Note : Les descriptions sont présentées dans la langue officielle dans laquelle elles ont été soumises.
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This invention relates to a method of effecting full-duplex
transmission of bit (binary digit) streams serially and in bit-synchronism
on a bus between two terminals, and to apparatus for carrying out the
method.
It is known to transmit data bytes bit-serially on a bus
from one terminal to another. In the prior art, in order to make such
transmission Full-duplex, separate busses have been used for the two
directions of transmission, or multiplexing schemes such as TAM (time
division multiplexing) have been used. Such prior art arrangements have
the disadvantage of requiring an increased bandwidth, either by using more
than one bus or by multiplexing signals on one bus.
An object of this invention is to provide a method of
effecting full-duplex transmission, of bit streams serially and in
bit-synchronism on a bus between two terminals, and apparatus for carrying
out the method, in which this disadvantage is avoided or reduced.
According to one aspect, this invention provides a method of
effecting full-duplex transmission of bit (binary digit) streams serially
and in bit-synchronism on a bus between two terminals, comprising the
steps of: transmitting the bit stream from one terminal to the bus in the
form of pulses of a first polarity representing bits of one binary value
and the absence of such pulses representing bits of the other binary
value; transmitting the bit stream from the other terminal to the bus in
the form of pulses of a second polarity, opposite to the first polarity,
representing bits of one binary value and the absence of such pulses
representing bits of the other binary value; and, in each terminal:
detecting pulses on the bus to produce a received bit stream; and
exclusively-oring the received bit stream with the bit stream transmitted
by the terminal to recover the bit stream transmitted by the other
terminal.
Thus the invention provides for full-duplex transmission on
a bus by using opposite polarity pulses for the two transmission
directions, whereby the bus itself provides an exclusive or operation, and
by effecting a further exclusive-or operation in each terminal to recover
the bit stream transmitted by the other terminal.
Preferably the step of detecting pulses on the bus to
produce the received bit stream comprises rectifying pulses on the bus to
produce the received bit stream as a unpiler bit stream.
Conveniently the bus is a two-wire line, such as a telephone
line.
According to another aspect, this invention provides
apparatus comprising a bus and two terminals coupled thereto for
full-duplex transmission of bit streams serially and in bit-synchronism
there between, each terminal comprising means for supplying a bit stream to
be transmitted to the bus in the form of a unpiler pulsed signal, the
polarities of the unpiler pulses signals supplied to the bus by the two
terminals being opposite to one another, each terminal further comprising
means responsive to pulses on the bus for producing a received bit stream,
and an exclusive-or gate responsive to the received bit stream and to the
bit stream transmitted by the terminal to produce a recovered bit stream
corresponding to the bit stream transmitted by the other terminal.
Preferably in each terminal the means responsive to pulses
on the bus for producing a received bit stream comprises a rectifying
amplifier responsive to pulses of either polarity on the bus For producing
pulses of said received bit stream.
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Preferably each terminal further comprises transmitting
shift register means for producing said bit stream to be transmitted,
receiving shift register means responsive to the recovered bit stream, and
means for supplying bytes to the transmitting shift register means and for
receiving bytes from the receiving shift register means, each byte
comprising a plurality of bits.
In an embodiment of the invention, one of the two terminals
can be a network termination of a public telecommunications network,
whereby the other of the two terminals is able to communicate via the
network.
The invention will be further understood from the following
description with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
Fig. 1 schematically illustrates an arrangement, of two
terminals coupled via a bus, in accordance with the invention;
Fig. 2 illustrates the manner in which bytes are transmitted
between the terminals via the bus in the arrangement of Fig. l;
Fig 3 illustrates a time division multiplex (-tam) frame
within which such transmission may be effected;
Fig. 4 schematically illustrates a block circuit diagram of
one of the terminals in the arrangement of Fig. I; and
Fig. 5 shows signals which may occur in operation of the
terminal illustrated in Fig. 4.
Referring to the drawings, Fig. 1 illustrates two terminals
A and B which are coupled to a serial data bus 10 for full-duplex
transmission of data bytes bit-serially there between. The bus 10 is for
example, a two-wire line which is preferably a balanced line.
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In order to achieve this transmission, each of the terminals
A and B is arranged to transmit pulses of a respective polarity to the bus
10 in response to predetermined binary digits, for example '1' bits, to be
transmitted. Thus, for example, as shown in Fig 2 an B-bit byte to be
transmitted from the terminal A to the terminal B is transmitted as a
bipolar signal with a positive pulse representing each logic '1' bit.
Conversely, an 8-bit byte to be simultaneously transmitted from the
terminal B to the terminal A is transmitted as a bipolar signal with a
negative pulse representing each logic '1' bit. The resultant signal on
the bus 10 is also shown in Fig. 2.
As a result of the opposite polarity pulses transmitted by
the two terminals, when both terminals transmit a '1' bit the net signal
on the bus 10 is zero. Thus the bus acts as a distributed exclusive-or
gate. Each terminal further includes an exclusive-or gate to which its
own byte for transmission and the byte present on the bus 10 are applied.
The output of this exclusive-or gate constitutes the byte transmitted by
the other terminal.
In order for transmission in the above manner to take place
properly, it is necessary that the two terminals A and B be synchronized
with one another to transmit bits simultaneously. This can be readily
achieved by using a tam Frame structure for the transmission, as shown for
example in Fig. 3. In Fig. 3 a tam frame having a duration of 125~s is
divided into twenty bit times, plus guard times which are not shown, to
provide two bits, 1 and 2, for the transmission of synchronizing
information and signaling information From the terminal A to the terminal
B; another two bits, 19 and 20, for the transmission of signaling
information in the opposite direction from the terminal B to the terminal
A, thereby providing a full-duplex 16kb/s time multiplexed signalliny
channel between the two terminals A and B; and two sets of eight bits, 3
to 10 and 11 to 1g, to provide two full-duplex 64kb/s data channels.
In addition to the requirement for bit synchronization
between the terminals, it is necessary that the length of the bus 10
between the terminals A and B be sufficiently small that propagation
delays and signal attenuation do not adversely affect detection of pulses
on the bus at each terminal. For the frame structure described above,
this implies a typical maximum bus length of about 230 meters.
Fig. 4 illustrates the circuit of one of the terminals A and
B. Except for the polarity of pulses applied to the bus 10, the circuits
of the two terminals are identical. Each terminal includes a data
terminal unit 409 which can be of known form, which is coupled to the bus
10 via a transformer 42 and a circuit comprising a synchronizing circuit
44, a rectifying amplifier 46 and associated input voltage limiting diodes
48, an exclusive-or gate 50 as already mentioned, a receiving shift
register 52, a transmitting shift register 54, and a line driver 56.
Pulses of the desired polarity for the terminal are produced on the bus 10
by appropriate phasing of the windings of the transformer 42.
An input of the synchronizing circuit 44, an input of the
amplifier 46, and an output of the line driver 56 are coupled to the bus
10 via the transformer 42. In response to signals on the bus 10 the
synchronization circuit 44 produces in known manner signals STY EN, and L
which are shown in Fig. 5. Fig. 5 also shows a signal TRY supplied from a
serial output So of the shift register 54 to an input of the line driver
56 and an input of the exclusive-or gate 50, a signal BUS on the bus 10, a
consequent received signal RX supplied from an output of the amplifier 46
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to another input of the exclusive or gate 50, and a signal RUB which is
supplied from the output of the exclusive-or gate 50 to a serial input SO
of the shift register 52 and which contains the recovered byte transmitted
from the other terminal connected to the bus 10, For the case of the
transmitted bytes shown in Fig. 2.
The signal STY produced by the synchronizing circuit 44 is
applied to a strobe input of the amplifier 46 and to a clock input C of
the shift register 52, which responds to the falling edges of the signal
STY to shift in the signal RUB at times indicated by arrows in Fig. JO The
signal EN is applied to an enable input of the line driver 56 and to a
clock input C of the shift register 54, which responds to the rising edges
of the signal EN to shift out the signal TRY to the line driver 56. The
signal LO is applied to load inputs L of the shift registers 52 and 54 and
the data terminal unit 50; in response to each logic '1' pulse of the
signal L an 8-bit recovered, received byte is loaded from a parallel
output Pi of the shift register 52 into an input port IN of the unit 50,
and an 8-bit byte for transmission is loaded from an output port OUT of
the unit 50 into the shift register I via a parallel input PI thereof
The synchronizing circuit 44 ensures that the terminal
operates in bit synchronism with another terminal coupled to the bus 10 in
the same manner as described above. Accordingly, bits transmitted to the
bus from the terminals coincide, and in the case of simultaneous '1' bits,
cancel one another, as described above with reference to Fig. 2.
Consequently, in each terminal the received signal RX, which is derived
from the signal on the bus 10 under control of the strobe signal STY by
rectification and amplification in the amplifier 46 to produce a
rectangular waveform has the form shown in Fig. 5 For the transmitted
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bytes shown in Fig. 2. This signal is exclusively-ored with the
transmitted byte, signal TRY of the individual terminal to produce the
signal RUB, which at the instants indicated by arrows in Fig. 5 corresponds
to the byte transmitted from the other terminal and is snifter into the
shift register 52 as the recovered, received byte.
Although a particular embodiment of the invention has been
described in detail, numerous modifications, variations, and adaptations
may be made thereto without departing from the scope of the invention as
defined by the claims. It is observed, for example, that the rectifying
amplifier 46 described above can be replaced in each terminal by a pulse
amplifier which is responsive only to pulses on the bus which have the
polarity transmitted by the respective other terminal.
Furthermore, it is particularly pointed out that one of the
two terminals A and B described above can be constituted by a network
termination of a public telecommunications network, this network
termination serving to couple signals between the bus 10 as described
above and a transmission line of known form, such as a telephone
subscriber line. Such an arrangement enables the other of the two
terminals A and B to communicate via the network termination and the
public network, while retaining the bandwidth saving provided on the bus
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