JP2006053783A - Information collecting device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To acquire digital information and program operation history information from a measured apparatus without affecting the processing capacity of the measured apparatus, and to provide an information collecting device enabling the measurement on the same time axis. <P>SOLUTION: The information collecting device detects an apparatus operation signal 19 generated from the measured machine 1 and a software operation history signal 20 sent from software, and records both operation signals in one data format while providing a count used as a reference. Thus, digital apparatus operation information and analog operation history information are simultaneously recorded to facilitate the analysis. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

The present invention relates to an information collection device used for debugging such as failure analysis of an electronic device using a computer, and relates to a device for collecting operation information from the device.

In recent years, document information useful for our lives such as character information, image information, and numerical data information has been handled with the development of industry. These documents can be stored in the original and the copy can be easily made for general viewing. The activities of electronic devices such as copiers and printers have greatly improved our office work and living environment. Yes. These electronic devices are configured so that a series of operations can be performed by hardware composed of many components, software for controlling the hardware, and the like.

For example, the outline of the structure of an electrophotographic (copier) for copying a document includes charging on the surface of a photoreceptor and exposure of printing information, development with toner, transfer of toner to copy paper, fixing of toner with heat, and photosensitivity There are independent processes called body static elimination. In these processes, an electric control signal for controlling each of them is provided so as to be input / output from the inside of the electronic device, and an operation start / stop process is performed by controlling ON / OFF of a predetermined voltage. These signals are constituted by so-called digital signals called high level and low level, and signal processing is performed.

Many of the methods for controlling each of these processes are known in which a software program is operated using a micro computer such as a CPU (Central Processing Unit) built in the electronic device main body and the details are controlled. Yes. In order to check the operation of each process, an operation log acquisition program is executed so that it can be understood how execution instructions of the program are executed.

In the case of an electronic device such as a copying machine, there are many cases where a finished product is improved and functions are added later. In this case, hardware is often improved or added, and in order to execute the new process, new firmware is installed to check hardware control information and software operation. The design developer confirms each voltage information and operation history information generated from these processes to determine whether or not these devices are operating normally. As a means for recording the operation history information of these electronic devices, for example, a format in which data is sequentially stored in a dedicated nonvolatile memory is used.

However, in order to reproduce the color information called YMCK, the position control required in order to reproduce the original more faithfully, and the position control required in order to reproduce the original more faithfully. There is a problem that the amount of information to be handled increases, and the process of grasping the operation history is complicated and requires a large storage capacity. Also, as the number of commands from the software increases, the amount of information responsible for the operation becomes enormous and the recording time is delayed, resulting in a delay in processing.

As a method for recording a relatively large amount of information and a log file for each process, a method of recording a multiple function operation history described in Patent Document 1 is disclosed. In this method, a plurality of log files are recorded in a single log file according to a predetermined order, and an operation history is stored as a log file for each individual process and then recorded as a single log file. However, with this method, individual logs are created for each process, and these are combined into a single log file later, so there are problems such as the time taken for the synthesis process and the inability to perform analysis in a timely manner. It was.

In addition, in order to process a number of pieces of the operation history information at the same time, a large load is applied to the CPU which is the operation center of the electronic device, which may affect the actual process control.

And in the collection device of electrical signal information of each process using a logic analyzer, the operation history retention time is extremely short and the reference clocks of the device under test and the logic analyzer are not the same, so multiple operation histories are matched. It was difficult.

In addition, when sampling information with no change in the measurement data, the data volume gradually increases, and recording may not be possible if the data verification work after measurement or the capacity of the storage medium is limited. .

In addition, when recording is performed with a time stamp added to the operation history format, there is a problem that a recording area corresponding to the time stamp is generated, so that a storage capacity corresponding to the recording area increases.

JP-A-7-84838

In view of the above problems, the present invention collects and measures digital information and program operation history information from a device under measurement in real time on the same time axis without affecting the processing capability of the device under measurement. It is an object of the present invention to provide an information collecting apparatus that can do this.

An information collecting apparatus provided by the present invention for achieving such an object,
An operation process is performed by at least one CPU, and the operation process is an information collection device that collects operation information of an electronic device controlled by a software program, for detecting a device operating voltage generated from the electronic device. A voltage signal detection unit; a logic level output unit for outputting a logic level from the device operating voltage; an operation information collection unit for collecting software operation information generated from the electronic device; and an output of the logic level An electronic apparatus comprising: a synthesis unit configured to synthesize information and operation information of the software as needed; and forming and recording the logic level output information and the operation information of the software as one operation history information in a data form An information collection device,
The operation history information counts the signal from the reference clock while the device operation signal is not changed and the logic level of the device operation voltage is 0, and records the accumulated count in the counter history information. It is a collecting device.

According to the information collecting apparatus of the present invention, since the operation information is collected directly from the software operation log generation unit on the device under test side, there is no writing process to the nonvolatile memory and the load on the CPU of the device under test is reduced. Operation information can be collected without spending time.

In addition, since the voltage change signal generated from the device under test and the operation history information signal transmitted from the software are detected, the reference count is given to both and the operation signal is recorded in one data format. Hardware digital operation information and software analog operation information can be recorded simultaneously.

When the device operation signal is not changed and the device operation voltage logic level is 0, the numerical value of the counter history information is stored, so that the data without change in the signal is stored as a count. Time can be measured. In addition, by analyzing the numerical value of the counter history information, it becomes possible to analyze the measured time and the timing at which an error has occurred.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail based on examples. Here, description will be made based on a copying machine.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the present invention.
Among the copying machines (not shown), there are a device 1 to be measured, a CPU 2, a process 3, a ROM 4, and a software operation log generation unit 5. The CPU 2 is provided on the substrate of the machine 1 to be measured and is provided to control a sensor, a power source, a control program, etc. (not shown) inside the copying machine. Process 3 includes steps necessary for copying, and is connected by each harness 6 so that electrical control can be performed. The ROM 4 stores a program for controlling the CPU 2 and the process 3, and is provided so that a determination operation can be performed by an electric signal from each process. The series of operations is provided so that an operation history is generated by the software operation log generation unit 5 and can be output. In the data collection device 9, a reference clock for recognizing the device operation information 15 and the software operation information 18 from the process 3 at a common timing is provided in the reference clock generation unit 10.

Next, the data form of the present invention will be described.
FIG. 2 shows a data format as a recording unit of information according to the present invention. The format of the present invention is composed entirely of 32-bit signals.
This will be described in detail below. First, 1-bit error set information 13 representing the validity of a series of operation history information is provided. The error set 13 is configured to take a value of 1 when data is missed by measurement using a predetermined number of clocks, and to take a value of 0 when there is no error. When the error set 13 is 1, an error number counter is recorded for 31 bits below the error set 13. The reason why the error is recorded in this way is to prevent a time lag when the operation history data is missed.

Next, 5-bit counter information 14 for making the time axis of the operation history the same is provided. Whether 10-bit device operation information 15 for recording a logic level signal from the device is provided, and whether the software operation information 18 sent from the control board on which the CPU 2 is mounted is output to the software operation log generator 5. 1-bit CS information 16 indicating whether or not is provided. Next, 4-bit Tag information 17 for identifying the type of software operation information 18 is provided. The types of software operation information 18 identified by Tag 17 include the number of operations of the function and the operation time in addition to the character string output. Finally, it consists of 11-bit software operation information 18 indicating software operation history information.

Next, a detailed configuration of the software operation history information 18 will be described. The software operation history information 18 includes character string operation history information (FIG. 4) for recording a communication signal such as a command as a character string, and a processing time operation for recording the time required for internal processing, the number of processing times, and the average processing time. There is history information (FIG. 5). The software operation history signal 18 includes 15-bit parallel signal information including Tag 17. First, the first 4 bits are Tag 17 and an identifier representing the type of operation history information is arranged. The following 11-bit information of the software operation information 18 is recorded according to the identifier value of Tag 17. The signal value is expressed in hexadecimal notation with 0 × as a header.

FIG. 4 shows character string operation history information of Tag 17 and software operation information 18 as software operation history information. The identifier value of the first Tag 17 is as follows.
When the identifier is “0”: indicates the first character of the character string of the character string operation history information.
When the identifier is “1”: Indicates a subordinate character of the character string of the character string operation history information.
For example, when a command “START” that is copy start information is output as operation history information, 0 × 00 indicating “0” is recorded in the identifier of Tag 17 for recognizing that the signal “S” is the first character. Then, 0 × 53 indicating the ASCII code “S” is recorded in 11 bits of the software operation information 18 that follows. From the next “T” signal, 0 × 01 indicating “1” is recorded in the identifier of the subordinate character, and the hexadecimal number indicating the ASCII code of each character is recorded in 11 bits thereafter.

FIG. 5 shows the identifier of Tag 17, which is software operation history information, and the processing time operation history information of software operation information 18. In this example, the processing start of ID1 and the end of processing are shown.
The execution program stored in the ROM 4 is provided so that an ID (identification number) for identifying the instruction is discharged every time a process control instruction is executed, which can be output as the software operation history 18. Is provided. The software operation history information is configured so that 11-bit information of the following software operation information 18 is recorded by the identifier value of Tag 17 shown below.
When the identifier is “2”: Indicates the start of processing of the processing time operation history information.
When the identifier is “3”: Indicates the end of processing of the processing time operation history information.
After the identifier information of Tag 17 is recorded, the process ID (number from 0 to 4095) is recorded as a serial number in 11 bits of the software operation information 18. By recording time information from the inside of the program as a maximum of 4096 counts in this way, it is possible to collect the time, the number of processing times, and the average processing time history required for the processing of the process at the time of later analysis.
These individual signals are converted into binary data and recorded so that they can be recorded on various recording media such as memories and hard disks.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a method of synthesizing the device operation information and software operation information signals according to the present invention. Details will be described below.
A device operation signal 19 generated from the inside of the device under test 1 is input to a sampling control unit 22 provided in the data collection device 9 via a cable 21 that can transmit an electrical signal such as a probe. The cable 21 is composed of a two-core shielded wire, the core wire side is connected to the terminal to be measured, and the shield side is connected to the ground portion of the copying machine. The sampling control unit 22 determines whether or not the voltage signal from the device operation signal 19 has reached a predetermined logic level. For example, when the predetermined voltage is set to 5 V or higher, it is determined that a signal is detected when a voltage of 5 V or higher is generated, and the logic level is set to HIGH, and the signal “1” is set to LOW when the voltage is less than 5 V. A “0” signal is generated.

On the other hand, a software operation history signal 20 is generated from the software written in the ROM 4 as the process 3 is controlled. The software operation history signal 20 is discharged through the cable 23 as 15-bit data. The cable 23 is composed of a plurality of wires so that parallel signals can be processed. The software operation history signal 20 includes a CS signal line 24 for notifying that the signal has been discharged, and a 1-bit signal is discharged from the CS signal line 24. The two software operation history signals 20 are fetched in a predetermined order and are input into a buffer provided in the sampling control unit 22 as a 16-bit signal.

The data collection device 9 is provided with a reference clock generator 10 for recognizing the device operation information 15 and the software operation information 18 from the process 3 as the same time axis. A pulse signal having a frequency of 5 MHz is generated from the reference clock generation unit 10, and the sampling control unit 22 reads this pulse and performs count measurement. In the case of the present invention, it is configured to be counted up once every 200 ns. The sampling control unit 22 constantly monitors the level change of the device operation signal 19 and the signal change of the CS signal line 24 of the software operation history signal 20, and the pulses from the reference clock generation unit 10 while both signals are not changed. The counter 14 is counted up based on the signal.

The sampling control unit 22 is provided with a buffer for temporarily recording the device operation signal 19, the software operation history signal 20, and the count information from the reference clock generation unit 10, and determines that all information to be recorded has been collected. In such a case, the data is arranged in the set data form arrangement, and is discharged to an external storage device by a FIFO (First-In First-Out) 27.

The detailed operation of the present invention will be described based on the above configuration. Here, as an example, a main operation recording process according to the present invention at the start of copying, specifically, acquisition of copy start information and an accompanying process of acquiring software operation history signal information will be described as an example of measuring device operation signals.
When the main power supply of the copying machine is turned on, the program installed in the ROM 4 executes initialization. In the program, a control program for controlling each process in the copying machine is recorded. For example, to control independent processes such as the amount of toner related to charging, exposure, and development appropriate for the copying process, toner transfer to copy paper, toner fixing by heat, and charge removal of the photoreceptor. It is a step. The copier is equipped with a sensor that grasps the status of each process. When the power is turned on, the status of each function is ascertained based on the program, and then the copier is moved to the initial state and the copy operation is waited. It becomes a state.

In order to acquire the apparatus operation signal 19, the measurement cable 21 is first connected to the measurement location. When it is desired to measure the copy start signal, the core side is connected to the operating voltage generating section that is linked to the start button of the control panel section of the copying machine that is the device under test 1, and the shield side is connected to the ground side of the copying machine. By connecting in this way, measurement is possible without being affected by noise generated from the inside of the device under test 1. The device operation signal 19 when copying is not started is measured as a + 5V signal. When the copy start button is pressed, it is displaced to 0V and measured as a copy start signal. This voltage of 0V is maintained until the copying operation is finished, and when all the copying operations are finished, the voltage signal becomes a signal of + 5V again. In this way, the cable 21 is connected to the portion where the voltage changes, and the preparation for measurement of the operation history information 19 is completed. The output of the theoretical value of the voltage at this time is performed by software setting. In the setting, the logical value is set to 1 when the device is operated, that is, when the voltage is 0V, and is set to 0 when the device is not operated, that is, when the voltage is + 5V. Since pins other than the copy start signal pin are not observed, the initial state is entered and all signals are processed as a logical value of zero.

When measuring a plurality of device operation signals 19 from other processes at the same time, a desired number of cables 21 are connected to a terminal where a desired control voltage is generated. In the present invention, the device operation signal of 10 bits, that is, 10 bits can be measured, and a plurality of device operation signals 19 can be measured simultaneously. The measurer can arbitrarily set at which bit position of 10 bits the information is taken. In this example, connection is made so that the least significant bit in 10 bits is captured.

Next, a measurement example of the software operation history signal 20 will be described.
Connect the harness to the dedicated terminal in preparation for measurement. The main board on which the CPU 2 is mounted is provided with an output terminal for the software operation history signal 20. A plurality of single wires are connected to the output terminal so that parallel signals can be output. In the case of the present invention, the cable 23 is composed of 15 single wires. This cable 23 is connected by a dedicated connector. Further, a cable 24 for observing the CS information 16 is connected.

First, the user sets copy conditions for a copier in a job standby state. For example, in the case of manual setting by the user himself / herself, the user inputs his / her preferred conditions such as paper size, magnification setting, image density, and number of copies. The input conditions are stored in the ROM 4 as operation setting items.
When a set of conditions is completed, the copying machine waits for the start of a copy job. An internal program installed in one ROM 4 constitutes a command signal for controlling each process upon receiving a copy condition setting command from the user, and waits for a command to be discharged.

Next, the flow of signals after the collection of operation history signals is started will be described. When the copy start button is pressed, a character string “START” indicating the start of copying is transmitted from the internal program to the internal process by serial communication. The internal process that has received the START command changes the copy start signal pin from + 5V so far to 0V, and maintains the state of 0V until the next command is sent. At this time, a 0V signal is output as the device operation signal 19. During this time, the command “START” is sent to the software operation history signal 20, and at the same time, the content “START” is output as the software operation history signal 20. At the same time, the CS signal 24 indicating that the software operation history signal 20 is output is also measured as a signal of 0V. Both operation history signals are taken into the sampling control unit 22 once every 200 ns in accordance with the period of the 5 MHz reference clock 10 in the data collection device 9.

In the 26-bit buffer provided in the sampling control unit 22, the device operation signal 19 is first captured in the upper 10 bits, and then the software operation history signal 20 is captured in the lower 16 bits together with the CS information 16. By sequentially capturing in this way, the synthesis is completed and the two pieces of operation history information are recorded at the same timing.

FIG. 6 shows in detail the state in which operation history information packets are collected by the sampling control unit 22 from the start of measurement to the start of copying. The signal value is expressed in hexadecimal notation with 0 × as a header.
While there is no signal from the 16-bit software operation information 18 while waiting for the copy operation immediately after the start of measurement, the software operation information 18 is 0 × 00, and the CS information 16 is also the theoretical value 0, so the CS information 16 is also 0. Next, when the copy start button is pressed and a START command is transmitted from the process 3, software operation information 18 having a content of START is output. When the output of the software operation information 18 is started, the value of the CS information 16 becomes 0 V, and the sampling control unit 22 determines that the logical value is 1. Based on this, an identifier is recorded in Tag 17, but in the case of START S, since it corresponds to the first character of the command, identifier 0x00 indicating it is output. Then, the ASCII code value 0 × 53 of S is recorded in the software operation information 18, and the recording relating to the character string S is completed. In order to record the next character string T, an identifier 0 × 01 indicating a subordinate character is recorded in Tag 17, and an ASCII code value of T is recorded in software operation information 18. In this way, subordinate characters that match the character are recorded for each character that follows.
When all of the character string START has been output, the value of the CS information 16 returns to + 5V and a logical value 0 is recorded. Subsequent information of 4 bits of Tag 17 and 15 bits of software operation information 18 are not cleared and continue to hold the last value, but are processed as invalid data while CS information 16 is logical value 0. Since the device operation signal 15 does not change during this period, all 10 bits continue to be recorded as the logical value 0. In the process 3 that receives the START command, the signal pin for starting copying becomes 0 V, and the sampling control unit 22 processes the logical value as 1. At this time, the value input to the 10-bit least significant bit of the device operation signal 15 is 1. Thus, collection of all operation history information is completed.

In the case of this example, the data string necessary for all the operation history information is 7 sets of 26-bit data. However, in actuality, since sampling is continuously performed at a timing of once every 200 ns, the sampling control unit 22 continuously adds new data while the device operation signal 19 is not changed or while the CS information 16 is at the logical value 0. Will be collected. This is the case, for example, when the operation time of the process 3 is extremely long or when the measurement timing within a predetermined measurement time is set finely. If information that does not change is sampled in this way, the data storage capacity will gradually increase, and it will not be possible to record all information when there is a limit to the capacity of the subsequent measurement data verification or storage medium. is there.

Therefore, while the device operation signal 16 is not changed and while the logic value of the CS information 16 is 0, the value of the counter 14 is incremented by one every 200 ns transmitted from the reference clock. Since the counter 14 is configured to record information of 5 bits, the fact that there is no change in the signal up to 200 ns × 31 = 6200 ns is recorded as binary 00000 to 11111. When the counter 14 reaches 31, the count value is determined to be the maximum, and 31 information is recorded in the counter 14. The counter 14 is then cleared to 0 and continues counting until a data change occurs again.

On the other hand, when a change occurs in the signal of the device operation signal 19 or when the CS information 16 becomes a logical value 1, the final value is stored in the counter 14. If the numerical value of the counter 14 is analyzed, the measured time and the timing at which an error occurs can be analyzed. Moreover, efficient data can be measured for a long time by storing data with no change in the signal.

When a change occurs in the device operation signal 19 or when the CS information 16 becomes a logical value 1, the data that has been in the sampling control unit 22 until then is added with the counter 14 and the error set 13, and is sent to the FIFO 27 through the cable 26. Sent.
The FIFO 27 has a capacity of 4096 bytes, and when the data accumulated in the FIFO 27 reaches 4096 bytes, it is transferred to an external storage device through an interface 28 such as a USB. By transferring to an external storage device, it is possible to record operation history information for as long as the storage capacity of a hard disk or the like permits. However, when the data is moved from the sampling control unit 22 to the FIFO 27, if the FIFO 27 is full and there is no free space, the data cannot be stored until the data in the FIFO 27 is transferred to the external storage device. Something is missing.

If this missing data cannot be identified, the measurement time will be shifted during the period when there is no data. Therefore, the fact that there is a period in which no data exists is recorded as 1 in the value of the error set 13, and the counter value is recorded in the subsequent 31 bits. To analyze the data loss time later, for example, when the error set 13 is 1 and the following 31 bits indicate a value of 5000, 200 ns × 5000 = 1,000,000 ns, and data for 0.001 second is lost. It is understood that it was done. It should be noted that a value of 0 is recorded in the error set 13 at the normal time when no omission occurs.

As described above, according to the present invention, the software installed in the device under test is analyzed from the command information sent to each process, and the operation history data measured from the command information that the device under test operates normally. it can. If the process of the device under test does not operate normally, it is possible to determine whether the cause is software or hardware. Since a plurality of pieces of operation history information are measured on the same time axis, it is possible to verify the response speed of the hardware with respect to the software command.

Although an example of a measurement method suitable for this measurement has been described here, numerical values such as the number of bits and ID count described in the data form can be configured according to information obtained from the device 1 to be measured. Needless to say. In addition, with regard to the arrangement of data forms, it is possible to shorten the analysis time by arranging the information to be observed in order from the top. And by arranging information at predetermined positions as in the present invention, it is possible to analyze only necessary information after measurement at high speed.

It is a block diagram which shows the structure of the information collection device by this invention. It is a data form figure of the information collection device by this invention. It is a block diagram of the data composition part of the information collection device by the present invention. It is software operation history information and is a block diagram of a character string operation history format. It is a block diagram of a processing time operation history format which is software operation history information. It is the content of the specific operation | movement history information packet collected in an Example.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Device under test 5 Operation log generation unit 9 Data collection device 13 Error set 19 Device operation signal 20 Software operation history signal 22 Sampling control unit

Claims (2)

An operation process is performed by at least one CPU, and the operation process is performed in an information collecting apparatus that collects operation information of an electronic device controlled by a software program.
A voltage signal detector for detecting a device operating voltage generated from the electronic device;
A logic level output unit for outputting a logic level from the device operating voltage;
An operation information collection unit for collecting operation information of software generated from the electronic device;
Providing synthesis means for synthesizing the logic level output information and the operation information of the software at any time;
An information collecting apparatus for an electronic device, wherein the logical level output information and the operation information of the software are configured and recorded as a single operation history information in a data form. The operation history information counts a signal from a reference clock when the device operation signal is not changed and the logic level of the device operation voltage is 0, and records the total of the counts in the counter history information. Item 1. The information collecting apparatus according to Item 1.