JP2002099975A - Remote monitoring system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To realize real-time display function, without having to increase the load on a system. SOLUTION: A server 102 receives a data, showing that a state change has occurred in a facility from a BA system 1, converts this data, when it is data preliminarily requested by terminal devices 6, 201, 301, 401, and 501, into a message readable by the users of the terminal devices, and returns the message as the response to the request to the terminal devices by the use of HTTP program. The terminal devices 6, 201, 301, 401, and 501 preliminarily request desired data to the server 102 by use of HTTP program and display the message returned from the server 102, as the response to the request.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a remote monitoring system including a server connected to a facility management system such as a building, and a terminal device connected to the server via a network.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, BA (Building Automation) for monitoring and managing facilities of facilities such as intelligent buildings.
In the system, information from each facility was managed collectively via a dedicated line. However, with the recent development of network technology, an open system for transmitting information via a general communication line instead of a dedicated line, that is, a network BA system has become mainstream.

[0003] In the network BA system, for example, management data such as operation information of each facility and alarm data are transmitted to other departments in the facility via an intranet,
It is possible to transmit data to the outside of the facility such as a monitoring center of a building management company or a private house of a manager via the network such as the Internet, and to control the operation / stop of the facility from outside the facility. It became so. For example, in a remote management system disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-219388, remote management of a facility is realized by accessing a server connected to a management system of a facility such as a building through the Internet.

[0004]

One of the important functions in the monitoring function of the conventional BA system is a real-time display function of displaying data such as the latest alarm generated in the system on a screen in real time. However, in the network BA system, it is difficult to realize a real-time display function using a general-purpose browser of a terminal device outside a facility such as a monitoring center or a private house for the following reasons.

[0005] (1) Normally, when constructing a network, due to security problems, it is necessary to realize a firewall function between different networks (here, between the network in the BA system and the Internet). Since a router and a firewall server are provided, only a very limited number of protocols can pass through the firewall, which hinders realization of the real-time display function. (2) A general-purpose browser does not have a function of updating display of data on a screen, and cannot acquire the latest data unless a reload operation is performed. (3) In consideration of the function of the general-purpose browser, it is possible to repeat the latest data acquisition request from the terminal device at regular intervals, but the load on the network, server, and client increases.

[0006] Further, it is required that the terminal device of the client should promptly resume the function even when the function of displaying an alarm is abnormally terminated, and minimize the time during which monitoring cannot be performed. However, since the browser is general-purpose software, there has been a problem that the browser can be terminated even by a user's erroneous operation. The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and has as its object to provide a remote monitoring system capable of realizing a real-time display function without increasing the load on the system. Another object of the present invention is to provide a remote monitoring system capable of realizing a real-time display function even when a firewall exists between networks. It is another object of the present invention to provide a remote monitoring system capable of promptly resuming a function of a browser when the function of the browser is terminated by a procedure other than a regular procedure.

[0007]

In the remote monitoring system according to the present invention, when the server (102) receives from the management system (1) data indicating that a state change has occurred in the facility, the server (102) transmits the data to the terminal device. (6,201,301,
401, 501) message server means for converting the data into a message readable by a user of the terminal device and returning the message to the terminal device as a response to the request The terminal device includes a browser unit for requesting desired data from the server in advance and displaying the message returned from the server in response to the request. In addition, one of the remote monitoring systems of the present invention
As a configuration example, a browser unit of the terminal device makes a request to the server using an HTTP protocol,
The message server means of the server sends a response to the terminal device using an HTTP protocol. Further, as one configuration example of the remote monitoring system of the present invention, when the notification function of the browser means for requesting the data and displaying the message ends by a procedure other than a regular procedure, Is provided with restart means for restarting.

[0008]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS [First Embodiment] Next, an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the remote monitoring system according to the first embodiment of the present invention. The remote monitoring system according to the present embodiment includes a BA (Building Automation) system 1 for monitoring and managing facilities of a facility such as a building to be monitored, and a tenant LAN (Local Arrangement) built in the facility.
ea Network) system 2, a first monitoring center 3 connected to the BA system 1 via the Internet 13,
The second connected to the BA system 1 via the dedicated line 16
Monitoring center 4, a third monitoring center 5 connected to the BA system 1 via a public line 15, a facility owner,
A terminal device 6 in the private residence of the facility manager or tenant manager, a mail server 7 for transmitting a message to the monitoring center 3 or the terminal device 6, a BA system 1 and a tenant LA
Router 8 connecting N system 2 and mail server 7
A router 9 for connecting the BA system 1 to the private line 16, a dial-up router 10 for connecting the BA system 1 to the public line 15, and a telephone 11 in the private residence.
And a mobile phone 12 owned by the owner or the administrator, and a firewall 17 connecting the mail server 7 and the Internet 13. In addition, public line 1
Instead of 5, an ISDN line may be used.

A BA system 1, a tenant LAN system 2, a mail server 7, routers 8, 9, a dial-up router 10, and a firewall 17 are provided in a facility. The BA system 1 includes an equipment integrated controller (hereinafter, referred to as UIC) 100 that controls and manages air conditioning equipment and lighting equipment in a facility, and a central monitoring device (hereinafter, MCU) that collects and accumulates data from the UIC 100. 101) and a network B for transmitting a message to the user's terminal device when a state change occurs in the facility in the facility.
A server (hereinafter referred to as NBS) 102 and NBS 10
A hub 103 that connects the router 2 to the routers 8 to 10 and a UIC
A LAN 104 connects the MCU 100, the MCU 101, and the NBS 102 to each other.

[0010] The MCU 101 performs abnormality monitoring and periodic data collection of the facilities in the facility, and also executes the BA system 1.
Data display according to the operator's request. NBS
102, when data indicating that a state change has occurred in the facilities in the facility is received from the UIC 100, if the data is data that has been requested in advance by the user's terminal device, the data is read by the user of the terminal device. The message is converted into a possible message, and the message is returned to the terminal device as a response to the request.

The tenant LAN system 2 includes a firewall server 200 for connecting the BA system 1 and the LAN in the tenant LAN system 2, a terminal device 201 of a resident or worker in the facility, the firewall server 200 and the terminal device 201. LAN that connects to each other
And

The first monitoring center 3 connects a mail server 300 for exchanging data with the BA system 1, a terminal device 301 for monitoring a facility to be monitored, a mail server 300 and the Internet 13. L for interconnecting the firewall 302, the mail server 300, the terminal device 301, and the firewall 302
AN303. The second monitoring center 4 connects the dedicated line 16 to the LAN in the monitoring center 4, a terminal device 401 for monitoring a facility to be monitored, and a router 400 and the terminal device 401. And a LAN 402 connected to the LAN.

The third monitoring center 5 includes a dial-up router 500 for connecting the public line 15 and a LAN in the monitoring center 5, a terminal device 501 for monitoring a facility to be monitored, and a dial-up. It has a LAN 502 for interconnecting the router 500 and the terminal device 501. The monitoring centers 3 to 5 are operated by a facility manager (management company).

Next, the operation of the above remote monitoring system will be described. FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation of the remote monitoring system, and FIG. 3 is a data flow diagram showing the operation of the alarm notification. First, a user (here, a resident, a worker, or a facility manager in the facility) operates the terminal device 201 to activate the alarm notification function (step S1).

When the alarm notification function is activated, the terminal device 20 is activated.
The first browser accesses the NBS 102 (step S2). That is, the browser requests the NBS 102 to connect using the HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) protocol. This connection request is sent to the LAN
202, the firewall server 200, the router 8, and the hub 103 to the NBS 102. After the connection, the browser of the terminal device 201 issues a warning message request to the NBS 102 using the HTTP protocol, and waits for a response (HTTP response) from the NBS 102.

In addition, the activation of the alarm notification function allows the NBS
From the hub 102, via a hub 103, a router 8, a firewall server 200 and a LAN 202, an HTML (Hype
r Text Markup Language) documents are sent. The browser of the terminal device 201 displays the received HTML document. Thus, an alarm notification screen as shown in FIG. 4 is displayed on the screen of the terminal device 201 (step S3). The HTML document sent from the NBS 102 includes an alert notification applet, which is software for displaying an alert notification window, created by a Java applet (Java Applet).

As shown in FIG. 3, in the NBS 102,
A message server 102a that performs communication processing with the outside of the BA system 1 and a change in the state of the facility (Ch
COS handler 102 that receives data of angeOf Status (hereinafter referred to as COS) and performs notification according to the status.
b.

The COS handler 102b receives a warning message request from the terminal device 201 via the message server 102a. Next, the UIC 100 sends out COS data when a state change occurs in the equipment under management. When the COS data received from the UIC 100 is the alarm data indicating the occurrence of a failure in the equipment or the like (YES in step S4), the COS handler 102b transmits the alarm data to the terminal device requesting the alarm message in advance (step S4). Step S5).

The message server 102a that has received the alarm data creates an alarm message indicating the alarm occurrence time, the location where the alarm occurred, the name of the facility where the alert occurred, and the state of the facility based on the alert data. The warning message is transmitted as an HTTP response to the terminal device 201 that has requested the warning message (step S6).

The browser of the terminal device 201 which has received the alarm message via the hub 103, the router 8, the firewall server 200 and the LAN 202 executes the above-described alarm notification applet to display the alarm message as shown in FIG. A window is displayed in a pop-up on the foreground of the screen, and a buzzer of the terminal device 2 is sounded.
The occurrence of an alarm is notified to the user (step S7).

In the example of FIG. 5, it can be seen that at 13:00 on December 10, 1999, a slight failure occurred in the air conditioner 2 on the fifth floor of the Isehara Building. NBS 102 and terminal device 201
Browser repeats the processing of steps S4 to S7 until an operation of stopping alarm notification described later is performed.

As described above, in the present embodiment, since only the HTTP protocol is used for communication between the BA system 1 and the terminal device 201, the alarm message can pass through the firewall server, and the latest alarm Can be displayed in real time.

Also, once an alarm message request (HTTP request) has been transmitted from the browser of the terminal device 201, the NBS 102 automatically transmits an alarm message to the requesting terminal device 201 when an alarm is generated.
It is not necessary to repeat the request for acquiring the latest data from the terminal device 201 at regular intervals.

In the present embodiment, when an alarm is generated, the alarm is notified to the terminal 201 that has been requested in advance. However, since the terminal 201 uses a browser, the user of the terminal 201 Can terminate the alarm notification function intentionally or by an erroneous operation. Close the alarm notification screen due to erroneous operation, or
When a transition is made to another Web page due to the input of an RL (Uniform Resource Locator), the alarm notification function must be immediately restarted and the alarm notification screen must be displayed again.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing this restart mechanism. To restart the alarm notification function, the terminal device 2
01, it is necessary to install a program for restarting the alarm notification function in advance. The alarm notification restart program includes a start monitoring applet 600, a restart service program 601, and an alarm notification frame HTML 602.
And are included. Note that the alarm notification applet 6 shown in FIG.
03 is embedded in the HTML document and NB
This is an applet sent from S102, and execution of this applet causes an alert notification window to be displayed.

When the alarm notification restart program is installed, the terminal device 201 displays the alarm notification screen when the alarm notification function is activated, and simultaneously activates the activation monitoring applet 6.
Execute 00. The startup monitoring applet 600 communicates with the restart service program 601, and registers the program name of the alarm notification function that the user wants to restart when the communication is disconnected in the restart service program 601.

The restart service program 601 constantly monitors the state of communication with the startup monitoring applet 600. When the user performs an operation such as closing the alarm notification screen, the restart service program 601 and the startup monitoring applet 60
0 is disconnected, the restart service program 601 determines that the startup monitoring applet 600 has ended, that is, the program of the alarm notification function has ended, and based on the information registered in advance from the startup monitoring applet 600, Restart the program of the alarm notification function. As described above, when the alarm notification screen is closed or when a transition is made to another Web page, the alarm notification function is immediately restarted.

FIG. 7 is a view showing a screen of the terminal device 201 when the alarm notification restart program is installed. By using the alarm notification frame HTML 602 included in the alarm notification restart program, a button "Stop alarm notification" is displayed on the alarm notification screen. This button exists when the user wants to end the alarm notification function.

When the user clicks this button, a warning dialog as shown in FIG. 7 is displayed. And
When the user clicks the “OK” button in the warning dialog, the browser of the terminal device 201 closes the warning notification screen and ends the warning notification function. At this time, the start monitoring applet 600 starts the restart service program 601.
To send a message of success. Upon receiving this message, the restart service program 601
Does not restart the alarm notification function even if the communication with the startup monitoring applet 600 is disconnected.

In the above description, the case has been described where the terminal equipment 201 of the tenant LAN system 2 in the facility monitors the facilities in the facility.
5. It is also possible to monitor the facilities in the facility with the terminal device 6 or a portable terminal device (not shown).

When the user operates the terminal device 301 of the monitoring center 3 to activate the alarm notification function, the terminal device 301
Connection request and alert message request from LA browser
N303, mail server 300, firewall 30
2. NBS 1 via Internet 13, firewall 17, mail server 7, router 8 and hub 103
02. When an alarm occurs in the facility in the facility, the NBS 102 transmits an alarm message to the terminal device 301 through a route reverse to the connection request and the alarm message request. Other points are the same as those described with reference to FIGS.

In the case of the monitoring center 4, the terminal devices 401 and N
The monitoring center 3 is the same as the monitoring center 3 except that the BS 102 communicates via the LAN 402, the router 400, the dedicated line 16, the router 9, and the hub 103. The monitoring center 5 is the same as the monitoring center 3 except that the terminal device 501 and the NBS 102 communicate via the LAN 502, the dial-up router 500, the public line 15, the dial-up router 10, and the hub 103.

The terminal device 6 and the NBS 102 communicate with the public line 1
5. Internet service provider server 14,
It communicates via the Internet 13, the mail server 7, the router 8, and the hub 103. The other points are the same as those of the monitoring center 3. The portable terminal device (not shown) can communicate with the NBS 102 in the same manner as the monitoring center 5 or the terminal device 6.

Thus, not only the terminal device in the facility,
The terminal equipment outside the facility can also monitor the equipment inside the facility. Note that a warning message request is sent from the telephone 11 or the mobile telephone 12 through the public line 15 to the NBS 1.
02, the NBS 102 notifies the telephone 11 or the mobile telephone 12 of the alarm by a voice message when an alarm occurs in the facility in the facility.

[Embodiment 2] NBS from terminal side
In one embodiment of connecting to the terminal 102, the terminal device and the NB
It is necessary that the connection with S102 be always connected. NBS1
In the case where an ISDN line is used for the connection with O.02, it is desirable to make a connection from the NBS 102 to the terminal device from the viewpoint of communication costs. In this case, the IP (Internet Protocol) address and the port number of the connection destination terminal device are registered in the NBS 102. In this case, it is necessary to install an alarm notification screen on the client side in advance.

When the terminal device activates the alarm notification function, it opens a TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) connection socket with the port number and waits for connection instead of connecting to the NBS 102. If an alarm occurs,
The NBS 102 makes a connection to a pre-registered IP address and port number using an ISDN dial-up router or the like, and transmits a warning message to the terminal device as an HTTP request. As a result, a longer time is required for the notification than for the constant connection, but a real-time alarm notification can be performed.

It is assumed that the alarm notification function has not been activated when the NBS 102 attempts to connect to the terminal device. In such a case, in order to activate the alarm notification function, a program activation service is installed in the terminal device in advance. If the connection with the alarm notification function fails, the NBS 102 connects to the program start service and transmits a start request. In response to the activation request, the program activation service activates the alarm notification function, and the NBS 1
02 transmits an alarm message after confirming that the alarm notification function has been activated. As a method of confirming the activation of the alarm notification function, there are a method in which the NBS 102 retries the connection at regular intervals, and a method in which the terminal device transmits an activation completion notification. In the first and second embodiments, an example is described in which an alarm is used as data requiring real-time processing. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and the present invention can be applied to data other than an alarm.

[0038]

According to the present invention, by providing message server means in the server and providing browser means in the terminal device, if the terminal device requests desired data from the server, the requested data can be obtained. Since the server transmits the message to the terminal device when the error occurs, it is not necessary to repeat the request for obtaining the latest data from the terminal device at regular intervals. As a result, the facility data can be displayed in real time without increasing the load on the network, the server, and the terminal device, and the facility to be monitored can be monitored in real time from the terminal device. In addition, since facility information can be transmitted and received in real time through a general network using a general-purpose browser function, a monitoring system can be constructed on a Web basis, and the versatility of the monitoring system increases. , Reduce the cost of introducing a monitoring system,
It is possible to reduce engineering costs at the time of change and the like, and reduce running costs such as maintenance.

A request to the server is made using the HTTP protocol, and a response to the terminal
By using the protocol, information exchanged between the server and the terminal can pass through the firewall, even if a means for implementing a firewall is installed between the server and the terminal. In addition, not only residents and workers in the facility, but also users outside the facility can monitor the facility to be monitored in real time.

Further, when the notification function of the browser means is terminated by a procedure other than the normal procedure, by providing the terminal device with a restart means for restarting the notification function, the user can accidentally terminate the notification function, Even when the web page is switched to the Web page, the notification function of the browser unit can be quickly restarted, so that the time during which monitoring cannot be performed can be minimized.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a remote monitoring system according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of the remote monitoring system of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a data flow diagram showing an operation of alarm notification.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an alarm notification screen.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an alarm notification window.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing a restart mechanism of the alarm notification function.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a screen of a terminal device when an alarm notification restart program is installed.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... BA system, 2 ... Tenant LAN system, 3,
4, 5 monitoring center, 6 terminal equipment, 7 mail server, 8, 9 router, 10 dial-up router, 1
1 telephone, 12 mobile phone, 13 Internet, 14 Internet service provider server,
15: public line, 16: dedicated line.

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Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A remote monitoring system having a server connected to a facility management system, and a terminal device connected to the server via a network, wherein the server detects that a state change has occurred in the facility. When receiving the data from the management system, if the data is data that has been requested in advance by the terminal device, the data is converted into a message that can be read by a user of the terminal device, and the message is converted into the message. Message server means for returning to the terminal device as a response to the request, the terminal device requesting desired data from the server in advance, and browser means for displaying the message returned from the server in response to the request A remote monitoring system comprising: 2. The remote monitoring system according to claim 1, wherein the browser of the terminal device makes a request to the server using an HTTP protocol, and the message server of the server sends a response to the terminal device by HTTP. A remote monitoring system characterized by using a protocol. 3. The remote monitoring system according to claim 1, wherein the terminal device notifies the terminal device when the notification function of the browser means for requesting the data and displaying the message ends in a procedure other than a regular procedure. A remote monitoring system comprising restart means for restarting a function.