JP2001317803A - Water heating equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide water heating equipment which can quickly and surely detect the entrance and leaving of a person into and from a bathroom, can automatically start and stop hot water supply by utilizing a human body sensor, and can automatically turn on/off bathroom heating. SOLUTION: This water heating equipment is provided with a bath room having a bathtub, a washing place, and the entrance to the washing place, a human body detecting sensor which picks up images showing the movement of a human body in the bathroom and processes the images, an infrared sensor which detects the human body with infrared rays. The equipment is also provided with the human body sensor housing the human body detecting sensor and infrared sensor in one case and a control means which outputs a control command to the equipment when the human body sensor detects an object to be detected.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a hot water device for a bathroom equipped with a human body detection sensor for imaging a motion of a human body in a bathroom and performing image processing, and a human body detection sensor for detecting a human body by means other than image capturing. It is.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, it is known to provide a bathroom provided with a bathtub and a washing room with a sensor for detecting entry into, exit from, or movement in the bathroom. Then, proposals have been made to use an infrared sensor, a CCD camera, or the like as the sensor.

[0003]

However, the bathroom is hot and humid, the lighting is dark, and it is difficult to reliably detect the movement of a person only by providing a single sensor. For example, in the case of using an infrared sensor, there is a case where the heat of the bathtub is sensed and the presence of a person is erroneously detected even though the person is not present. Further, in the case of imaging a human body, there is a disadvantage that it takes too much time to detect the image because the speed of image processing is slow. Furthermore, a function to start hot water supply to the bathtub and automatically stop hot water supply at the set water level,
In a hot water appliance that does not have a so-called automatic hot water supply stop function, hot water supply cannot be stopped automatically, so that there has been a problem that hot water inadvertently overflows from the bathtub. Also, even if a hot water heater is installed in the bathroom, if the heating switch is not turned on, the bathroom will not be heated, and heating is not required while bathing in the bathtub, depending on the bathing condition of the user. The heating switch could not be turned on and off automatically.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In view of the above problems, the present invention can quickly and reliably detect entry into and exit from a bathroom, can automatically stop hot water supply using a human body sensor, and can automatically turn on and off heating of a bathroom. It is an object of the present invention to provide a hot water appliance.

[0005]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, a water heater according to the present invention captures an image of a bathroom having a bathtub, a washing place and an entrance to the washing place, and the movement of a human body in the bathroom. A human body detection sensor for performing image processing, an infrared sensor for detecting a human body by infrared rays, a human body sensor in which the human body detection sensor and the infrared sensor are housed in one case, and a water heater when the object detected by the human body sensor is detected And a control unit for outputting a control command to the control unit. According to the first feature, it is possible to quickly and reliably detect entry into the bathroom by using two sensors, and to ensure control commands to the hot water equipment. That is, the infrared sensor operates before the human body detection sensor that captures the image of the movement of the human body and processes the image, and the human body detection sensor can be monitored by detecting the human body of the infrared sensor. By outputting this control command, device control can be performed quickly and reliably.

Further, the hot water appliance of the present invention comprises a bathroom having a bathtub, a washing room, and an entrance to the washing room, a human body detection sensor for taking an image of the movement of the human body in the bathroom, and processing the image by infrared rays. An infrared sensor for detecting, a human body sensor in which the human body detection sensor and the infrared sensor are housed in one case, a temperature-sensitive member attached to a bathtub and changing color when a hot water level reaches a certain value, and the human body detection sensor A second feature is that control means for outputting a hot water supply stop command to the hot water device when a color change of the temperature sensing member is detected is provided. According to the second feature, in addition to the above features, in a water heater having no automatic hot water supply stop function, an advantage that a hot water supply stop function can be provided by using a human body sensor and control of the water heater can be simplified. There is.

Further, the hot water appliance of the present invention comprises a bathroom having a bathtub, a washing room, and an entrance to the washing room, a human body detection sensor for taking an image of the movement of the human body in the bathroom, and processing the human body by infrared rays. An infrared sensor for detecting, a human body sensor in which the human body detection sensor and the infrared sensor are housed in one case, and a control command to a hot water device when a human body is detected by the human body sensor to output hot water heating by a hot water heater. A third feature is that control means for starting is provided. According to the third feature, there is an advantage that heating can be automatically stopped when entering the bathtub, and heating can be automatically started when leaving the bathtub.

[0008]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an electric circuit showing one embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 3 is a circuit diagram showing a configuration of an image core circuit constituting one pixel of the image detection unit of the human body detection sensor. FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing the relationship between the imaging range of the sensor, the detection range, and the detection area. It is. FIG. 5 is a bathroom diagram viewed from a human body sensor installed on the ceiling. FIG. 6 is a control flowchart showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view of a bathroom 1 and a hot water device 40 viewed from the side, schematically showing an embodiment of the present invention. It is provided. Reference numeral 4 denotes an entrance to a bathroom such as a door. A human body sensor 5 is installed on the ceiling of the bathroom 1. When the bathroom 1 is a system bathroom, it is desirable to install the bathroom 1 in the inspection opening 44 opened on the ceiling for maintenance and inspection. The human body sensor 5 on the ceiling has an imaging device using a low-resolution artificial retina, which will be described later, and has a human body detection sensor 51 that images the movement of a human body in a bathroom and performs image processing, and an infrared sensor 52 that detects a human body by infrared detection. It is composed of

The output of the human body sensor 5 is input to a controller 42 of the hot water device 40 through a connection cord 41 connected to the hot water device 40, and transmitted from the controller 42 to a remote controller 60 for a bathroom or a remote controller 70 for a kitchen. here,
The hot water device 40 is a device for heating water such as hot water, and is specifically configured by a bath kettle with a water heater, a heater with a water heater, a hot water heater, a water heater, and the like. The hot water equipment may be not only gas-fueled but also oil-fueled. And remote controllers 60 and 7 for controlling the water heater
0 has a display unit such as a lamp for notifying that there is a bather in the bathroom 1. When the human body sensor 5 detects the bather and outputs a detection signal from a signal line, the display unit turns on. ing. The display unit is not limited to the above, and if there is no movement of the bather for a certain period of time, it is presumed that the bather is sleeping or falling down in the bathtub. If no response is received within a predetermined time, the kitchen remote controller 70 may notify another person by an alarm sound or voice.

The human body sensor 5 and the hot water device 4
A connector 43 for detachably attaching the human body sensor 5 is provided in the middle of the connection cord 41 for connecting to the connector 0. If the human body sensor 5 is fixed to the inspection port 44 of the bathroom 1, it is recommended that the inspection port 44 and the human body sensor 5 can be integrally removed by removing the connector 43. Further, a heat exchanger, a burner, a fan, and the like (not shown) are built in the hot water device 40, and various sensors for control are provided. A hot water pipe for heating is connected from the hot water equipment 40 to the hot water heater 45, and a hot water supply pipe 46 is connected to the bathtub 2. The power for operating the human body sensor 5 is supplied from the power plug 47 and is reduced in voltage and reduced in voltage via the transformer of the controller 42 of the hot water device 40 and supplied.

FIG. 2 shows a specific configuration of the human body sensor 5 including a human body detection sensor 51 using an artificial retinal chip and an infrared sensor 52. Human body detection sensor 51
Is composed of an imaging device 6 that detects a human body and processes the detected image, and a control device 7 that supplies a control signal to the imaging device 6 and determines processing information. And
In addition to the human body detection sensor 51, an infrared sensor 52 is provided in the same case body, the control device 7 is shared, and the monitoring when the bathroom 1 is dark is mutually supplemented.

The image pickup section 8 of the image pickup device 6 has a length of 128 ×
Of the 128-pixel horizontal C-MOS array and the like, the controller 7
32 × 3 horizontal on the RAM capacity of the microcomputer
It is composed of an image detection unit 9 composed of two pixels (= 1024 pixels), an imaging lens 10, a scanner 11, a multiplexer 12, and a scanner drive control unit 13. If the RAM capacity permits, more pixels may be used, or detection processing may be performed by thinning out a large number of pixels. The pixels of the image detection unit 9 have monochrome 256 gradations “level 0 (black) to
255 (white), 256 gradations ".

In the image pickup section 8, an image in the bathroom is formed on the image detecting section 9 by the image forming lens 10. The drive of the scanner 11 is controlled by a scanner drive control unit 13, and controls each pixel row of the image detection unit 9 so as to sequentially enter a light receiving state (on state) at regular intervals. Photocurrents simultaneously output from the pixels in one column in the light receiving state are converted from analog data into serial data by the multiplexer 12, amplified by the amplifier 14, and then input to the image processing unit 15. The conversion from analog data to serial data may be performed by a control unit provided externally or by an IC provided separately.

Each pixel of the image detecting section 9 is constituted by a pixel core circuit 17 as shown in FIG. The pixel core circuit 17 includes a light receiving element 18, a charge storage circuit 19, and a sensitivity variable circuit 20.
The reset terminal 22 is connected to the scanner 11, and the photocurrent output terminal 23 is connected to the multiplexer 12.

In FIG. 2, a gain adjusting unit 16 checks the image average value (brightness of the image) in the image processing unit 15 and, if the image average value is out of an appropriate range, the amplifier 14 controls the image pickup device 6. The gain is adjusted, and the accumulation time of the image detection unit 9 is adjusted by the scanner drive control unit 13 so that the light is adjusted so that an image with appropriate brightness is obtained.

In the low-resolution imaging device 6 using the artificial retina, the image average value is calculated as 32 × 32
This is the average value of the gradations (256 gradations from 0 gradation (black) to 255 gradation (white)) in all the pixels, and is represented by a value of 0 to 255. The average value of the image is determined by the gain of the amplifier 14 and the accumulation time of the image detector 9. here,
The gain corresponds to the aperture of the camera, and the accumulation time corresponds to the shutter speed of the camera. Therefore, in order to obtain an appropriate image average value of the imaging device 6, it is sufficient to fix the gain to an appropriate value and adjust the accumulation time. Alternatively, the gain may be adjusted by fixing an appropriate accumulation time.

In FIG. 2, at least an image detecting section 9 for performing image pickup and an image processing section 15 for performing image processing.
Is composed of one chip. This chip is called an artificial retinal chip. Also, on the back side of this chip,
The control device 7 described above is provided. The control device 7 is composed of a microcomputer. Inside the control device 7, software is used as an area dividing means 24 for dividing a detection area for performing detection processing by the human body detection sensor 51 into a plurality of areas. Incorporated. Further, the control device 7 is provided with a control means 28 for outputting a control command to the hot water device 40 when the detected object is detected by the human body sensor 5. The control flow will be described later.

Specifically, the above-described image area division is as follows.
As shown in FIG. 4, a point table 25 for processing image information input to the image processing unit 15 is divided into a plurality of areas. That is, the imaging capability range detectable by the human body detection sensor 51 (corresponding to the entire point table 25) is divided into a detection area 26 that requires image processing and a non-detection area 27 that does not perform image processing. That is, the entire imaging capability range is not set as the detection area. As a result, a part of the detection processing area that can be detected is used as a sensor detection area for actually detecting and processing, thereby limiting the processing range of the image and increasing the speed of the image processing. Further, the detection area 26 is divided into two areas, a washing area 30 and a bathtub area 31.

The imaging lens 10, the imaging device 6, and the control device 7 constituting the human body sensor 51 are housed in one case together with the infrared sensor 52, and are mounted on the ceiling of the bathroom 1 as a human body sensor set.

Then, the detection output of the human body detection sensor 51 having the imaging device 6 and the detection output of the infrared sensor 52 are input to the judgment means 32, respectively. On the other hand, a label-like temperature-sensitive member 29 that changes color by sensing temperature is attached to the bathtub 2. As the temperature-sensitive member, a known member may be used, and it is commercially available and easily available. The sticking position may be, for example, an inner wall surface of the bathtub 2 as shown in FIG. 5 and a water level position suitable for bathing. Since the bathtub is normally inclined inward toward the bottom, the color change of the temperature sensing member 29 can be monitored from the human body sensor 5 installed on the ceiling. The color of the temperature sensing member 29 may be set to match the color of the bathtub 2. When the bathtub 2 is of a black system, it is recommended to select a label that changes to white depending on the temperature of hot water supplied. Conversely, when the bathtub 2 is of a white system, it is labeled white,
Those that change to black depending on the hot water temperature are recommended. Hot water equipment 4
The hot water level information from 0 to the bathtub 2 is monitored by the human body sensor 5, and the determination unit 32 and the control unit 28 of the control device 7.
Is transmitted to the controller 42 of the hot water equipment 40 via the. The determining means comprehensively determines the presence or absence of a bather and the movement of the bather in the bathroom based on the output from the imaging device 6 and the output from the infrared sensor.

The image detected by the artificial retina is image-processed as follows. The image processing unit 15 receives image information from all pixels constituting the image detection unit 9 at regular intervals. The image processing unit 15 receives the image information at regular time intervals,
The image information is processed and output to the judging means 32 to monitor the movement of the bather and the bathtub water surface.

More specifically, first, the image processing unit 15 calculates the difference (difference) in the amount of received light between the image (previous image) a predetermined time earlier detected by the image detection unit 9 and the current image (current image). I do. Pixels having a positive difference are represented by +, negative pixels are represented by-, and pixels having a difference of 0 are represented by 0. Since the movement of the object can be determined based on the boundary of the image, the movement of the boundary of the image appears as a positive or negative difference there. Thereby, the moving direction of the image boundary is estimated. By looking at the sum of the differences, it is possible to roughly grasp the movement of the person. Further, the above-described analysis method is applied to a two-dimensional image. Specifically, the directions on the pixels are divided into four directions of a vertical direction, a horizontal direction, a diagonally upward diagonal direction, and a diagonally downward diagonal direction. Each time, the difference (scalar) between the current image and the previous image is obtained, the motion in each direction is determined from the image of the difference, and the difference in each direction may be represented as a vector. Then, by averaging the difference vector between the pixel and its surrounding 3 × 3 pixels (optical flow), it is possible to detect the presence or movement of a person in the bathroom.

As shown in FIG. 4, the detection area 26 of the human body detection sensor 51 is divided into two areas, a washing area 30 and a bathtub area 31, and the sum of the differences or the amount of movement is detected for each area. . Here, the amount of motion refers to each region 30, 3
It is the average of the scalar amounts of the optical flows of each pixel for each pixel (scalar average) or the sum of the scalar amounts (scalar sum).

Next, the hot water filling control using the human body detection sensor 51 will be described with reference to FIG. First, a hot water switch (not shown) of the remote controller is turned on (step S
At 1), the hot water supply is activated and water is supplied, and at the same time, the burner is ignited and hot water is supplied to the bathtub 2 via the hot water dropping pipe 46 (step S2). At the same time, the human body detection sensor 51 receives the ON signal of the hot water switch and can be monitored to start the operation (step S3), and the inside of the bathroom 1 is set to the monitoring state. When the water level of the bathtub eventually rises and the amount of hot water reaches the position of the temperature-sensitive member 29 attached to the bathtub, the temperature-sensitive member 29 changes its color due to the hot water temperature (in the case of YES in step S4), and this color change occurs. Is detected by the human body detection sensor 51 as a change in the gradation of the image. Thus, a hot water supply stop command is output to the water heater via the image processing unit 15, the determination means 32, and the control means 28 (step S5), and the hot water supply electromagnetic valve in the water heater is closed. By using the human body detection sensor 51 that captures the image of the movement of the human body and performs image processing, it is possible to detect a color change of the temperature-sensitive member 29 attached to the bathtub. Next, a description will be given of a determination as to whether or not a person has entered the bathroom 1 after the filling of the bathtub is completed. In FIG. 6, when a person starts to enter the bathroom 1, first, the infrared sensor 52 in a standby state detects a human body and turns on (step S6), and a timer is set (step S7).
1 can be monitored, and when the human body detection sensor 51 detects a person in the washing room within a fixed time (step S8), it is determined that the person has entered the room (step S9). In this entry determination, the detection of the human body by the human body detection sensor 51 requires time for imaging and calculation of the amount of movement, or the monitoring sensitivity is low when the bathroom is dark.
2 and the human body detection sensor 51 detects a human together after the infrared sensor 52 detects the human body.
It is intended to compensate for the weakness of 1 and ensure the entry to the room.

Also, when leaving the bathroom, when the infrared sensor 52 is turned off and the human body detection sensor 51 does not detect the amount of movement, it may be determined that the user has left the bathroom. Since the infrared sensor 52 may erroneously determine the bathtub temperature as the human body temperature, the weak point of the infrared sensor 52 is supplemented by using another sensor.

If it is determined by the human body detection sensor 51 that the bather is located in the bathtub area 31, so-called additional heating is performed to raise the bath temperature by 1 to 2 degrees C. You may.

The attachment of the human body detection sensor 51 is as follows.
It is attached to the ceiling of the bathroom 1 at the boundary between the washing area 30 and the bathtub area 31 of the bathroom. This position is the optimum position for monitoring the movement of a person in a bathroom provided with the washing room 3 and the bathtub 2 in a standard bathroom. In particular, bathtub 2 and washroom 3
The boundary can be clarified with respect to the movement of a person in the bathtub 2 and the washing place 3 by being attached to the boundary between the bathtub 2 and the washing place 3. Since the human body detection sensor 51 and the infrared sensor 52 constituting the human body sensor 5 are housed in one case, it is easy to mount and check.

When a human body is detected in the washing area 30 by the human body detection sensor 51, the detection output is transmitted to the hot water equipment 40 via the control means 28 and the hot water heater 4
5, the hot water heating can be automatically started. As a specific example of hot water heating, a heat exchanger may be provided in a hot water circulation circuit, hot water may be circulated by a circulation pump, and heat may be released by a hot water heater as a radiator. further,
It is also recommended to automatically stop the hot water heating via the control means 28 when the human body is no longer detected in the washing area 30 and the human body is detected in the bathtub area 31. Thereby, when bathing in the bathtub, heating can be stopped to save energy.

The above-described embodiment shows a preferred embodiment of the present invention, and the present invention is not limited to this, and various design changes can be made within the scope. For example, in the present embodiment, the system bathroom has been described. However, the present invention is not limited to this example and can be installed in other existing bathrooms. In addition, although a sensor having a small number of pixels is used as the human body detection sensor, a similar effect can be expected by using an image sensor using a CCD and combining it with an infrared sensor.

[0031]

As described above, the present invention provides a bathroom having a bath tub, a washing room, and an entrance to the washing room, a human body detection sensor for imaging the movement of the human body in the bathroom and performing image processing, and a human body with infrared rays. An infrared sensor for detecting a human body, a human body sensor in which the human body detection sensor and the infrared sensor are housed in one case, and control means for outputting a control command to the water heater when detecting the object to be detected by the human body sensor. With that,
By using two sensors, entry into the bathroom can be detected quickly and reliably, and control commands to the hot-water equipment can be assured. Also, the present invention
A bathroom having a bathtub, a washing room, and an entrance to the washing room, a human body detection sensor that captures an image of the movement of the human body in the bathroom, performs image processing, an infrared sensor that detects a human body by infrared rays, the human body detection sensor, and infrared rays A human body sensor in which a sensor is housed in one case, a temperature-sensitive member attached to a bathtub and changing its color when a hot water level reaches a certain value, and a water heater when the human body detection sensor detects a color change of the temperature-sensitive member. And a control means for outputting a hot water supply stop command to the hot water supply apparatus which does not have the automatic hot water supply stop function, in addition to the above features, can be provided with a hot water supply stop function using a human body sensor. There is an advantage that control of the vessel can be simplified. Further, the present invention provides a bathroom having a bathtub, a washing room, and an entrance to the washing room, a human body detection sensor that performs image processing by capturing the movement of the human body in the bathroom, and an infrared sensor that detects a human body by infrared rays. A human body sensor in which the human body detection sensor and the infrared sensor are housed in one case, and control means for outputting a control command to the water heater when the human body is detected by the human body sensor and starting hot water heating by the hot water heater. With this arrangement, there is an advantage that heating can be automatically stopped when entering the bathtub, and heating can be automatically started when leaving the bathtub.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an electric circuit showing one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a circuit diagram showing a configuration of an image core circuit forming one pixel of an image detection unit of the human body detection sensor.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing a relationship between an imaging range of a sensor, a detection range, and a detection area.

FIG. 5 is a bathroom diagram viewed from a human body sensor installed on a ceiling.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing an embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Bathroom 2 Bathtub 3 Washing room 4 Doorway 5 Human body sensor 6 Imaging device 7 Control device 9 Image detection part 15 Image processing part 17 Image core circuit 24 Area division means 26 Detection area 28 Control means 29 Temperature sensing member 30 Washing area 31 Bathtub Area 32 determination means 40 hot water equipment 41 connection code 42 controller 51 human body detection sensor 52 infrared sensor

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A bathroom having a bathtub, a washing room, and an entrance to the washing room, a human body detection sensor that captures an image of the movement of a human body in the bathroom and performs image processing, an infrared sensor that detects a human body by infrared rays, One human body detection sensor and one infrared sensor
A hot water device comprising: a human body sensor housed in two cases; and control means for outputting a control command to the hot water device when an object to be detected is detected by the human body sensor. 2. A bathroom having a bathtub, a washing room, and an entrance to the washing room, a human body detection sensor that captures an image of the movement of the human body in the bathroom and performs image processing, an infrared sensor that detects a human body by infrared rays, One human body detection sensor and one infrared sensor
A human body sensor housed in one case, a temperature-sensitive member attached to the bathtub and changing color when the hot water level reaches a certain value, and stopping the hot water supply to the hot water equipment when the human body detection sensor detects a color change of the temperature-sensitive member. A hot water device comprising: a control unit that outputs a command. 3. A bathroom having a bathtub, a washing room, and an entrance to the washing room, a human body detection sensor that captures an image of the movement of a human body in the bathroom, performs image processing, an infrared sensor that detects a human body by infrared rays, One human body detection sensor and one infrared sensor
A hot water device comprising: a human body sensor housed in two cases; and control means for outputting a control command to the hot water device when the human body is detected by the human body sensor and starting hot water heating by the hot water heater.