JP2012065224A - Portable information terminal - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To accurately associate a gas meter with a radio slave unit.SOLUTION: A portable information terminal 100 is used at the time of introduction of a radio meter reading system into an existing gas meter management system in which a gas meter ID and a customer ID are associated with each other. Association is properly made by photographing an ID of a gas meter 200 and an ID of a radio slave unit 300. When IDs cannot be associated with each other properly, an error notice is given to a center. Thus the radio slave unit 300 and the gas meter 200 are associated with each other without fail.

Description

  The present invention relates to a portable information terminal used when a meter and a wireless slave unit are installed in the construction of a remote gas meter management system.

  Conventionally, when acquiring meter reading values of electricity, gas, and water meters, the meter reading values are visually obtained and recorded by a meter reader. However, periodic meter reading by humans has a problem that a meter reading error occurs, and a remote meter management system has been proposed and put to practical use as a method for solving the problem.

  When a remote meter management system using wireless communication is introduced to an existing meter, it is necessary to register a meter ID and a slave unit ID in association with each other. This is because, by registering a new handset ID in addition to the customer ID and meter ID that the service supplier has traditionally linked and managed, which handset ID has transmitted meter reading information and alarm information. This is because a remote meter management system can be constructed because it is possible to determine whether it is generated from a customer meter.

  As a method for accurately obtaining a meter ID from a meter, a method for recognizing an image taken by a camera of a portable information terminal and obtaining a meter ID has been proposed (see, for example, Patent Document 1).

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 08-069595

  However, in the remote meter management system, when installing the slave unit, it is necessary to accurately acquire and register not only the meter ID but also two IDs including the slave unit ID.

  Here, when an ID photograph is manually registered by looking at an image taken with a camera of a portable information terminal, an input error may occur as in the meter reading work. Accordingly, the meter reading data and alarm information acquired in the remote management meter system may have an incorrect ID, so it is necessary to carefully check the acquired data.

  In order to solve the conventional problem, the portable information terminal of the present invention notifies the service provider of ID recognition failure information when the analyzer cannot analyze the ID of the gas meter and the ID of the wireless slave unit. A notification unit that performs the notification and notifies the center that the ID could not be acquired normally.

  According to the present invention, the center can confirm the meter reading data and the alarm information from the ID notified in advance, and can be managed on the remote gas meter management system.

Overall view of remote gas meter management system in Embodiment 1 of the present invention Outline diagram of gas meter in Embodiment 1 of the present invention Schematic diagram of wireless slave unit in Embodiment 1 of the present invention Schematic diagram when a wireless slave unit is attached to the gas meter in Embodiment 1 of the present invention Functional block diagram of portable information terminal according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention Flowchart of operation of portable information terminal in Embodiment 1 of the present invention

  The first invention relates to a remote gas meter management system comprising a gas meter, a wireless slave unit connected to the gas meter, a portable information terminal, a public network, and a management center. The gas meter has a unique meter ID for identifying itself. If the wireless handset has a unique handset ID that identifies itself and the portable information terminal captures and recognizes the two IDs and cannot correctly recognize the two IDs, the two IDs and ID recognition failure Information is added and notified to the management center via the public network.

  The second invention is particularly when the two IDs of the first invention are photographed and recognized, and when the two IDs cannot be recognized correctly, the ID is not registered in the recording unit in the portable information terminal.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. Note that the present invention is not limited to the embodiments.

(Embodiment 1)
FIG. 1 is an overall view of a remote gas meter management system according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention. The remote gas meter management system includes a portable information terminal 100, a gas meter 200, a public network 400, a management center 500, a management server 501, a database 502 held by the management server 501, and a wireless master device 600.

  A wireless slave device 300 is connected to the gas meter 200, and the wireless slave device 300 notifies the wireless master device 600 of meter reading data and alarm information. The wireless master device 600 notifies the management server 501 of the data notified from the wireless slave device 300 via the public network 400. The management server 501 holds the data acquired from the wireless master device 600 in the database 502.

  Further, the portable information terminal 100 acquires the gas meter ID 201 and the wireless slave device ID 301 from the gas meter 200 to which the wireless slave device is connected, and the acquired ID information is notified to the management server 501 via the public network 400. The management server 501 that has received the ID information holds the ID information in the database 502.

  FIG. 2 is a schematic view of the gas meter 200. The gas meter 200 includes a gas meter ID 201 and a pointer value 202.

  FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of the wireless slave device 300. The wireless slave device 300 includes a wireless slave device ID 301.

  2 and 3, the gas meter ID 201 and the wireless slave device ID 301 are displayed as barcodes, but may be displayed as numbers or symbols.

  FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram when the wireless slave device 300 is attached to the gas meter 200. FIG.

FIG. 5 is a functional block diagram of the portable information terminal. The portable information terminal 100 includes an imaging unit 101 that captures an ID, a control unit 102, a display unit 103, an optical information recognition unit 104 that recognizes information from data acquired by the imaging unit, and character information from data acquired by the imaging unit. An optical character information recognition unit 105 for recognition, an input unit 106, a public network communication unit 107, a storage unit 108, and a power supply unit 109 are provided.

  FIG. 6 is an operation flowchart in the portable information terminal.

  The operation of the portable information terminal will be described with reference to FIGS. The portable information terminal 100 uses the imaging unit 101 to photograph the gas meter 200 with the wireless slave device 300 attached (step 150).

  Next, the portable information terminal 100 uses the optical information recognition unit 104 or the optical character information 105 from the shooting data to acquire the slave ID 301 and the meter ID 201 from the shooting data (step 151).

  Here, when both IDs of the slave ID 301 and the meter ID 201 can be acquired, the portable information terminal 100 stores the acquired ID in the storage unit 108, and uses the public network communication unit 107 and the antenna 110 via the public network 400. ID information is notified to the management server 501 (step 153).

  However, if one or both of the slave ID 301 and the meter ID 201 cannot be acquired, the display unit 103 is used to prompt the installer to manually input the ID, and the ID that cannot be recognized using the input unit 106 is acquired. (Step 154).

  When the ID is obtained by the input means 106, the portable information terminal gives ID recognition failure information to the ID information, and uses the public network communication unit 107 and the antenna 110 to transmit the ID information to the management server 501 via the public network 400. (Step 153).

  Note that the processing of FIG. 6 described in this embodiment uses hardware resources such as a CPU (or microcomputer), a RAM, a ROM, a storage / recording device, an electrical / information device including an I / O, a computer, a server, and the like. You may carry out by the program made to cooperate.

  As described above, the present invention can provide a method of associating IDs more reliably, for example, when a wireless slave unit is installed in the construction of a remote meter management system. Further, the present embodiment is not limited to a gas meter, and can be used by adding a management target ID to another remote energy meter management system or a management system in which an ID is associated with an existing one.

100 portable information terminal 200 gas meter 300 wireless slave device 301 wireless slave device ID
400 public network 500 management center 501 management server 502 database 600 wireless master unit

Claims (2)

An imaging unit for imaging a gas meter and a wireless slave attached to the gas meter;
An analysis unit for analyzing an ID of the gas meter and an ID of the wireless slave unit from an image captured by the imaging unit;
When the analyzer can analyze the ID of the gas meter and the ID of the wireless slave unit, a storage unit that stores the ID of the gas meter and the ID of the wireless slave unit analyzed by the analyzer;
When the analysis unit cannot analyze the ID of the gas meter and the ID of the wireless slave unit, a notification unit that notifies the service provider of ID recognition failure information;
Portable information terminal equipped with. 2. The portable information terminal according to claim 1, wherein when either one of the ID of the gas meter and the ID of the wireless slave unit cannot be recognized, neither ID is stored in the storage unit.

Images