Echelon Street Light Bridge ReadMe

Release 1.00, March 2011

Copyright © 2010, 2011 Echelon® Corporation
All Rights Reserved

1         Introduction

This document describes Street Light Bridge Release 1.00. 

Additional information and updates, including service packs and critical updates, may be available at www.echelon.com/slb.  The latest service packs and updates may not be included with your SmartServer.  See Echelon’s Knowledge Base at www.echelon.com/support for answers to frequently asked questions.

 

2         Contents

1      Introduction. 1

2      Contents. 1

3      Release Identification. 1

4      Resource Files. 1

5      Upgrading to SmartServer Release 4.05. 2

6      Preparing the SmartServer 2

7      Known Problems and Workarounds. 3

7.1       System Design Best Practice for Commissioning Street Light Networks. 4

7.2       Predictive Discovery Untested for Large Networks. 5

7.3       Six-Byte Authentication Key Could Break the Device Authentication Key. 5

 

3         Release Identification

This document applies to Street Light Bridge Release 1.00 running with the SmartServer 2.1 software.  Contact Echelon Support (mailto:LonSupport@echelon.com?subject=SmartServer%202.1%20for%20Street%20Light%20Bridge) to obtain the SmartServer 2.1 software for Street Light Bridge applications.  See the SmartServer 2.1 ReadMe document for information about how to verify that you have this release on your computer.

4         Resource Files

A street lighting network uses an Echelon SmartServer as the Segment Controller.  The SmartServer Segment Controller needs a copy of the resource files for each device type (luminaire and Street Light Bridge module) in the street lighting network:

5         Updating to SmartServer 2.1

You can update a SmartServer 2.0 (Release 4.03 or Release 4.04) to SmartServer 2.1 (Release 4.05) by installing the SmartServer 2.1 firmware on a SmartServer 2.0 SR2.  Contact Echelon Support to obtain the SmartServer 2.1 firmware.  See the SmartServer 2.1 ReadMe document for more information.

6         Preparing the SmartServer

To prepare the SmartServer so that it can manage and control the Street Lighting network, perform the following steps:

  1. Load a SmartServer 2.1 image on the SmartServer.  See the SmartServer 2.1 ReadMe document for more information.
  2. Install the SmartServer in the network.  See the i.LON SmartServer 2.0 User’s Guide for more information about installing a SmartServer.
  3. Configure the SmartServer.  See chapter 3 of the Street Light Bridge Integrator’s Guide for more information.
    1. Place the SmartServer in standalone mode.
    2. Specify the channel type for the network (PL-20N, PL-20C, or other channel type).  To configure the channel, perform the following steps:

                                                              i.      Expand the Net network, and then click the LON channel to display the Lon Channel Property page.      

                                                            ii.      From the Setup tab, select the PL-20C, PL-20N, or other appropriate channel type from the Channel Type dropdown listbox.

Important:  The channel type that you select must match the channel type required by local regulations for the area of device deployment.  The channel type must also match the channel settings for all devices that will participate in power line communications with the Segment Controller. 

Important:  A model 76520R Street Light Bridge module uses the CENELEC media access protocol by default.  To change the media access protocol used by the Street Light Bridge module, modify the nciMediaAccess data point.  See Appendix A, “Interoperable Interface for the Street Light Bridge”, in the Street Light Bridge Integrator’s Guide, for a description of this data point.

                                                          iii.      Select the Repeating checkbox to enable repeating on the channel.

    1. Download the latest resource files for Street Light Bridge modules from www.echelon.com/slb.  To copy these files to the Segment Controller:

                                                              i.      Open an FTP connection to the Segment Controller.  See the i.LON SmartServer User’s Guide for more information about using FTP with the Segment Controller.

                                                            ii.      For the Street Light Bridge files, unzip the downloaded file to the Segment Controller’s root folder.  The files should unzip to the correct subfolders.

                                                          iii.      For luminaire files, copy the files from the downloaded (or otherwise provided) resource files to the folder defined by the manufacturer, typically within the Segment Controller /lonworks/Import or /lonworks/types folders.

    1. If necessary, reboot the SmartServer.

See the Street Light Bridge Integrator’s Guide for additional setup information for the Segment Controller.  This manual is available from the www.echelon.com/slb Web page.

For large street lighting networks, install and commission devices within a single segment before installing and commissioning subsequent segments.  The SmartServer Segment Controller can automatically discover and commission any uncommissioned device within the network, but does not discover devices that are already commissioned.  Any devices within the street lighting network intended for another Segment Controller should be already commissioned by that Segment Controller; that is, the only devices that should be discoverable (in the uncommissioned state) by a particular SmartServer Segment Controller should be those devices intended to be controlled by that Segment Controller.

7         Known Problems and Workarounds

This section describes known problems and their workarounds for this release.  Numbers in parentheses at the end of the descriptions are Echelon's internal problem tracking IDs.

7.1      System Design Best Practice for Commissioning Street Light Networks

For a power line communications network, it is important to design the system for the available network bandwidth.  Because Street Light Bridge modules allow deployment of large numbers of devices, it is important to manage the device commissioning process so that you do not oversaturate the network bandwidth.   

The default method for adding a device to the SmartServer Segment Controller is to use the device’s interface (XIF) file.  In this case, the SmartServer Segment Controller automatically defines a 600 second polling interval for each data point defined by the XIF file.  Thus, as you add devices and commission them, the total network traffic load increases because of this data point polling.  The polling traffic then competes with the traffic associated with device commissioning, so that commissioning each device can take a long time to complete.

Workaround:  The SmartServer provides a more robust mechanism for defining devices than using the XIF file:  device templates.  You can create a device template that defines the polling and heartbeat rates for each data point associated with a device.  See Chapter 4 of the i.LON SmartServer 2.0 User’s Guide for more information about creating and using device templates.

Add devices to the Segment Controller using a device template rather than the XIF file:

  1. Add and commission a single device of each type (luminaire and Street Light Bridge module) using the device’s XIF file. 
  2. Create a device template for each device type that you added in step 1.  Ensure that you have exactly one device template for each device type.
  3. Edit the device template to set configuration (General) and driver (LON) properties for each device to set polling interval and heartbeat values for all data points to 0. 
  4. Use the device template for each device type to add and commission all subsequent devices within the street lighting network. 
  5. Wait for all devices to complete the commissioning process.
  6. Edit the added devices, as needed, to set polling intervals and heartbeat values for appropriate data points.  Typically, you set polling rates for input data points to 0, and only poll output data points at a rate that is compatible with the logging requirements for the output data points. 

    If a luminaire provides a complex data type that collects information about the current operating state of the device, polling the feedback data point might prove redundant, and should therefore have a polling rate of 0.  In some cases, data points are used for real time monitoring, and are only polled when the device is brought into focus by the system management tool. 

You could also add functionality to your streetlight management system that sets polling and heartbeat rates after the device commissioning process is complete.  When the system is ready for operation, the streetlight management system would set the polling and heartbeats to values that are appropriate for the available channel bandwidth.

(57520, 57708)

7.2      Predictive Discovery Untested for Large Networks

The SmartServer 2.1 interface includes an option to perform automatic discovery and commissioning of devices within the network.  See chapter 3 of the Street Light Bridge Integrator’s Guide for more information.  This feature has been tested in small Street Lighting networks, but has not been tested for large networks. 

Workaround:  Manually install and commission devices within the network.  See chapter 5 of the Street Light Bridge Integrator’s Guide for more information.  (57520, 57708)

7.3      Six-Byte Authentication Key Could Break the Device Authentication Key

Assigning a six-byte authentication key (for example, using the NodeUtil Node Utility tool) for a SmartServer Segment Controller can break the unused part of the device key, which could lead to a missing the device key.  If the device key is missing, the Segment Controller could be locked.

Workaround:  Use only 12-byte authentication keys when using authentication on the Segment Controller. (57993)

 

Echelon, LON, LonWorks, i.LON, LNS, and LonMaker are registered trademarks of Echelon Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.