System for monitoring a model of data ports interconnections

Description of the invention

The invention relates to a data port connection structure monitoring system, and more particularly to a system and method for determining the data port connection structure without the need for special cables or program tables.

Problems with tracing the connection model between different ports on a local network are known to those skilled in the art. A system corresponding to this problem is described in US Patent No. 5,226,120 entitled Apparatus and Method of Monitoring the Status of a Local Area Network. The patent is mainly concerned with monitoring the logical connection model between network hubs and workstations and further includes at least one electrically coupled output controller for sending a signal and at least one input signal receiver electrically coupled to at least one socket contact.

Another system dealing with the problem of tracking data port connections is described in US Patent No. 5,483,467 entitled Patching Panel Scanner. This patent describes a programming table scanner that automatically and continuously examines the connection arrangement of various ports such as computer ports and user ports. In such a system, the connection between the ports is provided by programming cables or alternatively by an internal connection device in the programming tables.

In such a system, in order to determine the connection model of different ports, a cable must connect these ports and send a signal to the scanner indicating the connection status of a given port. In the age of modem-equipped computers, it is now difficult to use a cable for this purpose, as most modem data cables used to connect different devices have to meet a certain standard in the industry. For example, a standard cable, such as an eight-wire RJ45 cable, has individual wires adapted to work with an RJ45 port. There are no loose wires that allow connectivity checking.

Therefore, in known scanner systems, the ports must be interconnected via a programming table which requires a special programming cable or an interconnection device in the programming tables. Under no circumstances should the ports be connected directly with standard cables. While there is clearly a need for a scanner system that can use standard cables, the industry has not been able to develop such a system.

The object of the present invention is therefore to provide a port connectivity monitoring and determination system that overcomes the drawbacks of the known system described above.

In particular, it is an object of the present invention to provide a port connectivity monitoring and determination system that does not require special programming tables or programming cables.

More particularly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a port connectivity monitoring and determination system that uses standard interconnect cables.

The subject of the invention is a system for monitoring the structure of connections of data ports that are connected to each other by means of a multi-core cable, each port having a socket, and the multi-core cable having a plug at each end of the cable mating with the respective socket, characterized in that it comprises:

a socket contact for positioning each of a plurality of adjacent sockets;

an external contact provided for each of the plurality of plugs, the external contacts making an electrical connection with the socket contact when the plugs mate with the sockets, a suitable external conductor connected between the external contact for the plug at each end of the cable;

at least one electrically coupled output driver for outputting a signal to at least one of said socket contacts; at least one input signal receiver electrically coupled to at least one socket contact to receive said signal sent by said output signal driver;

a microprocessor coupled to said output signal controller and said input signal receiver to control said signal sent by said output signal driver and to detect said signal received by said input signal receiver, the microprocessor interpreting said signal to determine a connection pattern of said ports data; and

An output indicator coupled to said microprocessor to indicate a connection pattern of data ports defined by said microprocessor. Preferably, the microprocessor is arranged to determine the data port connection model by the step of sending a signal to one of the socket contacts and determining which of the input signal receivers has received said signal and repeating this step for each of the other socket contacts.

Preferably, the multicore cable for each of the data ports is a multicore standard cable.

Preferably, the multicore cable is an RJ45 cable.

Preferably, the multicore cable is an RJ11 cable.

Preferably, the system comprises a plurality of data ports, each of which includes a standardized contact.

Preferably, the circuit comprises a standard pin for each external contact.

Preferably, the system comprises a diagnostic probe with a tip for contacting said external contacts.

Preferably, the system comprises a probe input receiver electrically coupled to the tip of said diagnostic probe.

Preferably, when a microprocessor is connected to a sampler input receiver to detect signals received by said sampler input receiver, said microprocessor interpreting said signals to determine a data port connection model.

Preferably, the external contact is a pin.

Preferably, said pin is spring assisted.

Preferably, the system comprises:

LCD module located adjacent to the socket contact; and an LCD driver coupled with an LCD module and a microprocessor.

The figures in the drawing facilitate the understanding of the invention, Figure 1A is prior art (described in a sheet of Figure 1A / 14) and is a perspective illustration of an actual RJ45 cable that can be adapted to work with the present system;

Figure 1B is a perspective illustration of the RJ45 cable of Figure 1A that is provided with an adapter jacket in accordance with the present invention;

Figure 1C is an isolated perspective illustration of an adapter jacket according to the present invention which is adapted to the plug of an RJ45 cable;

figure 2 is a front view of a plurality of RJ45 sockets equipped with an adapter card according to the present invention;

Figure 3 is a simplified schematic illustration of the subject connectivity monitoring system;

Figure 4 is a simplified schematic illustration that shows the relationship between output drivers, socket contacts and receiver latches;

figures 5A, 5B, 5C show various other standard cables that can be adapted to work with the subject system;

figures 6A, 6B, 6C show various standard cables that can be adapted to work with the subject system;

figures 7A, 7B and 7C illustrate various other standard cables that can be adapted to work with the subject system;

Figure 8 is a simplified schematic illustration of a subject connectivity monitoring system including an optional diagnostic probe;

Figure 9 is a simplified schematic illustration that shows the relationship between output drivers, socket contacts, receiver latches and probe input latch;

figure 10 shows an embodiment where the external contact is a pin which is spring assisted;

Figure 11 shows an embodiment where the external contact is located in the plug itself;

Figure 12 illustrates an adapter strip that is made of a flexible strip;

Figure 13 is a simplified schematic illustration of a subject connectivity monitoring system including an optional diagnostic probe and LCD modules;

Figure 14 is a simplified schematic illustration showing the relationship between output drivers, socket contacts, receiver latches, probe input latch, and LCD module drivers.

To electronically determine connectivity from one port to another, it is usually known that an electrical wire must connect one port to the other. While this principle is known, in the modem era where many standardized multicore cables such as RJ11 and RJ45 are used, it is difficult to find this dedicated strand for connectivity checking purposes as each strand of the cable is used for a standardized purpose that may interfere with connectivity test operations. While it is possible to share an existing strand in the cable for scanning operations, this would require an additional circuit to distinguish between signals used for scanning purposes and signals used for other purposes such as data transmission. Moreover, in many cases it may not be possible to efficiently share an existing wire or cable.

The subject connectivity monitoring system provides a dedicated cable that can be attached to an existing cable. This cable interacts with an adapter card that is attached to the port to which the cable is to be attached. While a specific cable-port combination using a common standard such as RJ45 will be shown in describing the preferred embodiment of the present invention, it should be noted that it is intended to illustrate only, and not to limit the present invention to this illustrative example.

Figure 1a shows an RJ45 outer cable 3 with a plug 5. Although only one end of the cable is shown in Figure 1a for purposes of illustration, it should be understood that a similar plug is fitted to the other end of the cable. RJ45 plug 5 has eight standardized contact points 6. To provide an additional contact point for the scanning operation, an adapter jacket 7 (Fig. 1c) is developed that attaches to the RJ45 jacket as shown in Fig. 1b. This adapter jacket attaches to a pin 5 at both ends of the cable 3 (although only one is shown in the figure). An additional contact point for the search operation is provided by an outer contact 8 located on the outer side of the adapter jacket 7. The outer conductor 9 connects this outer contact 8 to a plug 5 at each end of the cable 3 so that the contacts 8 at each end are electrically connected to each other.

Fig. 2 shows a plurality of RJ45 sockets which are standard sockets for mating with a standard RJ45 plug. These sockets may be ports for network equipment such as a Base-T node, PABX, and a button telephone system, or they may be part of a programming table, although a special programming table is not required for the system to function properly. To provide a contact point for the outer 8 of the adapter jacket 7, an adapter card 14 is provided above the sockets 12, each of the sockets 12 having a socket contact 15. This socket contact 15 is arranged such that when an RJ45 plug 5 having an adapter jacket 7 is provided, as shown in Fig. 1B, is inserted into the socket 12 of Fig. 2, then a contact 8 of the adapter jacket 7 electrically cooperates with a socket contact 15 in the adapter card 14. Although the adapter card 14 is shown here as having multiple socket contacts 15, it is entirely possible, and sometimes desirable, that the adapter card 14 has only one socket contact which is used on a single insulated socket.

Fig. 3 shows schematically the system of interest 1. Adapter card 14 of Fig. 2 is coupled to an output driver 18 and an input receiver 19. As shown in more detail in Fig. 4, the output driver 18 has a plurality of output drivers 20. and the input signal receiver 19 has a plurality of latches 25 (other similar electronic devices may be used in place of the latches). Each of the socket contacts 15 is uniquely coupled to one output driver 20 and one latch 25. The output driver 18 and the input signal receiver 19 are both coupled to a microprocessor 21, which is in turn coupled to a communications interface 22. The i system may be coupled to a local network 23 or to an output indicator 24 to communicate connectivity information.

Both the output signal driver and the input signal receiver may be implemented with standardized integrated circuits. The main function of the output signal driver 18 is to provide a plurality of output drivers 20 that address adapter pins 15 and serve to send a signal to those pins 15 when instructed to do so by microprocessor 21. The main function of the input signal receiver 19 is to provide a plurality of latches 25 (or other similar devices) that also address contacts 15 and receive the signal sent by

Output signal drivers. The communication interface 22 may be implemented with standardized devices currently available for coupling the microprocessor 21 to the local network 23 and electronic devices.

To describe system 1 in more detail, the adapter card 14 shown in Fig. 3 is positioned above the port slots (not shown in Fig. 3 but shown in Fig. 2). The microprocessor 21 has re-assigned one output driver to constitute the first driver and has designated a socket contact that is connected as the first contact. The latch in input module 19 that is connected to the designated first contact is designated as the first latch. The port corresponding to the first pin and socket is treated as the first port. Another driver is designated as the second driver and its corresponding socket contact is designated as the second contact, and its corresponding latch is designated as the second latch. The same labeling scheme applies to the third, fourth, fifth, etc. driver / contact / latch groups, so that each group is uniquely labeled. Of course, these designations are somewhat arbitrary, and a particular number or scheme of the designations is not important as long as the individual groups can be unequivocally traced by the microprocessor 21.

Initially, all socket contacts 15 are low and no signal is sent to them by the output signal driver 18. To monitor connectivity of the various ports, microprocessor 21 causes the designated first output controller to output a pulsed signal to socket contact 15, which is designated by the microprocessor. 21 as the first contact. As a result, the first socket contact is high, which causes the first latch to appear high also at the input signal receiver 19. After the signal has been sent, the microprocessor 21 searches the input signal receiver 19 for the existence of a latch having a high state. If only the first latch is high, then the microprocessor 21 determines that no valid connection has been made between the first port and the other port. However, if a port other than the first port, i.e., port one, is high, e.g., port seven, then microprocessor 21 determines that port one is validly connected to port seven. Once the connectivity state of a port one is determined, this result is stored in memory, and the same process is repeated for port two, and so on, until a connection state is determined for all ports.

While the present system may use a different search scheme, the scheme described above is used in the preferred embodiment. The advantage of the scheme described above is that it allows any port to be connected to any other port. This is unlike programming table lookup systems where it may be necessary to label one table as the input table and another table as the output table, and use cable nodes to connect a port on the output table to some port on the input table. The cable cannot connect, for example, a port in the input table to another port of the same input table. This feature is especially useful for the present invention as no special programming tables are needed and thus the ports can be randomly arranged without any particular ordering.

In some situations, the user may wish to know the identity of a particular data port that has been equipped with the present invention. In legacy systems, if a port does not have a proper label on the socket side, it is difficult for the user to identify the port without tracing the port's wired connection all the way to its source. To overcome this problem, the subject system may optionally include a diagnostic probe that assists in identifying a port simply by tapping a socket pin corresponding to the port the user wishes to identify.

Figure 8 shows a block diagram of the subject system incorporating such a diagnostic probe. As shown in FIG. 8, the probe 80 has an electrically conductive tip 82. This tip 82 is electrically connected to the input probe module 84. This sampler input module 84 is coupled to a microprocessor 21. As shown in more detail in FIG. 9, sampler input module 84 generally includes a single latch 27 (or other similar device) for receiving an electrical signal.

To determine which socket contact 15 is connected to terminal 82 of diagnostic tester 80, microprocessor 21 continuously checks the state of input probe module 84. As explained above, the output module continuously sends an electrical signal to each of the female contacts 15. Since each of the female contacts 15 is uniquely addressed by the output driver 18, each female contact 15 can be uniquely tracked. Therefore, mi6

The drop-processor 21 is always able to uniquely determine which socket contact 15 is actually sending the electrical signal via the output signal driver 18 at any given time. Initially, when probe 80 tip 82 is not in contact with any of the socket contacts, probe input module 84 is low as it has not yet received any electrical signal. When the tip 82 contacts one of the socket contacts 15, however, the probe input module 84 goes high. By detecting which socket contact 15 of the output driver 18 has sent the signal when the probe input module 84 goes high, the microprocessor 21 is able to determine which socket contact 15 has contacted the probe terminal 82. The data port corresponding to that specific socket contact 15 can then be identified.

To further assist in identifying data ports and facilitate greater flexibility of the subject system, it may optionally include an LCD module 100 for each of the ports as shown in Figure 13. These LCD modules 100 are mounted at the data ports and coupled to the liquid crystal module 102 A detailed diagram is shown in Fig. 14. The liquid crystal module 102 generally includes a plurality of output drivers 28 that are uniquely coupled to LCD modules 100. LCD modules 100 will display information related to a given port or row of ports. For example, an LCD module may show the device that is attached to a port, a user name, an IP address, etc. The LCD module may be used in conjunction with probe 80 such that by touching a socket contact of a specific port, the microprocessor sends information regarding that port to the corresponding LCD module. the socket contact which is in contact with the probe 80. The LCD modules 100 may also implement an interactive function where the user may select various options based on a simple list such as a YES / NO list scheme where the user may mark his choice by touching a socket contact (or alternatively a separate designated contact area of ​​the LCD modules) with a probe 80 While the LCD modules 100 are shown as separate units herein, it should be understood that one continuous bar of LCD modules could be used.

While the present invention has been demonstrated using the RJ45 standard, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that it may be practiced using other existing standards. Some such examples are shown in Figures 5, 6 and 7, where the current SC connectors, ST connectors and BNC connectors are equipped with an adapter jacket, and their respective parts are equipped with an adapter card.

Figure 5A shows connector 30 according to the SC standard. Fig. 5B shows an adapter jacket 31 with a contact 32 that can be adapted through an SC standard connector. Fig. 5C shows the sockets adapted by SC connectors equipped with adapter cards 33. In Figure 5, the sockets of SC connectors 35 have been adapted with adapter cards 34 with adapter contact points 36.

Figure 6A shows connector 40 of the ST standard. Fig. 6B shows an adapter shell 41 with a contact 42 that can be adapted through an ST standard connector. Fig. 6C shows adapter sockets adapted through ST connectors equipped with ST connector adapter cards 43. In figure 6, ST connectors 45 are equipped with adapter cards 44 with corresponding pin connectors 46,

Figure 7A shows connector 50 of the BNC standard. Figure 7B shows an adapter jacket 51 with a pin 52 that can be mapped to a standard BNC connector. Figure 7C shows an adapter jacket to fit a standard BNC connector resulting in a customized BNC connector 53. In Figure 7, the sockets 55 of the BNC connectors are equipped with adapter cards 54 with adapter contact points 56.

In an alternate embodiment of the present invention, the outer contact 8 of the adapter shell 7 (as shown in Fig. 1c) is a pin 60 as shown in Fig. 10. In this embodiment, pin 60 is slidably inserted into a sleeve 62 which is positioned within the adapter shell. sheath 64. This contact pin 60 is supported by a spring 66 which rests within the sleeve 62 and transmits a stress to the pin 60 when pressed in the direction shown by arrow 65. The stress imparted by the spring 66 allows the contact pin 60 to make better contact with the socket contact 15 of the adapter card 14 (FIG. 2). It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that while a spring is shown here, spring 66 may be replaced by other devices that can transmit the appropriate stress to pin 60.

In another embodiment of the present invention, the external contact is located inside the standardized plug itself. An example of such a solution is shown in Fig. 11. The contact pin 60 is here located on the RJ45 plug 72 itself. Similar to the embodiment shown in Fig. 10, contact pin 60 is slidably inserted into sleeve 62 and supported by spring 66. However, it should be understood that external contact is possible without sleeve 62 and spring 66. In this embodiment, the socket contact is located inside the socket itself to provide contact with the contact pin 60.

In yet another embodiment of the present invention, a flexible band may be used to form an adapter strip 90 as shown in Fig. 12, which is an embodiment of an adapter card. This adapter strip 90 can be provided with an adhesive so that it can be advantageously pasted at the sockets. The adapter strip 90 includes a main body 92 and a head portion 93 which are made of a flexible strip which is a common substrate material currently used to support electrical circuits. Main body 92 has a plurality of contacts 94 that are arranged in accordance with the spacing of the data ports at which the adapter strip is to be placed. Rows of contacts, e.g., as shown in Fig. 12, may be used to accommodate two rows of holes located above and below adapter strip 90. However, an adapter strip with only one row is possible. Each pin 94 is connected by a wire, such as a wire that terminates in a wired strip 96 at the head portion 93. The wire strips 96 provide a convenient way to electrically fit adapter strip 90 to output driver 18 and input receiver 19.

In yet another embodiment of the present invention, the female contact is in the form of a port or socket that fits snugly with the external contact. In yet another embodiment of the present invention, the adapter jacket is integrated with a standardized multi-core cable.

The present invention may be embodied in other specific forms without departing from the spirit or essential features of the invention. The presently illustrated embodiments are therefore to be considered illustrative and not restrictive in all respects, and the scope of the invention is defined by the appended claims and includes all variations within the meaning and scope of equivalence of these claims.