JP4466052B2 - Wireless image communication system, wireless image communication apparatus, and wireless image communication method - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a wireless image communication apparatus and a communication system, and more particularly, wireless that realizes low power consumption of a wireless image communication apparatus by intermittently performing imaging and data transmission based on timing at which a wireless base station performs centralized control. The present invention relates to an image communication system, a wireless image communication apparatus, and a wireless image communication method .

  Conventionally, a remote monitoring system using an image communication device equipped with an image sensor and a communication function has been used for monitoring applications such as stores and houses and fixed-point observations such as ecology, weather, and traffic. In this system, it is possible to remotely monitor an image taken by an image sensor by using a communication line. In particular, the communication line is equipped with a wireless interface such as a mobile phone, PHS, or wireless LAN, and a battery. A device that eliminates the need for laying communication cables and power cables by providing a power generation mechanism using natural energy such as power storage or solar / wind power has been put into practical use.

  However, in these devices, it is necessary to install a large battery to improve the continuous operation time, or a large solar cell panel is necessary to secure power generation. Since the part becomes large, there is a problem that the ease of installation is lost. For this reason, it is necessary to reduce the power supply capacity to be mounted and to reduce the size of the device by reducing the power of the drive circuit.

  As a prior art example that solves this problem, a method of intermittently controlling the driving of the imaging unit in accordance with the frame rate has been proposed in order to reduce the power consumption of the imaging unit. Here, there are intermittent drive control of the image pickup unit using periodic timing based on the frame rate, and intermittent drive control of the image pickup unit using data transmission completion timing in consideration of variable bit rate encoding and retransmission processing due to transmission errors ( For example, see Patent Document 1).

Here, when considering a monitoring system including a plurality of wireless image communication apparatuses, a configuration as shown in FIG. 11 is provided in order to simplify the RF circuit / antenna portion and increase the utilization efficiency of the wireless channel in the wireless base station. In general, the same wireless channel is shared. This method includes a polling control method in which a base station temporarily assigns a wireless channel to a specific wireless image communication device , and each wireless image communication device monitors the usage status of the wireless channel to avoid contention. A CSMA / CA method or the like is often used.

In this example, when the imaging timings of a plurality of wireless image communication apparatuses match, a transmission waiting time occurs due to data transmission competition (see FIG. 12), so that each wireless image communication apparatus is ready for transmission. During this time, it is necessary to continue to detect the received carrier and the control frame. Therefore, this causes a problem that the power of the wireless circuit is wasted, and it can be said that this problem is more likely to occur as the number of wireless image communication apparatuses configured in the system increases.

In the case where a plurality of cameras are used to shoot an object as shown in FIG. 13 and the like, it is necessary to shoot images at the same time by matching the shooting timings of the wireless image communication apparatuses. Regardless of this, waiting always occurs for each transmission, so that the power of the radio circuit is greatly wasted.

Due to the above problems, in a monitoring system composed of a plurality of wireless image communication devices , it is necessary to control the transmission timing between the wireless image communication devices to reduce the power of the wireless circuit.
JP-A-11-168770

  In recent years, remote monitoring systems are equipped with wireless interfaces such as mobile phones, PHS, and wireless LANs in communication lines, and are equipped with a power generation mechanism using natural energy such as battery storage and solar / wind power, so that communication cables and power cables can be installed. Has been put to practical use, but it is necessary to install a large battery to improve the continuous operation time, or a large solar panel is necessary to secure the amount of power generation There is a problem that the power supply portion becomes large due to reasons such as that the ease of installation is lost. For this reason, it is necessary to reduce the power supply capacity to be mounted and to reduce the size of the device by reducing the power of the drive circuit.

However, when considering a monitoring system configured by a plurality of wireless image communication apparatuses sharing the same wireless channel, data transmission competes due to the coincidence of transmission timings among the plurality of wireless image communication apparatuses , and transmission waiting time occurs. The problem will arise. In this case, since it is necessary to continue to detect the reception carrier and the control frame until transmission is possible, there is a problem that power of the radio circuit unit is greatly wasted and low power cannot be achieved.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances. In FIG. 1, in each of the wireless image communication apparatuses 100 a to 100 c in the system, the imaging processing unit 10 and the wireless processing unit 30 are based on the period of the timers 40 and 41. Perform intermittent operation. By centrally managing the activation timing / cycle of these timers by the radio base station 110, a different timing can be set for each of the radio image communication apparatuses 100a to 100c, a radio image communication apparatus, and a radio An object is to provide an image communication method .

In order to achieve such an object, a wireless image communication system of the present invention includes a plurality of wireless image communication devices that wirelessly transmit image data, a wireless base station that performs wireless broadcast communication with the plurality of wireless image communication devices, a wireless image communication system having a respective radio image communication apparatus captures an image, and an imaging processing unit for compressing the captured image as image data, and a wireless processing unit that performs transmission of image data, the imaging processing unit The radio base station has an imaging timer unit that starts every predetermined cycle, and a transmission timer unit that starts the radio processing unit every predetermined cycle, and the radio base station is connected to the transmission timer unit and the imaging timer unit. , a timer unit setting means for setting an image pickup timing of the transmission timing and the imaging timer transmission timer, wireless image communication apparatus, received from the radio base station, transmission timing and the imaging timing Based on, and performs the intermittent operation of the radio unit and the imaging processing unit.

A wireless image communication apparatus according to the present invention is a wireless image communication apparatus that performs wireless broadcast communication of image data with a wireless base station, and includes an imaging processing unit that captures an image and compresses the captured image as image data. A wireless processing unit that transmits image data, an imaging timer unit that activates the imaging processing unit at predetermined intervals, and a transmission timer unit that activates the wireless processing unit at predetermined intervals. The wireless processing unit and the imaging processing unit are intermittently operated based on the transmission timing of the transmission timer unit and the imaging timing of the imaging timer unit received from the station.

The wireless image communication method of the present invention is a wireless image communication method performed by a device capable of wireless broadcast communication of image data with a wireless base station, which captures an image and compresses the captured image as image data. The step of starting the imaging processing unit at every predetermined period, the step of starting the wireless processing unit for transmitting image data at every predetermined period, and the transmission timing and imaging of the image data received from the wireless base station And performing an intermittent operation of the wireless processing unit and the imaging processing unit based on the timing .

According to the present invention, it is possible for the wireless image communication apparatus to transmit data at a timing different from that of all other wireless image communication apparatuses by using the timer start timing set by the wireless base station. Therefore, the wireless image communication apparatus can realize low power consumption by minimizing the data transmission time and ensuring the suspend time to the maximum. In other words. The occurrence of waiting due to transmission competition in the wireless section of each wireless image communication apparatus is suppressed, and the transmission time is minimized, so that power consumption in the wireless processing unit can be minimized.

  The best mode for carrying out the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

(Characteristics of the invention)
In a remote monitoring system using a wireless image communication device equipped with an image sensor and a wireless communication function, the present invention performs intermittent operation of a circuit in each communication device based on imaging timing and transmission timing controlled by a wireless base station. It is characterized by realizing low power.

  In FIG. 1, the wireless image communication apparatus 100 a includes an imaging processing unit 10, a buffer 20, and a wireless processing unit 30. The imaging processing unit 10 is a circuit that is activated every monitoring period of the imaging timer unit 40 and operates intermittently by being supplied with a clock only until imaging data writing to the buffer 20 is completed. Similarly, the wireless processing unit 30 is a circuit that is activated every monitoring period of the transmission timer unit 41 and operates intermittently by being supplied with a clock only until transmission of imaging data in the buffer 20 is completed. These timers 40 and 41 are set by the wireless base station 110 and are centrally managed on the transmission timing management table 114 so that different transmission timings are set for each wireless image communication apparatus 100.

  Thus, in the present invention, it is possible to centrally control the transmission timings of all the wireless image communication apparatuses 100a to 100c. Therefore, the occurrence of waiting due to transmission competition in the wireless section is suppressed and the transmission time is minimized, so that power consumption in the wireless processing unit 30 can be minimized.

FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention. The wireless image communication system includes a plurality of wireless image communication devices 100a to 100c, a wireless base station 110, and an image monitoring device 120. The wireless image communication apparatus 100 shares the same wireless channel and is connected to the same wireless base station 110 via a readily configurable wireless interface such as a wireless LAN. The image monitoring apparatus 120 is a general-purpose information processing apparatus such as a personal computer, and is connected to the radio base station 110 using a general wired interface such as Ethernet (R).

The wireless image communication apparatus 100 is an apparatus equipped with an image sensor and a wireless communication function. In particular, the wireless image communication apparatus 100 is equipped with a power generation mechanism such as a battery or a solar cell as a power source, so that power supply from an external wired cable is unnecessary. And The wireless image communication apparatus 100 includes an imaging processing unit 10 and a buffer 20, a wireless processing unit 30, an imaging timer unit 40, a transmission timer unit 41, and a clock supply unit 50.

  The imaging processing unit 10 is based on an image sensor 11 composed of a CMOS or CCD device, an A / D converter 12 that converts a captured image collected by the image sensor 11 into a digital signal, and an image encoding algorithm such as JPEG or MPEG. And an encoding processing unit 13 for compressing image data. The radio processing unit 30 includes a MAC (media access control) processing unit 31 that performs layer 2 frame control, a baseband processing unit 32 that performs modulation / demodulation processing, and an RF circuit unit 33 that performs analog processing of radio signals. .

  The imaging processing unit 10 is activated every monitoring period of the imaging timer unit 40, and is a circuit that operates intermittently by being supplied with a clock only until imaging data writing to the buffer 20 is completed. Similarly, the wireless processing unit 30 is activated every monitoring cycle of the transmission timer unit 41, and is a circuit that operates intermittently by being supplied with a clock only until transmission of imaging data in the buffer 20 is completed. .

  These timers 40 and 41 are constantly supplied with a clock and are constantly operating, and periodically expire at a timing designated by the radio base station 110 so that a different transmission timing is set for each radio image communication apparatus 100. Is.

  The wireless base station 110 includes a wireless processing unit 111 that can be easily configured, such as a wireless LAN, communicates with the wireless image communication apparatus 100, and uses a general wired processing unit 112 such as Ethernet (R). Thus, a wireless bridge function capable of communicating with the image monitoring apparatus 120 is achieved.

Further, the base station 110 can broadcast information for network synchronization to all the wireless image communication apparatuses 100 using a beacon, and a network synchronization timer management unit 113 that manages synchronization information; A transmission timing management table 114 for managing the transmission timing of each wireless image communication apparatus 100 by assigning it to a time slot, and an operation parameter setting table 115 for storing information relating to the imaging timing and imaging cycle of each wireless image communication apparatus 100. .

The image monitoring apparatus 120 is an information processing apparatus that displays image data transmitted from the wireless image communication apparatus 100. The image monitoring apparatus 120 has an encoding processing function for performing image data expansion processing based on an image encoding algorithm such as JPEG or MPEG, an image display function for a display, and image data to a recording medium such as a magnetic disk. A data storage function to be stored and a maintenance function for setting the operation parameter setting table 115 of the radio base station 110 are provided.

(Operation of the embodiment)
With respect to the present embodiment shown in FIG. 1, an operation related to initial setting until the wireless image communication apparatus 100 is first introduced into the network will be described. Referring to the sequence diagram of FIG. 2, in this system, prior to the operation of the wireless image communication apparatus 100, the operation parameter setting table 115 is set for each wireless image communication apparatus 100 (steps 201 to 202). These parameters are an imaging timing and an imaging cycle (see FIG. 3).

The unit of each value in FIG. 3 is the time slot time, the imaging timing value is an offset value with respect to the transmission timing, and STa, STb, and STc indicate three wireless image communication apparatuses 100a, 100b, and 100c, respectively. FIG. 4 shows an example of the configuration of the transmission timing management table 114 representing the time slot allocation status.

  In the description of this embodiment, it is assumed that one time slot time is 100 ms and the number of time slots is 40. Further, a beacon described later is synchronized with this time slot, and broadcast transmission is performed periodically at each time slot time 39.

Next, a sequence from when the power of the wireless image communication apparatus 100 is turned on until the imaging timer 40 and the transmission timer 41 are started is shown. When the power is turned on, the wireless image communication apparatus 100 activates the wireless processing unit and performs beacon monitoring from the wireless base station 110 (steps 203 to 204).

The beacon includes, as information for network synchronization between the base station 110 and each wireless image communication apparatus 100, the absolute time and step size used in the network, the current time slot time and one time slot time. The value of is included. When the wireless image communication apparatus 100 receives this in the beacon period, the wireless image communication apparatus 100 sets the absolute time and step size to be maintained locally under the control of the network synchronization timer 42, and in synchronization with the timer 42 The step size of the operating timers 40 and 41 is set to 100 ms (one time slot time) (steps 206 to 207).

Next, the wireless image communication apparatus 100 issues a terminal ID notification and an operation timing setting request (step 208). Here, the base station 110 refers to the operation parameter setting table 115 and recognizes the imaging timing and imaging cycle related to the corresponding terminal ID. Here, since the imaging cycle of the wireless image communication apparatus 100a is set to 1 s, it is checked whether or not four time slots can be allocated in a one-second cycle, and if possible, time slot allocation is performed. Then, the transmission timing management table 114 is updated (steps 209 and 211).

In FIG. 4, time slots “04”, “14”, “24”, “34” are in the wireless image communication apparatus 100a, “02”, “22” are in the wireless image communication apparatus 100b, and “09” is the wireless image. The example allocated to the communication apparatus 100c is shown. Also, a time slot “39” is reserved for beacon transmission, and it is assumed that this slot cannot be assigned to each wireless image communication apparatus 100. Here, if it is impossible to assign a new time slot, for example, because a large number of wireless image communication apparatuses 100 have already been accommodated, the base station 110 notifies the maintenance person via the image monitoring apparatus 120. NG notification is performed (step 210). At this time, it is necessary for the maintenance person to redo the procedure for setting again the allowable operation parameters for the corresponding wireless image communication apparatus 100 (steps 201 to 202).

  After that, the base station 110 refers to the notification of the timer normal value (1s) and the current time slot time, sets the time until the next assigned time slot to be reached in the transmission timer unit 41 as an initial value, On the other hand, a value in consideration of the offset is set in the imaging timer unit 40 (steps 212 to 214).

The operation of steps 212 to 214 will be described in detail with reference to the time chart of FIG. When the imaging timer 40 and the transmission timer 41 are started by the above steps, the wireless image communication apparatus 100 completes all initial settings by suspending the wireless circuit unit 30, and no circuits other than the timer units 40 and 41 are operating. Transition to the suspended state (step 215). It is possible to set the same imaging timing for a plurality of wireless image communication apparatuses 100 having different transmission timings by appropriately adjusting the offset value for each wireless image communication apparatus 100.

  Next, the operation when the timers 40 and 41 expire in the suspended state is shown in the time chart of FIG. When the imaging timer unit 40 expires at the time slot time “02”, the timer is restarted with the normal timer value (1 s), and an interrupt signal is notified to the imaging processing unit 10. As a result, the interruption of the clock is released, the circuit operation is started, and the photographed and encoded data is written into the buffer 20. When this series of processing is completed, the processing unit 10 again cuts off the clock and transitions to the suspended state.

Next, when the transmission timer unit 41 expires at the time slot time “04”, the timer is restarted with the normal timer value (1 s) and an interrupt signal is notified to the wireless processing unit 30 . As a result, the interruption of the clock is released and the circuit operation is started, and data is read from the buffer 20 and transmitted through the wireless interface. When this series of processing is completed, the processing unit 30 cuts off the clock again and transitions to the suspended state.

  In the steady state shown in FIG. 6, the wireless image communication apparatus 100 does not always have to continuously receive a beacon, but in order to correct the error of the network synchronization timer 42 caused by the accuracy of the crystal oscillator, Need to receive. As an example of a method for implementing this, an overflow trigger of a counter constituting the network synchronization timer 42 may be used, and the clock cutoff at the time of completion of data transmission is temporarily canceled to make one round of a time slot (100 ms × 40) This can be achieved by capturing a beacon during

As described above, according to the embodiment of the present invention, the wireless image communication apparatus 100 uses the timer start timing set by the wireless base station 110, so that the wireless image communication apparatus 100 differs from all other wireless image communication apparatuses 100. Data transmission can be performed. Therefore, the wireless image communication apparatus 100 can achieve low power consumption by minimizing the data transmission time and ensuring the suspend time to the maximum.

  In addition, by providing the transmission timer unit 40 that can be realized by a simple hardware circuit, once the radio base station 110 sets the timer, control from the base station 110 becomes unnecessary, and this timer is used. Thus, since no frame reception processing such as polling monitoring is required in the suspended state, there is a great effect on the reduction in power in that there is a merit that the operation of all radio circuits including the RF circuit can be stopped.

In addition, since there is no contention with other wireless image communication apparatuses 100 in the steady state, there is no need to perform any media contention control processing such as polling monitoring or carrier sense even during data transmission, and the MAC processing unit 31. There is an effect that the power of the circuit can be greatly reduced. Furthermore, by configuring the buffer 20 with a non-volatile memory that consumes less power when not accessed, it is possible to further reduce the power consumption of the entire circuit when the imaging processing unit 10 and the imaging processing unit 10 are in the suspended state.

Furthermore, it is possible to reduce the power supply capacity of the wireless image communication apparatus 100 to be mounted, thereby reducing the size of the apparatus.

  As a second embodiment, consider a large-scale system in which two or more radio base stations 110a and 110b exist as shown in FIG. In this embodiment, since a plurality of wireless base stations 110 transmit data to the image monitoring device 120, the amount of traffic generated in the system is large and affects the bandwidth of the wired network and the performance of the monitoring device 120. In this case, it is necessary to consider contention of transmission data in the wired network existing at this location and the monitoring device 120 itself.

In this case, the time slot allocation status (transmission timing management table 114) managed by the radio base station 110 for each radio image communication apparatus 100 in the first embodiment and information on the imaging timing / imaging cycle (operation parameter setting table) 115) may be managed by the image monitoring apparatus 120 itself as shown in FIG. 8, and information may be synchronized with each base station when necessary.

  This synchronization timing corresponds to the trigger of step 202 and step 211 in the flowchart of FIG. In addition, the network synchronization timer management units 113 and 123 need to synchronize with the image monitoring apparatus 120 and each of the radio base stations 110a and 110b. As an example of this method, there is an implementation means in which the monitoring device 120 periodically broadcasts synchronization information such as time values and pulses to the base stations 110a and 110b.

  Next, as Example 3, control for dynamically changing the frame rate and the amount of transmission data according to the power supply capacity of the wireless image communication apparatus 100 will be described.

In FIG. 9, the power capacity monitoring unit has a function of monitoring the capacity of the battery to be mounted and the capacity of the power generated by the power generation mechanism such as a solar battery. When the detected value falls below a certain threshold value, the monitoring unit 60 controls the imaging timer unit 40 and the transmission timer unit 41 to extend the imaging / transmission cycle. As a specific operation, when the time slot of the wireless image communication apparatus 100a is assigned as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, the clock cutoff release operation that has been performed at the time-out trigger of the imaging timer unit 40 or the transmission timer unit 41 is performed. A process of thinning out 1 / n times is performed.

  Therefore, the operation period of the imaging processing unit 10 and the wireless processing unit 30 is extended due to the dynamic reduction of the frame rate, so that power consumption can be suppressed when the power capacity is insufficient. Similarly, the amount of transmission data is reduced by setting the encoding parameters in the encoding processing unit 13 such as the number of pixels and the compression rate as dynamic control targets as the control target corresponding to the power supply capacity, and the power of the wireless processing unit 30 A measure of suppressing consumption may be taken.

As a feature of this embodiment, since the radio image communication apparatus 100a is capable of autonomously performed without notification to the base station 110 when to dynamically change the frame rate and the transmission data amount, other wireless image The time slot configuration assigned to the communication device 100 is not affected, and the data transmission timing in the other wireless image communication devices 100 is not affected at all.

  Next, as a fourth embodiment, a case in which the configuration of the timer units 40 and 41 is further simplified will be described.

In the third embodiment described above, the imaging timing and the transmission timing in the wireless image communication apparatus 100 are different as shown in FIG. 6, but it is not necessary to operate them at different timings, and a plurality of wireless When it is not necessary to match the imaging timings in the image communication apparatus 100, the timer units 40 and 41 can be shared without being configured separately (see FIG. 10). In this case, the buffer 20 may be configured to store two frames so that the data writing process of the imaging processing unit 10 and the reading process of the wireless processing unit 30 can be performed simultaneously. In this case, the circuit configuration is further increased. It can be simplified.

  As mentioned above, although Example 1-4 of this invention was demonstrated, it is not limited to the said Example, A various deformation | transformation is possible in the range which does not deviate from the summary.

  The present invention can be applied to an image communication system used for monitoring or fixed point observation.

It is a block diagram which shows the structure of Example 1 of this invention. It is a sequence diagram which shows the process of Example 1 of this invention. It is a figure which shows the operation parameter setting table which concerns on Example 1 of this invention. It is a figure which shows the transmission timing monitoring table which concerns on Example 1 of this invention. It is a time chart which shows the signal which concerns on the processing operation of Example 1 of this invention. It is a time chart which shows the signal which concerns on the processing operation of Example 1 of this invention. It is a figure which shows the external structure of Example 2 of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows the internal structure of Example 2 of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows the structure of Example 3 of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows the structure of Example 4 of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows the system configuration of a prior art. It is a time chart which shows the signal which concerns on the processing operation of a prior art. It is a block diagram which shows another system structure of a prior art.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Image pick-up process part 11 Image sensor 12 A / D converter 13 Encoding process part 20 Buffer 30 Wireless process part 31 MAC process part 32 Baseband process part 33 RF process part 40 Imaging timer part 41 Transmission timer part 42 Network synchronization timer part 50 Clock supply unit 60 Power supply capacity monitoring unit 100a, 100b, 100c Wireless image communication device 110, 110a, 110b Wireless base station 111 Wireless processing unit 112 Wired processing unit 113 Network synchronization timer management unit 114 Transmission timing management table 115 Operation parameter setting table 120 Image monitoring device 123 Network synchronization timer manager (main)
124 Transmission timing management table (main)
125 Operation parameter setting table (main)
130 Object to be imaged

Claims (9)

A plurality of wireless image communication devices that wirelessly transmit image data;
A wireless base station that performs wireless broadcast communication with the plurality of wireless image communication devices;
A wireless image communication system comprising:
Each of the wireless image communication devices is
An imaging processing unit that captures an image and compresses the captured image as image data;
A wireless processing unit for transmitting the image data;
An imaging timer unit that activates the imaging processing unit at predetermined intervals;
A transmission timer unit that activates the wireless processing unit at predetermined intervals;
The radio base station is
The radio base station has timer unit setting means for setting the transmission timing of the transmission timer unit and the imaging timing of the imaging timer unit for the transmission timer unit and the imaging timer unit,
The wireless image communication apparatus, wherein the wireless image communication apparatus performs an intermittent operation of the wireless processing unit and the imaging processing unit based on the transmission timing and the imaging timing received from the wireless base station. The wireless image communication device further includes a network synchronization timer unit synchronized with the transmission timer unit and the imaging timer unit,
The wireless image communication apparatus further includes an absolute time / step size setting means for monitoring and receiving a beacon from the wireless base station and setting an absolute time and a step size in the wireless network under the control of the network synchronization timer unit. The wireless image communication system according to claim 1.   3. The wireless image communication system according to claim 1, wherein the wireless image communication apparatus further includes timer unit step size setting means for setting step sizes of the transmission timer unit and the imaging timer unit. 2. The operation of the imaging processing unit starts when the imaging timer unit notifies the imaging processing unit of an interrupt signal when the wireless image communication apparatus is in a suspended state . Wireless image communication system. 2. The operation of the wireless processing unit according to claim 1 , wherein when the wireless image communication apparatus is in a suspended state, the transmission timer unit starts an operation of the wireless processing unit by notifying the wireless processing unit of an interrupt signal. Wireless image communication system. An image monitoring device that receives image data transmitted from the wireless image communication device and performs predetermined processing;
The wireless image communication system according to claim 1, wherein the image monitoring apparatus manages information on the transmission timing and the imaging timing of the wireless base station . The wireless image communication apparatus further includes a power capacity monitoring unit that monitors power capacity,
2. The wireless image communication system according to claim 1, wherein a frame rate and a transmission data amount are controlled according to the power source capacity. A wireless image communication apparatus that performs wireless broadcast communication of image data with a wireless base station,
An imaging processing unit that captures an image and compresses the captured image as image data;
A wireless processing unit for transmitting the image data;
An imaging timer unit that activates the imaging processing unit at predetermined intervals;
A transmission timer unit that activates the wireless processing unit at predetermined intervals;
A wireless image communication apparatus that performs intermittent operation of the wireless processing unit and the imaging processing unit based on the transmission timing of the transmission timer unit and the imaging timing of the imaging timer unit received from the wireless base station . A wireless image communication method performed by a device capable of wireless broadcast communication of image data with a wireless base station,
Starting an imaging processing unit that captures an image and compresses the captured image as image data at predetermined intervals;
Activating a wireless processing unit for transmitting the image data at predetermined intervals;
Performing intermittent operation of the radio processing unit and the imaging processing unit based on the transmission timing and imaging timing of the image data received from the radio base station;
A wireless image communication method comprising:

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