JP2003304530A - Monitoring apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a monitoring apparatus for monitoring an object in a desired direction around a vehicle to thereby avoid a damage such as a theft. <P>SOLUTION: An on-vehicle apparatus 2 has a camera 4 with controllable photographing direction and controllable magnification and a communication section 7, a terminal 3 has a display section 33, an operation section 31, and a terminal communication section 32, the on-vehicle apparatus 2 transmits a camera video image and photographing direction information to the terminal 3 through communication connection between the on-vehicle apparatus 2 and the terminal 3, and the terminal 3 displays the received camera video image or the like on the display section 33, a user enters the camera photographing direction and magnification information on the basis of the displayed information and transmits them to the on-vehicle apparatus 2. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a monitoring device used for monitoring a place requiring monitoring, a parked vehicle or the like and recording an accident situation.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, theft accidents of automobiles and vehicle-mounted electronic devices, the escape accidents, and accidents involving parked vehicles such as mischiefs have frequently occurred. As means for recording these accident situations, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-061129 discloses a camera for photographing the periphery of a vehicle, a sensor for detecting an object in the vicinity of the vehicle, and an abnormality state when the abnormality around the vehicle is detected. A monitoring device having a communication means for transmitting to is disclosed.

[0003]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional monitoring device, the image taken by the camera is only stored in the storage means on the device and cannot be transmitted to the outside, so that the device is mounted. If the vehicle is stolen and cannot be found as it is, the video cannot be reproduced, and the camera mounted on the device cannot be freely operated remotely.

On the other hand, there is also a problem that power consumption for driving the device is increased by constantly operating the camera of the monitoring device.

The present invention has been made in order to solve the above-mentioned conventional problems, and provides a monitoring device capable of monitoring a suspicious person approaching a place to be monitored or a vehicle from a distant place. The purpose is to

[0006]

A monitoring device of the present invention is a camera-equipped device having a camera for photographing the periphery of a device, a driving means for driving the camera, and a communication means for communicating information including an image photographed by the camera. From the operation means operated by the operator, the terminal communication means for transmitting information including the operation information operated by the operation means, and the information transmitted from the communication means, and the camera received by the terminal communication means. And a terminal having a display unit for displaying information including the image, and the driving unit is driven based on the operation information transmitted by the terminal transmitting unit.
With this configuration, a suspicious person approaching a place to be monitored or a camera-equipped device installed in the vehicle can be monitored by a terminal device from a distant place.

Further, in the surveillance device of the present invention, the camera-equipped device has a control means for controlling the driving means and the communication means, and the control means controls the operation information received by the communication means. On the basis of this, the configuration is such that shooting direction information and magnification information of the camera are set in the drive unit. With this configuration, the operator can change the shooting direction and magnification of the camera from a location away from the camera-equipped device by the terminal.

Further, in the surveillance device of the present invention, the camera-equipped device has a control means for controlling the drive means and the communication means, and the control means is set in the drive section. The communication means transmits the shooting direction information and the magnification information of the camera. With this configuration, the current shooting direction and magnification of the camera can be confirmed from the location away from the camera-equipped device by the terminal.

Further, in the surveillance device of the present invention, the camera-equipped device has a surrounding object detecting means for detecting an object around the device, and the control means is based on a detection result of the surrounding object detecting means. It is configured to set the shooting direction information and the magnification information of the camera in the drive unit.
With this configuration, it is possible to detect a suspicious person or the like approaching the camera-equipped device before reaching the camera-equipped device, and take a picture of the image with the camera.

Further, in the surveillance device of the present invention, the camera-equipped device has power supply means for separately supplying power to the communication means and the control means, and the camera and the drive means, and the power supply means. Has a configuration in which power is supplied to the communication means and the control means even when power is not supplied to the drive means, and power is supplied to the drive means based on the operation information received by the communication means. ing. With this configuration, power is not normally supplied to the camera and the driving unit, and only the communication unit and the control unit are supplied with the power to be in the standby state. By operating the machine, power can be supplied to the camera and the driving means to start photographing.

Further, in the surveillance device of the present invention, the camera-equipped device has a power supply means for separately supplying power to the surrounding object detection means and the control means, and the camera and the drive means. The power supply unit supplies power to the surrounding object detection unit and the control unit even when power is not supplied to the camera and the drive unit,
Power is supplied to the camera and the drive unit based on the detection result of the surrounding object detection unit. With this configuration, power is not normally supplied to the camera and the driving unit, and only the surrounding object detection unit and the control unit are supplied with power so as to be in a standby state. When approaching, power can be supplied to the camera and the driving means to start photographing.

Further, in the surveillance device of the present invention, the camera-equipped device has a recording means for recording information including an image taken by the camera and the operation information. With this configuration, it is possible to record the image captured by the camera and the status of the operation performed on the terminal.

Further, in the surveillance device of the present invention, the camera-equipped device has an alarm means for issuing an alarm based on the operation information. With this configuration, the operator can issue an alarm when necessary by judging from the image captured by the camera by the terminal device from a location away from the camera-equipped device.

Further, in the surveillance device of the present invention, the camera-equipped device is mounted on a moving body. With this configuration, even after the mobile body has been stolen, the situation around the mobile body can be confirmed from a remote place with the terminal device.

Further, in the monitoring apparatus of the present invention, the camera-equipped device has a current position detecting means for detecting the current position of the moving body and a timepiece for measuring the current time, and the control means comprises: The communication unit transmits information including a video image captured by a camera, the operation information, the current position information detected by the current position detection unit, and the current time. With this configuration, even after the mobile body has been stolen, you can check the surroundings of the mobile body with a video from a remote location, and check the current location of the mobile body and the time it was stolen on the terminal. You can

Further, in the monitoring apparatus of the present invention, the operation information is information including alarm information, and the control means is configured to transmit the information including the alarm information from the communication means to a predetermined engine. With this configuration, the operator can judge from the image taken by the camera by the terminal device from a place far from the moving body and can send an alarm to a predetermined organization such as a police or a security company when necessary.

[0017]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

(First Embodiment) FIG. 1 shows a monitoring device mounted on a vehicle according to a first embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, the monitoring device 1 includes an in-vehicle device 2 that is a camera-equipped device installed in a vehicle interior, and a terminal device 3 that is used in a place away from the vehicle.

The vehicle-mounted device 2 includes a camera 4 for taking a picture around the vehicle.
And a drive unit 5 for changing the shooting direction and magnification of the camera 4.
A control unit 6 that controls the operation of the vehicle-mounted device 2, a communication unit 7 that communicates with the terminal device 3, a compression unit 8 that compresses video data captured by the camera 4, and a compression unit 8 that compresses the video data. A buffer memory 9 which is a memory of a ring buffer structure for temporarily storing the oldest data while sequentially updating the video data, and a recording unit 10 for recording the video image captured by the camera 4. And a clock 1 that measures the current time
1 and the current position detection unit 1 for detecting the current position of the vehicle-mounted device 2
2 and a power supply unit 13 that supplies power to each unit of the vehicle-mounted device 2.

The terminal unit 3 has an operation unit 31 in which a key switch that can be operated by an operator is arranged, a terminal communication unit 32 for communicating with the in-vehicle unit 2, and the in-vehicle unit 2 received by the terminal communication means. And a display unit 33 that displays an image received from the camera 4 and the like from the camera 4.

Next, the configurations of the camera 4 and the drive unit 5 will be described with reference to FIGS. In FIG. 2, the drive unit 5 enables photographing in all directions around the vehicle,
In order to rotate the camera 4 in all directions around the vehicle, the camera 4
Is installed, a motor 52 that rotates the rotary stage 51, a counter 53 that reads the rotation angle of the rotary stage 51, and a rotary stage based on the rotation angle counted by the counter 53 and a control signal from the control unit 6. Motor control unit 54 for calculating the drive amount of 51
Composed of and.

The camera 4 and the drive unit 5 are preferably installed at positions where it is easy to take a picture of the surroundings of the vehicle, such as the ceiling of the passenger compartment and the dashboard as shown in FIG.

Next, a configuration example of the terminal 3 will be described with reference to FIG. In FIG. 4, the terminal device 3 includes an antenna 321 that receives a signal from the communication unit 7 of the vehicle-mounted device 2, and a video reproduction display unit 331 that displays a video image captured by the camera 4.
A shooting direction display unit 332 that displays the shooting direction of the camera 4, a shooting direction operation unit 333 that sets shooting direction and magnification information of the camera 4, and a telephone operation for inputting a telephone number for making a call. Section 311 and operation instruction section 3 for inputting instructions for causing vehicle-mounted device 2 to execute various operations.
12 and a video reproduction / stop operation unit 313 for performing on / off operation of reproduction of the transmission video from the camera 4.

The operation of the monitoring device constructed as above will be described with reference to FIG. In FIG. 5, the operations of the vehicle-mounted device 2 and the terminal device 3 are shown separately.

First, when the vehicle is parked, only the control unit 6 and the communication unit 7 of the vehicle-mounted device 2 are ready to be operated. Therefore, the power supply unit 13 is turned off when the engine key of the vehicle is turned off.
Power is supplied only to the control unit 6 and the communication unit 7 (S1
00). In the terminal device 3, when an operator who is away from the vehicle wants to monitor the surrounding environment of the parked vehicle, he dials up to the vehicle-mounted device 2 to establish a communication connection (S10).
1). When the communication connection with the terminal device 3 is established, the in-vehicle device 2 collates the telephone number, which is stored in the memory (not shown) in the control unit 6 and permits the communication connection, with the received number, and the two numbers match. Then, power is supplied to each unit of the in-vehicle device 2 to activate all the functions of the in-vehicle device 2, and the authentication screen data is transmitted to the terminal device 3 (S102).

At this time, in the vehicle-mounted device 2, the camera 4 starts photographing, and the image photographed by the camera 4 is compressed by the compression unit 8 and stored in the buffer memory 9 (S103). The terminal device 3 receives the authentication screen data transmitted from the in-vehicle device 2, displays it on the display unit 33 as an authentication screen, and displays the authentication screen data on the display unit 33.
The operator inputs the user ID and the password on the authentication screen displayed on the screen, and transmits the authentication data to the vehicle unit 2 (S104). FIG. 6 shows an example of the authentication screen displayed on the display unit 33.

The in-vehicle device 2 collates the user ID and password received from the terminal device 3 (S105). Further, in the in-vehicle device 2, the information necessary for displaying the image captured by the camera 4 and the image such as the message is transmitted from the communication unit 7 to the terminal 3
The angle information of the rotary stage 51 of the drive unit 5 is also read from the counter 53 and transmitted to the terminal 3 (S106). Then, the terminal device 3 displays the message transmitted from the vehicle-mounted device, and when the image reproduction button 408 is pressed by the operator, the image as shown in FIG. 4 is displayed on the display unit 33 (S107).

Next, the photographing direction changing operation will be described with reference to FIG. This operation is an operation for controlling the direction of the camera 4 and monitoring an image in a desired direction by an operation from the terminal device 3.

When the video image displayed on the terminal device 3 transmitted from the vehicle-mounted device 2 does not show any abnormality such as a suspicious person, the operator uses the terminal device 3 to display the screen shown in FIG. The amount of movement in the rotation direction of the camera 4 is input using the above-described shooting direction operation unit 333. The shooting direction in the vehicle of the playback video is the shooting direction display unit 3
Since it is displayed as a graphic as shown by 32, the movement amount in the rotational direction is determined with reference to this. Further, the magnification of the camera 4 can be changed by inputting the photographing magnification. At this time, the terminal communication unit 32 sequentially transmits the rotation direction movement amount data and the magnification data. When the operation amount such as the movement amount in the rotation direction and the magnification is determined, the video reproduction stop operation unit 313 is pressed to transmit the video stop signal for stopping the video reproduction, and the transmission button on the display screen 33 is pressed to send the video reception refusal signal to the vehicle-mounted device. 2 (S120). Then, in the vehicle-mounted device 2, the drive unit 5 drives a predetermined amount based on the rotation direction movement amount data received from the terminal unit 3, the photographing direction and the magnification of the camera 4 are switched, and the captured image is compressed by the compression unit 8. Then, it is transmitted again to the terminal 3 (S121).

In the terminal 3, since the video receiving message is displayed on the display unit 33, the retransmitted received video is played back by operating the video playback operating unit 313 (S12).
2).

Next, how to use the operation instruction section 312 of the terminal 3 will be described. These operation instructing units are for instructing an operation so that the operator can take appropriate measures when a suspicious person or the like appears in the image. First, the video stop section 3
13 is pressed to stop the reproduction display, and predetermined operation information is transmitted by operating the operation instructing unit 312, and the control unit 6 of the vehicle-mounted device 2 is operated.
Control with. For example, if the record button is pressed in FIG.
The camera image stored in the buffer memory is transferred to the recording unit 10. Then, the terminal 3 receives and displays the record message. The recording time in the recording unit 10 is at the discretion of the operator holding the terminal device 3. When the stop button 313 is pressed, the stop information is transmitted and the transfer to the recording unit 10 is stopped. Similarly, when the buzzer button is pressed in FIG. 4, a buzzer (not shown) installed in the vehicle-mounted device 2 sounds to give an alarm to a suspicious person approaching the vehicle. When the report button is pressed further, report information is automatically reported to a predetermined external organization. For example, the vehicle-mounted device 2 receives the notification signal from the terminal device 3 and automatically disconnects the communication connection with the terminal device 3. Then, it automatically connects to a predetermined external organization for communication, and adds position information and time information of the vehicle to the recorded image and transmits it.

As described above, according to the monitoring apparatus of the first embodiment of the present invention, the vehicle-mounted device 2 and the terminal device 3 are communicatively connected, and the image of the camera 4 and the shooting direction information are transmitted to the terminal device 3. To the in-vehicle device 2 by setting the shooting direction and the magnification based on the received image information and transmitting to the in-vehicle device 2. The in-vehicle device 2 captures an image of the camera based on the received information. The direction and the magnification are set, and the image of the camera 4 according to the set direction and the magnification is automatically transmitted to the terminal again, so that even if the operator is away from the vehicle, an appropriate direction around the vehicle can be obtained. Video can be monitored. Then, based on the information on the surrounding conditions of the vehicle, it becomes possible to perform operations such as image storage, warning, and notification to an external organization, so that the effect of preventing theft, accident, etc. can be enhanced.

If the vehicle-mounted device 2 is provided with a sound such as a buzzer and a speaker for generating an alarm, the alarm can be generated when the theft occurs.

Further, according to the monitoring apparatus of the first embodiment of the present invention, power is supplied only from the power supply unit 13 to the control unit 6 and the communication unit 7 when the engine key of the vehicle is turned off.
Power is not supplied to blocks such as the camera 4 during so-called standby, and power is supplied to all the functions of the vehicle-mounted device 3 only when a request is made from the terminal device 3, so power can be saved.

(Second Embodiment) Next, the second embodiment of the present invention will be described.
FIG. 8 shows a monitoring device mounted on a vehicle according to this embodiment. The monitoring device shown in FIG. 8 is the same as the monitoring device described in the second embodiment with reference to FIG.
Since 0 is added, detailed description of the same blocks as in FIG. 1 will be omitted.

The peripheral object detecting means 60 is, for example, as shown in FIG. 9, an ultrasonic sonar 60 arranged at a corner of a vehicle.
a, 60b, 60c, 60d and infrared sensors 61a, 61b, 61c, 61d arranged at the front, rear, left and right of the vehicle, when an object is detected within a predetermined area around the vehicle for a predetermined time,
Judge that there is a suspicious person.

The operation of the monitoring device according to the second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. First, in the vehicle-mounted device 2, since only the control unit 6 and the peripheral object detection unit 60 can be operated, power is supplied from the power supply unit 13 to the control unit 6 and the peripheral object detection unit 60 with the engine key off of the vehicle (S130). .

When the peripheral object detecting means 60 detects that an intruding object exists within a predetermined area, the direction in which the intruding object exists is determined by the detection signal from the peripheral object detecting means 60, and the vehicle-mounted device is determined by the determination result. Power is supplied to each part of 2 to activate all functions of the vehicle-mounted device 2. (S131). As a determination method, for example, as shown in FIG. 9, among the infrared sensors 21a to 21d positioned in the vehicle peripheral direction, the direction of the received infrared sensor may be set as the direction.

Then, the peripheral object detecting means 60 transfers the determined direction information to the control section 6, and the control section 6 drives the driving section 5 to direct the photographing direction of the camera 4 to the determined direction (S1).
32). Subsequent operations are the same as those in the first embodiment, the video of the camera 4 is compressed by the compression unit 8, the video data is stored in the buffer memory 9, and the video data is transmitted to the terminal 3 (S133).

The terminal 3 determines whether or not the received video received from the vehicle-mounted device 2 can be displayed (S134). When the terminal device 3 determines that the received video cannot be displayed, the video display prohibition information is transmitted to the vehicle-mounted device 2 (S135). When the vehicle-mounted device 2 receives the video display impossibility information, the current position detection means 1 is added to the video data accumulated in the buffer memory.
The vehicle position information detected in 2 and the time information measured by the clock 11 are added and automatically transferred to the recording unit 10 for a predetermined time (S136). If it is determined in S134 that the terminal 3 can display the received video received from the vehicle-mounted device 2, the received video and the received message are displayed on the display unit 33 (S137).

As described above, according to the monitoring apparatus of the second embodiment of the present invention, when the peripheral object detecting means 60 detects the presence of an intruding object within a predetermined area, the direction of the intruding object is detected. The operator automatically switches the camera shooting direction to that direction and automatically sends the captured image to the terminal or records the image, so that the operator can detect suspicious persons or vehicles even if they are far from the vehicle. On the other hand, the effect of preventing theft and accidents can be enhanced.

Further, according to the monitoring apparatus of the second embodiment of the present invention, when the engine key of the vehicle is turned off, power is supplied only from the power supply unit 13 to the control unit 6 and the peripheral object detecting means 60, and at the time of so-called standby. Power is not supplied to blocks such as the camera 4 and power is supplied to all functions of the vehicle-mounted device 3 only when the peripheral object detection means 60 detects an object in the vicinity of the vehicle, so that power can be saved.

If a collision detection sensor, a door open / close detection sensor, etc. are further combined to add a function of determining the presence / absence of a suspicious person depending on the situation, the accuracy of detection of surrounding objects can be improved.

(Third Embodiment) A monitoring device according to a third embodiment of the present invention is capable of preventing theft by using the vehicle-mounted device 2 described in the first embodiment with reference to FIG. It is mounted on a possible article or device. (Not shown) Here, the article or device that may be stolen is, for example, a safe, personal computer, measuring instrument, or the like that may be taken away from the place.

In this way, if the camera-equipped device of the present invention is mounted on an article or device that is likely to be stolen, the user can use the terminal 3 even if the user is away from the article or device.
Since the situation around the article or device can be grasped by using, the antitheft effect can be enhanced.

Further, by using the battery as the power source unit 13 in FIG. 1, the camera-equipped device of the present invention can be operated without supplying power from the mounted device.

[0047]

As described above, according to the present invention, the terminal and the camera-equipped device are communicatively connected, the camera-equipped device transmits an image captured by the camera to the terminal, and the terminal receives the received image. The playback direction and the shooting direction and magnification of the camera can be set based on the video displayed on the terminal, so the operator can receive the received video and shooting direction information even when the device is far from the device equipped with the camera. Since it can be operated to monitor the desired direction and target, it is possible to improve the effect of preventing theft or accident when a suspicious person or a suspicious vehicle is nearby by grasping the situation around the camera-equipped device. You can

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a monitoring device according to a first embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram of a camera and a camera drive unit according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a state where a camera and a driving unit are mounted on a vehicle in the first embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram of a terminal according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the operation of the monitoring device according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of an authentication screen according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the operation of the monitoring device according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a configuration diagram of a monitoring device according to a second embodiment.

FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram of a vehicle arrangement of peripheral object detection means according to the second embodiment.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing the operation of the monitoring device according to the second embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Monitoring device 2 In-vehicle device 3 terminals 4 cameras 5 Drive 6 control unit 7 Communication section 8 Compressor 9 buffer memory 10 Recording section 11 clock 12 Current position detector 13 power supply 31 Operation part 32 terminal communication unit 33 Display 51 rotating stage 52 motor 53 counter 54 Motor control unit 60 Peripheral object detection means 60a ultrasonic sonar 60b ultrasonic sonar 60c ultrasonic sonar 60d ultrasonic sonar 61a infrared sensor 61b infrared sensor 61c infrared sensor 61d infrared sensor

Continued front page    F-term (reference) 5C022 AA04 AB65 AB66                 5C054 AA02 CA04 CA05 CE15 CF06                       CG07 CH01 DA07 EA01 EA03                       EA05 ED07 FE28 FF06 HA18                       HA30                 5C084 AA02 AA09 AA14 BB01 BB27                       CC19 DD12 EE06 GG03 GG78

Claims (13)

[Claims] 1. A camera-equipped device having a camera for photographing the periphery of a device, a driving means for driving the camera, a communication means for communicating information including an image photographed by the camera, an operating means operated by an operator, and the Terminal communication means for transmitting information including operation information operated by the operation means and receiving information transmitted from the communication means, and display means for displaying information including the video from the camera received by the terminal communication means A monitoring device, comprising: a terminal device including: and the driving means is driven based on the operation information transmitted by the terminal transmitting means. 2. The camera-equipped device has control means for controlling the drive means and the communication means, and the control means uses the shooting direction information of the camera based on the operation information received by the communication means. The monitoring device according to claim 1, wherein the magnification information is set in the drive unit. 3. The camera-equipped device has control means for controlling the drive means and the communication means, and the control means has photographing direction information and magnification information of the camera set in the drive portion. Is transmitted by the communication means. 4. The camera-equipped device has a surrounding object detection means for detecting an object around the equipment, and the control means comprises:
3. The monitoring device according to claim 2, wherein shooting direction information and magnification information of the camera based on a detection result of the surrounding object detection unit are set in the drive unit. 5. The camera-equipped device has power supply means for separately supplying power to the communication means and the control means, and the camera and the drive means, and the power supply means includes the camera and the drive means. Power is supplied to the communication means and the control means even when power is not supplied to the camera, and power is supplied to the camera and the drive means based on the operation information received by the communication means. The monitoring device according to any one of claims 2 to 4. 6. The camera-equipped device has power supply means for separately supplying power to the surrounding object detection means and the control means, and the camera and the drive means, and the power supply means includes the camera and the camera. The power supply is supplied to the surrounding object detection means and the control means even when the power supply is not supplied to the drive means, and the power supply is supplied to the drive means based on the detection result of the surrounding object detection means. The monitoring device according to 5. 7. The camera-equipped device has a recording means for recording information including a video image taken by the camera and the operation information.
The monitoring device according to any one of 1. 8. The monitoring device according to claim 1, wherein the camera-equipped device has an alarm unit that issues an alarm based on the operation information. 9. The monitoring device according to claim 1, wherein the camera-equipped device is mounted on a moving body. 10. The camera-equipped device includes a current position detection unit that detects the current position of the moving body and a clock that measures the current time, and the control unit includes an image captured by the camera and the operation. 10. The monitoring device according to claim 9, wherein the communication unit transmits information including information, current position information detected by the current position detection unit, and the current time. 11. The monitoring according to claim 10, wherein the operation information is information including alarm information, and the control means transmits the information including the alarm information from the communication means to a predetermined institution. apparatus. 12. A camera-equipped device used in the surveillance device according to claim 1. 13. A terminal used in the monitoring device according to claim 1.