METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR ENCODING INFORMATION ON AC LINE VOLTAGE Russian patent published in 2014 - IPC H05B33/08 

FIELD: electricity.

SUBSTANCE: invention relates to electrical engineering, particularly systems for controlling lamps by encoding an AC power signal. AC line voltage may be encoded with control information, such as dimming information derived from an output signal of a conventional dimmer, so as to provide an encoded AC power signal. One or more lighting units, including LED-based lighting units, may be both provided with operating power and controlled (e.g., dimmed) based on the encoded power signal. In one implementation, information may be encoded on the AC line voltage by inverting some half cycles of the AC line voltage to generate an encoded AC power signal, with the ratio of positive half-cycles to negative half-cycles representing the encoded information. In other aspects, the encoded information may relate to one or more parameters of the light generated by the LED-based lighting unit(s) (e.g., intensity, colour, colour temperature, etc.).

EFFECT: enabling control of multiple light parameters of a lighting unit.

15 cl, 8 dwg