JP2005258034A - Electric universal head - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an electric universal head whose power consumption is lower than that of a conventional one. <P>SOLUTION: The electric universal head is provided with detecting means (6 and 7) for detecting loads applied on a rotation control part, and power supply means (14, 8, 9, 4 and 5) for varying the power supply in accordance with the loads detected by the detecting means. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a technique for reducing power consumption of an electric camera platform equipped with an imaging device.

  An electric pan head equipped with a camera performs movable control in the imaging direction of the camera, but it is necessary to maintain a necessary torque at a wind resistant maximum speed of 40 m / s as a specification. For this reason, conventionally, a large amount of electric power is always supplied to the motor (not related to the literature known invention).

  Therefore, in the conventional technique, even when there is no external load such as wind and vibration, a large amount of electric power is supplied to the motor, and there is a problem that power consumption is increased.

  An object of the present invention is to provide an electric pan head that can reduce power consumption as compared with the prior art.

  According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an electric pan / tilt head according to the present invention, wherein the electric pan / tilt head on which the imaging apparatus is mounted detects a load applied to a rotation control unit provided in the electric pan / tilt head, and the detection unit detects And a power supply unit that varies a power supply amount according to a load.

  According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the electric pan head according to the first aspect, the detecting means is applied to the rotation control unit according to a chute state of the stepping motor constituting the rotation control unit. It is characterized by detecting a load.

  According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided the electric head according to the first or second aspect, wherein the rotation control unit includes a horizontal rotating unit that rotates in a horizontal direction and a vertical rotating unit that rotates in a vertical direction. Thus, the movable control of the imaging direction of the imaging device is performed.

  According to the present invention, since the amount of power supply can be varied according to the magnitude of an external load caused by wind, vibration, etc., it is possible to obtain an electric pan head that can suppress power consumption as compared with the prior art.

  Embodiments according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an electric camera platform equipped with an imaging apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.
In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a fixing unit that fixes the horizontal rotating unit 2, 2 denotes a rotating unit that rotates horizontally, and 3 denotes an image pickup device that includes a camera and a camera lens. It is a camera case.

  Inside the horizontal rotation unit 2, a horizontal rotation stepping motor 4, a vertical rotation stepping motor 5, a horizontal rotation encoder 6 that detects the rotation of the horizontal rotation stepping motor 4, and a rotation of the vertical rotation stepping motor 5 are detected. A vertical rotation encoder 7, a horizontal rotation motor driver 8, a vertical rotation motor driver 9, a control circuit 10, and a power supply unit 11 are accommodated.

  The horizontal rotation stepping motor 4 is controlled via the control circuit 10 and the horizontal rotation motor driver 8. Similarly, the vertical rotation stepping motor 5 is controlled via the control circuit 10 and the vertical rotation motor driver 9. An AC power cable 12 supplies power to the power supply unit. A video output / control signal input / output cable 13 is connected to the camera case 3 by a control circuit 10 and a video output / camera control cable 14 via the control circuit 10.

  2 shows that a horizontal rotation encoder 6 for detecting the rotation of the horizontal rotation stepping motor 4 in FIG. 1 and a vertical rotation encoder 7 for detecting the rotation of the vertical rotation stepping motor 5 are mounted inside. FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of a reading circuit, which includes a shift register 141, a logic circuit 142, and a holding circuit 143.

  When a horizontal rotation command is input from the outside by an operation such as presetting, the control circuit 10 gives a necessary pulse to the horizontal rotation stepping motor 4 via the horizontal rotation motor driver 8, and the horizontal rotation stepping motor 4 is equal to the number of pulses. Rotate.

  When a vertical rotation command is input from the outside by a preset operation or the like, the control circuit 10 gives a necessary pulse to the vertical rotation stepping motor 5 via the vertical rotation motor driver 9, and the vertical rotation stepping motor 5 Rotate minutes.

  FIG. 3 is a response characteristic when a step pulse is input to the stepping motor, and is a response characteristic of the motor indicating a state without an external load.

  FIG. 4 shows the response characteristics when a one-step pulse is input to the stepping motor. The response characteristics of the motor indicate a large external load.

  As shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, the shoot state of the stepping motor when a one-step pulse is input to the stepping motor differs depending on the presence and size of an external load.

  Therefore, in the present embodiment, as shown in FIG. 5, when one step pulse is input, the horizontal rotation encoder 6 and the vertical rotation encoder 7 are mounted inside, respectively, the reading circuit 14 of FIG. The encoder has an angular resolution of one or more steps of the stepping motor by outputting a plurality of pulses at different positions in the chute state. Thus, the chute state of the horizontal rotation stepping motor 4 and the vertical rotation stepping motor 5 can be detected in detail.

  During the rotation of the stepping motor, the control circuit 10 counts the pulses detected by the encoders 6 and 7 and compares the number of motor step pulses with the number of return encoder pulses to detect step-out. Further, the reading circuit 14 mounted in the control circuit 10 counts the number of output pulses of the encoders 6 and 7 with respect to one step pulse, and the current supplied to the stepping motors 4 and 5 according to the number. Change the size of.

  When a load is applied in a state where the current is small, the torque becomes insufficient, so the stepping motors 4 and 5 cannot be rotated by the time determined by the step angle, but are rotated by increasing the current of the stepping motors 4 and 5. be able to.

  In FIG. 5, for example, the resolution of the encoders 6 and 7 is quadrupled so that six pulses are output in this case for one stepping motor step.

  FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a processing flow in the control circuit 10 of FIG. 1 for counting the number of output pulses of the encoders 6 and 7 and changing the magnitude of the current supplied to the stepping motors 4 and 5 according to the number. In step 601, it is determined whether or not the output pulse <4, that is, 3 or less. If yes, in step 602, the current is set to "HIGH". If NO in step 601, it is determined in step 603 whether the output pulse is 6 or more. If yes, in step 604, the current is set to "LOW". If NO in step 603, the current is held in step 605.

  That is, when the output pulse is 4 or 5 pulses, the current current is maintained as optimum, and the current required for that is always supplied to the current of the stepping motor. When the number of output pulses is less than 4, the current is increased, and when there are 6 or more outputs, the current is decreased.

  FIG. 7 is a circuit diagram showing current control of the stepping motor in FIG. Output pulses output from the encoders 6 and 7 are input to the shift register 141 of the reading circuit 14, and a result corresponding to the number of pulses is output and input to the logic circuit 142. The logic circuit 142 executes the processing flow shown in FIG. 6 from the result of the shift register and the current set current, determines whether to set the current setting to HIGH or LOW, and sets it in the holding circuit 143.

  FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of a management system that connects a plurality of imaging devices and a management terminal. When a plurality of imaging devices 81, 82, 83, 84 are connected to the server 87 of the management terminal 86 via the network 85, for example, when an icon labeled “environmental state” is clicked on the operation unit 88, for example, As shown in FIG. 9, a list of power consumption amounts for each imaging apparatus is displayed. This makes it possible to immediately grasp the power consumption of each imaging device.

  According to the embodiment of the present invention, since the amount of power supply can be varied according to the magnitude of the external load caused by wind, vibration, etc., an electric pan head that can reduce power consumption as compared with the prior art is obtained. be able to.

1 is a configuration diagram of an electric camera platform equipped with an imaging device according to an embodiment of the present invention. It is a block diagram which shows the structure of the reading circuit which each of the encoder which detects rotation of the stepping motor of FIG. 1 is mounted inside. This is a response characteristic when a one-step pulse is input to the stepping motor, and is a response characteristic of the motor indicating no external load. This is a response characteristic when a one-step pulse is input to the stepping motor, and is a response characteristic of the motor indicating a state of a large external load. It is a figure which shows the response characteristic of a stepping motor, and the output pulse of an encoder. It is a figure which shows the processing flow which counts the output pulse number of an encoder with the control circuit of FIG. 1, and changes the magnitude | size of the electric current supplied to a stepping motor according to the number. It is a circuit diagram which shows the current control of the stepping motor in FIG. It is a figure which shows the structure of the management system which connects a some imaging device and management terminal. It is a figure which shows the example of a screen display of the management terminal of FIG.

Explanation of symbols

  1: fixed part, 2: rotating part, 3: camera case, 4: stepping motor for horizontal rotation, 5: stepping motor for vertical rotation, 6: encoder for horizontal rotation, 7: encoder for vertical rotation, 8: for horizontal rotation Motor driver, 9: motor driver for vertical rotation, 10: control circuit, 11: power supply unit, 12: AC power cable, 13: video output, control signal input / output cable, 14: reading circuit, 141: shift register, 142: Logic circuit, 143: holding circuit, 81, 82, 83, 84: imaging device, 85: network, 86: management terminal, 87: server, 88: operation unit, 89: screen.

Claims (3)

  In an electric pan head mounted with an imaging device, a detection unit that detects a load applied to a rotation control unit provided in the electric pan head, and a power supply unit that varies a power supply amount according to the load detected by the detection unit And an electric pan head.   2. The electric head according to claim 1, wherein the detecting means detects a load applied to the rotation control unit in accordance with a chute state of a stepping motor constituting the rotation control unit.   3. The electric camera platform according to claim 1, wherein the rotation control unit includes a horizontal rotation unit that rotates in a horizontal direction and a vertical rotation unit that rotates in a vertical direction, and performs movable control of the imaging direction of the imaging apparatus. Electric pan head characterized by that.

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