JP2006186452A - Monitoring terminal and monitoring system employing it - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To obtain a monitoring system in which communication through a leased line can be carried out using a modem for public line. <P>SOLUTION: Modems for public line communicating each other through a leased line are controlled by software and discrepancy in communication control between leased line and public line is absorbed to eliminate problems in communication. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a technique for monitoring water supply and sewage water supply and distribution facilities, industrial production facilities, sales data collection facilities, and the like.

  A monitoring system using a dedicated line is known and disclosed in, for example, Patent Document 1. Patent Literature 1 monitors a pump by connecting a telemeter slave station, which is a dedicated line modem connected to a pump device, and a telemeter master station connected to an operation console in a monitoring unit via a dedicated line. A system for performing control is disclosed.

JP 2000-242329 A

  Conventionally, when performing communication using a dedicated line, it has been necessary to use a modem device for the dedicated line. A dedicated line modem device is expensive because it is less demanded, is not readily available, and has a lower communication speed than a public line modem device.

  On the other hand, public line modems are known to be inexpensive and relatively easy to obtain and have high communication speeds compared to dedicated line modems. In view of this, a public line modem device is used on a dedicated line, and a communication system is constructed by software control.

  There are many differences between the dedicated line and the public line, such as the presence / absence of a dial tone signal and the presence / absence of a call operation (hereinafter referred to as a call operation) using a selection signal. In addition, the public line modem device does not focus on long-term continuous communication, and thus there are problems such as deterioration in communication quality or disconnection of communication due to long-time communication.

  Therefore, an object of the present invention is to solve these problems.

  Based on the above problems and the like, the present invention is devised as follows.

  When performing communication using a public line, it is necessary to first communicate with a circuit switch when making a call, and select a target communication destination from a plurality of communication destinations existing in the public line network by a certain procedure. Further, when a call is received, it is necessary to open a communication line in accordance with a call signal from a line switch and perform communication, and the public line modem device is designed to automatically perform these operations.

  On the other hand, since the communication destination is one-to-one on a dedicated line, there is no need for a selection operation by a line switch, and there is no call signal. Therefore, even if a dedicated line is connected to the public line modem device, communication cannot be performed due to a difference in connection procedure.

  In the present invention, in order to solve this problem, a public line modem device is controlled from software, and a command for forcibly connecting is issued at each stage of the connection procedure on the public line. This enables communication on a dedicated line.

  For example, the communication control between the public line modem and the public line modem that is communicating with the other party's public line modem via the public line circuit exchange is controlled between the public line modems that communicate with each other. It is controlled by software as possible.

  According to the present invention, communication can be performed on a dedicated line using a public line modem device.

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

  FIG. 1 shows a configuration in which the monitoring terminals 100 and 150 are connected to each other via a dedicated line 140. In this configuration, for example, a monitoring terminal connected to a monitoring device that monitors a monitoring object such as a manhole pump and a central monitoring device of a central monitoring center such as a water station such as a municipality are connected by a dedicated line. A system for monitoring and control may be used. Alternatively, communication may be performed by simply connecting a plurality of communication devices to each other via a dedicated line.

  Here, in the following description, in order to simplify the description, the names of the calling side monitoring terminal and the called side monitoring terminal are used without using specific names such as “central monitoring device”. explain. In practice, the central monitoring device or monitoring terminal changes its state to either the monitoring terminal in the calling side state or the monitoring terminal in the called side state during the communication processing. It is common to go. Accordingly, the monitoring terminals 100 and 150 in FIG. 1 indicate a central monitoring device, a monitoring terminal, or the like depending on the communication state.

  FIG. 1 shows the overall system configuration. A public line modem device 120 is connected to the serial port of the CPU 110 of the calling side monitoring terminal 100 and is controlled by a program stored in the memory 130. Also, a dedicated line 140 is connected to the public line modem device 120, and communicates with the called side monitoring terminal 150 which is a communication destination. Similarly to the calling side monitoring terminal 100, the called side monitoring terminal 150 has a public line modem device 170 connected to the CPU 160 and a memory 180 for storing a control program and the like.

  Note that the CPU 110 and CPU 160 in FIG. 1 do not indicate only a generally known CPU, but in some cases also indicate the overall control device that performs control when operating the monitoring terminals 100 and 150. is there. Further, the memory 130 and the memory 180 do not indicate only a memory of a semiconductor element, but also indicate an entire storage device necessary for operating the monitoring terminals 100 and 150 in some cases.

  FIG. 2 shows a general connection procedure in the public line, taking as an example a configuration using the monitoring terminal 100, the monitoring terminal 150 of FIG. 1, and the public line modem device included therein.

  First, the CPU 110 of the calling side monitoring terminal transmits the telephone number of the communication destination monitoring terminal following the calling command to the public line modem device 120 (step 2000). The public line modem device 120 that has received the calling instruction raises the handset (off hook) (step 2010).

  The circuit switch that has detected the off-hook of the monitoring terminal transmits a 400 Hz dial tone to the monitoring terminal (step 2020). The public line modem device 120 waits until it detects a dial tone from the line switch (step 2030). The public line modem apparatus 210 that has detected the dial tone transmits a selection signal corresponding to the telephone number received in step 2000 to the circuit switch (step 2040).

  The line switch that has received the selection signal from the public line modem device 120 transmits a calling signal to the communication destination corresponding to the selection signal (step 2050). The public line modem device 170 of the called side monitoring terminal is always waiting to detect a call signal from the line switch (step 2060).

  The public line modem device 170 that has received the call signal goes off-hook (step 2070) and transmits a response signal (answer tone) (step 2080). The public line modem device 120 of the calling side monitoring terminal stands by until an answer tone is detected from the public line modem device 170 of the called side monitoring terminal (step 2090).

  When an answer tone is detected, negotiation for setting a connection condition is performed (step 2100). When the connection condition is determined by negotiation, the connection is completed and communication is possible (step 2110). The CPU 110 waits until the connection is completed (2120). When the connection is completed, communication is started (step 2130).

  When the above connection procedure is applied to a dedicated line, the dial tone in step 210, the selection signal in step 220, the ringing signal in step 230, and the ringback tone are processes that are not in the dedicated line. Therefore, it is necessary to control the public line modem device so that it can be connected without these.

  FIG. 3 shows a connection procedure when communication is performed using a public line modem on a dedicated line as an embodiment based on the present invention.

  The calling side monitoring terminal 100 disables the dial line detection invalid command (ATX3 for the AT command) to the public line modem unit 120 in order to invalidate the operation of the public line modem unit 120 waiting for the dial tone signal when making a call. Is transmitted (step 3000).

  Next, a call command is transmitted to the public line modem device 120. At this time, since there is no selection signal on the dedicated line, a call command that does not include a telephone number (if the AT command is used, a selection signal is sent by ATD). Only those not included are transmitted (step 3010). When the call side public line modem device 120 receives a call instruction without a telephone number in the dial tone detection disabled state, the call side public line modem device 120 goes off-hook (step 3020) and waits for an answer tone detection (step 3030).

On the other hand, since there is no paging signal at the called side monitoring terminal 150, the CPU 160 continues to send a forced incoming call command (for an AT command, ATA) to the public line modem device 170 (step 3040). The public line modem device 170 that has received the forced incoming call command goes off-hook (step 3050) and immediately transmits an answer tone (step 3060). At this time, when detecting the answer tone, the calling-side public line modem device 120 negotiates with the called-side public line modem 170 to determine the connection condition in order to set the connection condition (step 3070). When the connection condition is determined by negotiation, the connection is completed and communication is possible (step 3080). CPU 110 waits until connection is completed (3090), and starts communication when connection is completed (step 3100)
FIG. 4 shows a method for preventing deterioration in communication quality due to long-term continuous communication. After performing the connection procedure in steps 3000 to 3100 and starting communication with the monitoring terminal 150 as the other party (step 4000), the CPU 110 of the monitoring terminal 100 periodically monitors the communication state of the modem (step 4010). When a decrease in communication quality such as a decrease in communication speed or line disconnection is detected, a forced disconnect command is issued to the public line modem device 120 to forcibly disconnect communication once (step 4020). Thereafter, the connection procedure of steps 3000 to 3100 is performed again to restore the initial communication state. As for the deterioration of communication quality in a range that does not result in line disconnection, it is possible to use the automatic retrain function of the public line modem device 120 and perform the forced reconnection operation only when the line is disconnected. In this case, a command for instructing processing based on the automatic retrain function to the public line modem device 120 (AT% E for the AT command) is issued.

  Note that the AT command discussed in the above description is a modem control command that is currently popularized by US company Hayes.

Overall system configuration Procedure for establishing communication on public lines Procedure for establishing communication on a dedicated line Forced reconnection operation when communication quality deteriorates

Explanation of symbols

100 ... Monitoring terminal, 110 ... CPU, 120 ... Public line modem device, 130 ... Memory, 140 ... Dedicated line, 150 ... Monitoring terminal, 160 ... CPU, 170 ... Public line modem device, 180 ... Memory

Claims (9)

A first control device;
A first storage device;
A first monitoring terminal including a first communication control device; a second control device;
A second storage device;
A monitoring system for connecting a second monitoring terminal including a second communication control device using a dedicated line,
A monitoring system, wherein the communication control device 1 and the communication control device 2 are constituted by a public line modem device. A first monitoring terminal that communicates with a second monitoring terminal via a dedicated line;
The first monitoring terminal includes a first control device,
A first storage device;
A first communication control device,
The monitoring terminal, wherein the first control device transmits a dial command not including a selection signal for selecting a second monitoring terminal to the first communication control device. The monitoring terminal according to claim 2,
The monitoring terminal characterized in that the dial command not including a selection signal for selecting the second monitoring terminal to be transmitted from the first control device to the first communication control device is an AT command ATD. A second monitoring terminal that communicates with the first monitoring terminal via a dedicated line;
The second monitoring terminal includes a second control device,
A second storage device;
A second communication control device,
The monitoring terminal, wherein the second control device transmits a forced incoming command to the second communication control device. The monitoring terminal according to claim 4, wherein
The forced terminal command transmitted from the second control device to the second communication control device is an AT command ATA. A first monitoring terminal that communicates with a second monitoring terminal via a dedicated line;
The first monitoring terminal includes a first control device,
A first storage device;
A first communication control device,
A monitoring terminal that transmits a dial command that does not include a selection signal for selecting a second monitoring terminal after the first control device transmits a communication control disconnection command to the first communication control device. A second monitoring terminal that communicates with the first monitoring terminal via a dedicated line;
The second monitoring terminal includes a second control device,
A second storage device;
A second communication control device,
After the second control device transmits a communication control disconnection command to the second communication control device,
A monitoring terminal that transmits a forced incoming command. A first monitoring terminal that communicates with a second monitoring terminal via a dedicated line;
The first monitoring terminal includes a first control device,
A first storage device;
A first communication control device,
The monitoring terminal, wherein the first control device transmits an automatic retrain setting command to the first communication control device. The monitoring terminal according to claim 8, wherein
The automatic retrain setting command transmitted from the first control device to the first communication control device is AT% E of an AT command.

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