JP2951378B2 - Remote group control system - Google Patents

Description

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a remote group control system, and more particularly to an improvement of a remote group control system in which units incorporated in a specific group can be redundantly controlled by a plurality of remote controllers.

[Prior Art] A system for remotely controlling a plurality of controlled devices by a remote controller has been put into practical use as various centralized management systems. For example, it is effective when hierarchically centrally managing air conditioning equipment in a building. is there.

That is, the air conditioners installed in the building are group-managed for each floor or section, and such group management is usually assigned to each tenant.

The air-conditioning system of the whole building can individually control controlled devices such as air conditioners scattered on each floor with a control unit connected thereto, for example, a remote controller at the same time, and for each tenant described above. The assigned tenant remote controller or the centralized remote controller for the entire building is controlled for each layer, and optimal control is performed according to the individual use mode.

Each remote controller is connected to the network via a communication line, and in the most advanced control system in recent years, the units managed by each remote controller are arbitrarily set as a specific group, and not a unit but a group. Operation control.

FIG. 5 shows a system in which nine units provided in the building are operated and controlled in three layers by a local remote controller, a tenant remote controller, and a central remote controller, respectively, and furthermore, these are group-managed by groups. .

Each unit has controlled devices indicated by reference numerals (10-1) to (10-9), that is, air conditioners, and control units (20-1) to (20-9) each including a remote controller at hand for each device. And are individually operated and controlled.

The control units (20) are connected to each other via a communication line (30) via a network, and are group-managed for each group by three tenant remote controllers (40-1) to (40-3) in the figure. I have.

That is, in the figure, the units (1) to (3) are group 1 and the tenant remote controller (40-
Both tenant remote controllers (40-1) and (40-) are controlled redundantly from both (1) and (40-2).
From 2), operation control is freely performed with the same priority.

Therefore, according to such overlapping control, a plurality of air conditioner groups scattered on a wide floor are grouped as a group.
There is an advantage that the operation can be arbitrarily controlled by both tenant remote controllers (40-1) and (40-2) provided at remote positions.

In the figure, units (3), (6), (9)
Are organized as a group 2 managed by another tenant remote controller (40-3).

Further, the entire unit is centrally managed as a group 3 by the central remote controller (50). In general, the central remote controller (50) has the highest priority, followed by the tenant remote controller (40) and the local remote controller (20). ), The priority decreases, and the control order is determined according to the priority.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] According to the above-mentioned group control system, each unit can be controlled by a predetermined remote controller. When an individual unit is incorporated into a group, the following operation control performs a group call from a remote controller, and the units incorporated into the specified group from the communication line (30) are simultaneously operation-controlled.

Such a broadcast method has an advantage that the command sent from the remote controller to the control unit via the communication line (30) is transmitted using only the group number as the destination address, and the processing is extremely simplified.

However, in this broadcast method, since there is no acknowledge (ACK) response from each unit to the remote controller, some inconveniences have occurred.

Such inconveniences are caused, for example, in the case where the group 1 is overlap-controlled in FIG. 5, and when there is a change in the group formation, the tenant remote controllers (40-1) and (40-2) that are performing the overlap control There is a drawback that the group configuration must be changed individually and correctly, and if this is not done, inconsistency will occur in the operation control.

For example, when a composition change is performed to remove the unit 3 from the group 1 in FIG. 5, this composition change command is issued to one of the tenant remote controllers, for example, (40)
-1), the tenant remote controller (40-1) and the group 1 are correctly reorganized. At this time, the other tenant remote controller (40-2), which is under duplicate control, is simultaneously reorganized. Otherwise,
When the operation control is performed from the tenant remote controller (40-2), there is a problem that a discrepancy occurs between the group configuration that the tenant remote controller (40-2) expects and the group that is actually operation-controlled, and correct group management becomes impossible.

That is, the tenant remote controller (40-2)
Still thinks that group 1 includes unit (3), but this group 1 has already been reorganized by the tenant remote controller (40-1) instead of excluding unit (3). Therefore, the contradiction described above occurs.

Such a problem arises because the conventional group control is performed by the broadcast method, and the present invention solves the above-mentioned conventional problem by solving the problem of the speed and the speed of the conventional broadcast method. It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved remote group control system capable of individually managing each unit as needed while maintaining simplicity.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the above object, the present invention has a group number storage unit that stores a group number assigned by a remote controller in each control unit, and each remote controller It is characterized in that each control section is communicatively connected to each control section so that a group number can be set, changed, and read.

[Operation] Therefore, according to the present invention, when each remote controller performs a control operation by group management in which the group number is addressed to the other party at the time of operation control, the group number of each unit is read out as necessary, and a response thereto. (ACK) has the advantage that the group configuration controlled by itself can be arbitrarily confirmed.
Therefore, actual operation control can be easily performed by group management while performing such individual communication for each unit.

Embodiment A preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows the contents of the control unit (20) and the tenant remote controller (40) according to the present invention.

The control unit (20) includes a communication unit (21) and a processor (22) for exchanging signals with the communication line (30), and a group number storage unit (23) and a group number response unit ( 24) Including.

Of course, the control unit (20) can perform the operation control with the lowest priority as the local remote controller on the controlled device (10) as the local remote controller, and the contents thereof are handled by the processor (22).

On the other hand, the tenant remote controller (40) also has a communication unit (41), a processor (42), and a group formation storage unit (4
3), including a group number setting request means (44) and an operation switch (45), and a communication line (30) by a communication unit (41).
And the exchange of signals.

The group formation is set by the tenant remote controller (40), and the group formation is performed inside the tenant remote controller (40) by using a keyboard or the like (not shown in detail).
Stored in 3).

FIG. 2 shows the units (1), (2), and (4) for the group 1 by the tenant remote controller (40).
(3) shows a state where the units are organized into the same group, and the designation of the unit address can be arbitrarily changed as necessary. Here, the units (1), (2), and (3) incorporated in the group 1 correspond to the knitting of the group 1 shown in FIG. 5 described above. When such group formation is performed by the tenant remote controller (40), this command is sent to the network via the communication line (30), and the command at this time sequentially assigns the destination address to a specific unit during the formation operation. It is sent as a designated command, and the designated unit receives this command and causes its own group number storage unit to perform a predetermined storage operation.

Therefore, for example, in the unit (3), as shown in FIG. 3, since the group is formed by both the group 1 and the group 2, the group number 1 and the group 2 are stored in the group number storage unit (23) as shown in FIG. The group number 2 is stored.

Therefore, in the following operation control, when a group number is instructed from the remote controller as the destination address, the unit having this group number operates in accordance with the instruction of the tenant remote controller (40) which is the command transmission station. I do.

What is characteristic in the present invention is that each control unit (20) has a group number storage unit (23) as described above, and not only can the setting of this group number be changed by a command from the communication line (30) but also any As a result, the tenant remote controller (40) can arbitrarily read the group number of the unit from a unit controlled by the tenant remote controller (40).

FIG. 4 shows an example of performing group formation, group confirmation, and operation control using the above-described embodiment of the present invention.

In FIG. 4, the units organized in group 1 are (1) and (2), and the tenant remote controllers (40-1) and (40-2) perform overlapping control on these units.

In the reference numerals (101) and (102), the group composition is set from the tenant remote controller (40-1), and this group number is assigned to the control unit (20-1) belonging to each unit (1) or (2). (20-2) is stored in each group number storage section (23).

Therefore, the group 1 operation from the tenant remote controller (40-1), as shown by the reference numeral (103),
It is understood that this is controlled by the broadcast method.

On the other hand, the tenant remote controller (40-2)
At any time, the group number of each unit can be confirmed. As shown by reference numeral (104), the group number is read from the unit (1), and a response (ACK) to this read from the unit (1) is performed. Is returned.

In FIG. 4, reference numeral (106) is also used for the unit (2) from the tenant remote controller (40-2).
A verification of the group number is performed as indicated by and a response can be obtained from unit (2) (107).

Therefore, the remote controller performing the overlap control can arbitrarily confirm its own group formation.

Then, as indicated by reference numeral (108), the tenant remote controller (40-2) controls the operation of the group 1 by the broadcast method.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, normal operation control is performed by the same broadcast method as in the past, and the destination address of the command is given to each unit with each unit. This makes it possible to read the group number from each unit, and it is possible to freely check the group organization at any time, and there is an advantage that inconsistency does not occur particularly in the case of overlapping control. .

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block circuit diagram showing a preferred embodiment of a control unit and a remote controller used in a remote group control system according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a diagram showing contents of group formation of a remote controller in the embodiment of FIG. FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing the group number storage contents of the control unit in the embodiment. FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of a diagram showing an example of group formation, group confirmation and operation control of the present embodiment. FIG. 5 is an overall configuration diagram when the remote group control system to which the present invention is applied is used for a remote controller in a building. In the figure, (10) is a controlled device, (20) is a control unit, (23) is a group number storage unit, (30) is a communication line, (40) is a tenant remote controller, and (50) is a centralized remote controller. is there. In the drawings, the same reference numerals indicate the same or corresponding parts.

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A remote group control system comprising: a plurality of controlled devices; a network-connected control unit for operating and controlling each device; and a remote controller connected to a network and remotely controlling the plurality of control units as a group. In the above, each of the control units has a group number storage unit for storing a group number assigned by a remote controller, and each of the remote controllers allows each control unit to set, change, and read a group number. A remote group control system, wherein the remote group control system is communicatively connected to the remote group.