JP2001190386A - Dish and reader and writer - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To increase the number of dishes on the conveyer for a circulating-dish sushi restaurant and to achieve effective radio signal transmission and receive between the antenna of a charging machine and the antenna coil on each dish in a bill-charging system using ID tags. SOLUTION: A dish 1 has a crescent shape in which a part of the circumference is recessed in a circular shape. A dish 1 is put on a conveyer such that the circular recessed portion 28 meets the circular circumference of the next dish 1. A bottom rim 27 has a circular recessed portion 29. The head of a charging machine has a circular convex shape. Radio communication is achieved by bringing each transmission and receive antenna mounted in the circular convex shape close to the antenna coil 2 of the dish 1.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a plate formed in a crescent shape in which a peripheral portion is partially concave in an arc shape, and a reader / writer for reading / writing an ID tag provided on the plate.

[0002]

For example, in a rotating sushi shop, a circular or square dish is transported using an endless loop conveyor. In recent revolving sushi shops,
In order to increase customer satisfaction, there is a tendency to increase the size of the sushi material, and with the increase in the size of the sushi material, the dishes used are also changing to larger ones.

However, when the size of the plate is increased, the number of plates that can be placed on the conveyor decreases. At a sushi restaurant,
Since a plurality of dishes are provided for one kind of sushi material, the reduction in the number of dishes that can be placed on the conveyor means that the number of kinds of rotating sushi material is reduced, and many kinds of sushi materials are preferred. The special feature of rotating sushi restaurants is that they can freely choose the sushi restaurant.

Recently, a rotating sushi shop has been adopting a system for shortening the settlement time by attaching an ID tag for reading and writing information by a radio signal to a dish. This settlement system uses an ID with a reader / writer attached to a plate.
Read the price information from the tag and write it on the checkout card,
The customer brings the payment card to the cash register and pays the bill.

The ID tag has an antenna coil and communicates with a reader / writer by radio waves via the antenna coil. As the ID tag, a power-supply-dependent type without a battery is used, and an operation power source is obtained by a power radio signal transmitted from a reader / writer. In this case, in order to efficiently transmit electric power radio waves from the reader / writer to the ID tag side of the dish, it is preferable to bring the reader / writer close to the antenna coil of the dish, but since the dish has a circular or square shape, it is necessary to approach it. Has a limit.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to increase the number of sushi rolls that can be placed on a conveyor, and to provide a dish antenna coil and a reader / writer antenna. It is an object of the present invention to provide a plate and a reader / writer capable of transmitting and receiving a radio signal in a state in which the device is approached.

[0007]

The invention according to claim 1 is characterized in that the dish is formed in a crescent shape in which a peripheral portion is partially concave in an arc shape. According to this configuration, the number of dishes that can be placed on the conveyor is increased by placing the dishes on the conveyor such that portions other than the recessed portions of the adjacent dishes enter the arc-shaped recessed portions of the dishes. According to the invention of claim 2, since the antenna coil of the ID tag is provided on the thread bottom of the dish main body, if the reader / writer is inserted inside the concave portion, the antenna coil of the ID tag can be removed. The antenna of the reader / writer can be approached. For this reason, transmission and reception of a radio signal between the ID tag and the reader / writer can be performed efficiently.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, since the thread bottom of the dish is formed in a crescent shape following the crescent shape of the dish body, the antenna coil of the dish and the antenna of the reader / writer are brought close to each other within a certain length range. This makes it possible to transmit and receive radio signals more efficiently. According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, an arc-shaped convex portion is provided on the reader / writer, and the antenna disposed on the convex portion is formed in an arc shape following the convex portion. Can be brought closer.

[0009]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings, in which the present invention is applied to a tallying system for rotating sushi shops. First, the rotating sushi shop is a shop having the following system. An endless closed-loop conveyor is provided in the store, and customer seats are provided along the conveyor. Sushi is placed on a plate and transported to the audience by a conveyor. The customer picks up the dish on which the favorite sushi is placed from among the dishes carried by the conveyor, and stacks the finished dishes on the table. The shop places the sushi on a plate of a color or pattern corresponding to the price, so that the customer can know the approximate amount to be paid to the store from the type and the number of the stacked plates. After finishing the meal, the clerk counts the number of dishes by color or pattern, and calculates the amount to be paid to the store.

As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, a dish 1 on which sushi is placed is made of plastic, such as melamine resin, and has an antenna coil 2 for transmitting and receiving radio signals. An ID tag 4 as a data carrier including the tag body 3 is embedded. As shown in FIG. 7, the tag main body 3 is configured by mounting a resonance capacitor 5, a control IC chip 6, and a smoothing unit 7 on a printed circuit board 8.

The control IC chip 6 is a one-chip semiconductor element constituting a rectifier 10, a modulator / demodulator 11, a memory 12, etc., in addition to an MPU (microprocessor unit) 9 as a control means. The antenna coil 2 and the resonance capacitor 5 are connected in parallel to form a resonance circuit. When a predetermined high-frequency power radio signal is transmitted from the outside, the signal is received by the antenna coil 2 and received. The obtained power radio signal is input to the rectifier 10. The rectification unit 10 constitutes a power supply circuit as an operation power supply forming unit together with the smoothing unit 7, and rectifies and smoothes the power radio signal to supply a constant voltage DC power supply (operation power supply) to the MPU 9 and the like. I do.

A signal such as a command or data transmitted from an external reader / writer is transmitted by being superimposed on a power radio signal. The signal is demodulated by a modem unit 11 and supplied to the MPU 9. The MPU 9 operates according to an operation program stored in a ROM included in the memory unit 12, executes a process corresponding to a signal input from the modem unit 11, and stores received data in the memory unit 1.
The data is written to an erasable non-volatile memory such as an EEPROM included in the memory 2, or data is read from the memory unit 12, modulated by the modem unit 11, and transmitted as a radio signal from the antenna coil 2.

FIG. 5 shows a hand-held totalizer 13 as a reader / writer which communicates with the ID tag 4 of the plate 1. The counting device 13 is for detecting the number of dishes of each type eaten by the customer and calculating the payment amount, and has a built-in battery as an operation power supply. The counting device 13 is provided with a head 15 at the tip of a hand-held operation unit 14, and the operation unit 14 is provided with various keys (not shown).
5 is provided with a display unit 16 (see FIG. 8) composed of an LCD.

As shown in FIG. 8, an MPU 17, a ROM 18, a RAM 19 and the like are provided inside the handheld totalizer 13. When receiving a signal from the operation unit 14, the MPU 17 operates according to the operation program stored in the ROM 18, and the operation content of the operation unit 14, the total amount, and the like are displayed on the display 16.

A transmission antenna 20 for communicating with the ID tag 4 on the plate 1 is provided on the head 15 of the counting device 13.
And a receiving antenna 21. The MPU 17
When communicating with the plate 1 side, first, only the carrier signal is
2, and is transmitted as a power radio signal from the transmission unit 23 via the transmission antenna 20. After that, MPU17
Reads out data to be transmitted from the RAM 19 and modulates the data to be superimposed on the power radio signal by the modulation unit 22.
Data is transmitted from the transmission unit 23 via the transmission antenna 20.

On the other hand, the radio signal transmitted from the plate 1 is
Received by the receiving unit 24 via the receiving antenna 21,
The data is demodulated by the demodulation unit 25 and discriminated as data.
The MPU 17 converts the data sent from the demodulation unit 25 into R
The data is stored in the AM 19, and finally, for example, the amount to be paid by the customer is calculated from the data stored in the RAM 19.

As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the plate 1 includes a plate main body 26 and a thread bottom 27 integrally provided on the outer bottom of the plate main body 26. The dish main body 26 is formed in a crescent shape in which a circular peripheral portion is partially concave in an arc shape. Further, the thread bottom 27 is formed in an annular shape having a relatively large diameter, and an arc-shaped concave portion 28 on the periphery of the dish main body 26 is formed.
Is similarly formed in a crescent shape concaved in an arc shape.

The antenna coil 2 is embedded in the yarn bottom 27. Therefore, the antenna coil 2
The portion corresponding to the arcuate concave portion 29 of the yarn bottom 27 has a crescent shape formed in an arcuate concave shape. The tag body 3 is embedded in the dish body 26. Aggregator 13
The head 15 has a front surface formed in an arc-shaped convex surface, and the transmitting antenna 20 and the receiving antenna 21 are disposed inside the arc-shaped convex surface portion 15a in a front-to-back positional relationship. In this case, the transmitting antenna 20 and the receiving antenna 21 are both formed of a rectangular coil having two opposing sides formed in an arc shape as shown in FIG.
The arc-shaped portions 20a and 21a are located so as to follow the arc-shaped convex portion 15a of the head 15. The radius of curvature of the arc-shaped convex surface portion 15a is set to be substantially the same as the radius of curvature of the arc-shaped concave portion 28 of the plate 1.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the dish main body 26
Has a crescent shape, and when the plates 1 are arranged on a conveyor (not shown), the two adjacent plates 1 are placed in the arc-shaped concave portion 28 of one of the plates 1 as shown in FIG. The plate 1 is placed so that the arc-shaped outer edge of the plate 1 enters. In this way, the adjacent plates 1 are placed on the conveyor in a state where they are partially overlapped with each other, so that even if the same number of plates 1 are not provided with the arc-shaped concave portions 28, the length of the Is shorter and more dishes 1 can be placed on the conveyor.

Also, since the conveyor is in a closed loop,
There is always a curved part. When the plates 1 approach the curve of the conveyor, the two plates 1 next to each other rotate back and forth in time, so they come into friction with each other,
Since the arc-shaped outer edge of the other dish 1 is placed on the conveyor such that the arc-shaped outer edge of the other dish 1 enters the arc-shaped recess 28 of the other dish 1, the adjacent dishes 1 overlap each other at the curved portion of the conveyor. It is possible to prevent as much as possible the problem that the dish 1 is flipped out of the conveyor.

When totaling the payments of customers who have completed meals, the dishes 1 are stacked so that the arc-shaped concave portions 28 are aligned in one place as shown in FIG. Then, the counting device 13 is turned sideways and the head 15 is positioned inside the arc-shaped concave portion 28 of the plate 1, and communication with the ID tag 4 of the plate 1 is performed by a radio signal while moving the counting device 13 up and down. Thereby, the counting device 13 calculates the payment amount based on the data read from the ID tag 4 of the plate 1. Data such as the totaled payment amount is written in the checkout tag, and the customer carries the checkout tag to a cash register and makes a checkout.

At the time of communication between the counting device 13 and the ID tag 4 of the plate 1, the head 15 of the counting device 13 is embedded inside the arc-shaped concave surface 28 of the plate body 26, and is embedded in the thread bottom 27. Communication can be performed with the transmitting / receiving antennas 20 and 21 of the compiling device 13 approaching the antenna coil 2 that has been used. Moreover, the antenna coil 2 of the ID tag 4
Among them, the circular concave portion 2a located in the circular concave portion 29 of the thread bottom 27 follows the circular concave portion 28 of the dish main body 26, and the two antennas 20, 21 of the counting device 13 follow the circular convex portion 15a. Because of the presence of the arc-shaped portions 20a and 21a, the antenna coil 2 of the ID tag 4 and the antennas 20 and 21 of the compiling device 13 are close to each other within a certain length range, so that the radio signal can be more efficiently transmitted. You can send and receive.

The present invention is not limited to the embodiment described above and shown in the drawings, but can be extended or modified as follows. Antenna coil 2 of ID tag 4,
The tag body 3 may be fixed to the dish 1 with an adhesive. The tag body 3 may be provided on the yarn bottom 26. The thread bottom 27 may be circular without the arc-shaped recess 29. The front surface of the head 15 of the counting device 13 may be a flat surface without the arc-shaped convex surface portion 15a. The transmitting antenna 20 and the receiving antenna 21 are arc-shaped portions 20a and 21a
May be one without.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a bottom view of a dish showing one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a dish seen from below.

FIG. 3 is a plan view showing the dishes arranged in a line;

FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing an aggregation state.

FIG. 5 is a plan view of a counting device.

FIG. 6 is a perspective view of an antenna of the counting device.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing an electrical configuration of the ID tag.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing an electrical configuration of a counting device.

[Explanation of symbols]

In the figure, 1 is a plate, 2 is an antenna coil, 2a is an arc-shaped concave portion, 3 is a tag body, 4 is an ID tag, 13 is a counting device (reader / writer), 15 is a head, 15a is an arc-shaped convex surface portion, 20
Is a transmitting antenna, 21 is a receiving antenna, 20a, 21a
Is an arc-shaped portion, 26 is a dish main body, 27 is a thread bottom, and 28 and 29 are arc-shaped concave portions.

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification symbol FI theme coat ゛ (reference) G09F 3/00 G06K 19/00 Q 9A001 F term (reference) 3B001 AA11 BB10 CC40 3B115 AA00 BA28 DC04 3E042 AA04 BA17 CA10 5B035 AA00 BA04 BB09 BC00 CA23 5B058 CA15 KA02 KA06 YA20 9A001 JJ58 KK60

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A dish that is placed and moved on a conveyor formed in a closed loop shape, wherein a peripheral portion is formed in a crescent shape that is partially concave in an arc shape. 2. A dish main body formed in a crescent shape in which a peripheral portion is partially concave in an arc shape, a thread bottom provided on a bottom of the dish body, an ID tag provided on the dish body or the thread bottom, A dish provided with a coil for an antenna, provided on the thread bottom, for transmitting / receiving data read / written to / from the ID tag to / from an external reader / writer by a radio signal; 3. The dish according to claim 2, wherein the thread bottom is formed in a crescent shape following the crescent shape of the dish body. 4. The ID provided on the dish according to claim 2.
In a reader / writer that transmits and receives data to and from a tag by a radio signal, a radio wave is transmitted between a main body having an arc-shaped convex portion and an antenna coil provided on the convex portion of the main body and disposed on the plate. An antenna for transmitting and receiving signals, wherein the antenna is formed of a coil, and the antenna coil is formed in an arc shape following the arc-shaped convex portion of the main body.