Patent attributes
A communication system includes a master device which communicates with a chain of serially-connected slave devices. The master originates messages, each of which is intended for a particular ‘target’ slave device. Each message contains a ‘distance to target device’ value equal to the number of devices between the master and target, and a data packet containing data to be conveyed between the master and target. Each slave device determines if the ‘distance to target device’ value indicates that it is the target. If not, the slave device increments or decrements the value in real time, with no latency, and transmits the modified message to the next slave device until received by the target device. In one embodiment, the target device may place data in the data packet, and the slave devices are arranged to buffer the data back to the master device.
