPv4 address shortage problem if the user does not use the network connection for a certain period of time.

If the UPnP device in the home network uses a private address, the UDCOWEB agent 212 obtains the public address information from the home gateway 211 and converts the address information in the description document, but if the address is released to the new address. If it is changed, the UDCOWEB agent 212 needs to convert address information in the specification document again. This will be described with reference to the operation flowchart of FIG. 5.

When the public address is released, if the home gateway 211 serving the home network is UPnP IGD, the newly provided public address value is notified to the UDCOWEB agent 212 using the UPnP event.

At this time, the UDCOWEB agent 212 receives the changed public address as an event and converts the address information in the UPnP device specification document into the changed public address.

Thereafter, the UDCOWEB agent 212 establishes a connection to the UDCOWEB server 220 and sends a device specification document through an authentication step, and then disconnects the connection with the UDCOWEB server 220.

In addition, the above-described process of transmitting the device specification when the new public address is allocated after the UDCOWEB agent 212 is released from the UDCOWEB server 220, the UDCOWEB even when the device specification information in the home network is changed. After connecting to the server 220 to authenticate the changed device specification information.

As described in detail above, in the present invention, a user connects to a USCOWEB server through the Internet by interworking a UDCOWEB agent existing in a home network and a UDCOWEB server existing on the Internet so that discovery of UPnP devices can be made through the Internet. It can control the UPnP device in the home network to which it belongs.

In particular, the present invention has the effect of improving the processing capacity of the server by saving the resources of the UDCOWEB server by performing the device discovery interworking function without requiring resources for maintaining the connection between the UDCOWEB agent and the server.

Claims (2)

In the UPnP home network control method for remote control by directly connecting to the corresponding device in the home network through the URL of the device included in the specification information stored in the web server, A first step of discovering devices in a home network and extracting specification information; Receiving a public address from a home gateway and converting address information in the specification information; Connecting to a web server, transmitting the specification information, and performing a third step of releasing a connection with the web server. In the UPnP home network control method for remote control by directly connecting to the corresponding device in the home network through the URL of the device included in the specification information stored in the web server, A first step of checking whether there is a public address change event from the home gateway, A second step of converting address information in the current specification information into a newly changed public address when the public address change event is confirmed above; And a third step of connecting to a web server to transmit specification information of which the public address is changed and disconnecting from the web server.