JP3541380B2 - Abnormality monitoring system - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an abnormality monitoring system capable of automatically and quantitatively detecting a combustion flame, such as a combustion flame of a rotary kiln, which oscillates and is difficult to grasp its position or shape, and particularly to transmission. The present invention relates to improvement for reducing road load.
[0002]
[Prior art]
Conventionally, many computers for data collection have been installed on site, and LAN (Local
A so-called distributed equipment abnormality monitoring system configured to send images and collected data to a computer for analysis via a transmission path such as an area network is well known.
[0003]
FIG. 3 shows an example of this type of conventional abnormality monitoring system. An image photographed by the surveillance camera 1 such as a video camera (for example, an image of a combustion flame of a rotary kiln) is taken into an image taking device 2 and converted into digital image data corresponding to luminance. The digital image data is transmitted by the transmission device 3 to the reception device 5 via the transmission path 4 such as a LAN. In the image processing device 6, the image data received by the receiving device 5 is read out, subjected to appropriate processing, and displayed on the display screen.
[0004]
Note that other data collection / analysis devices are also connected to this monitoring system. For example, a plurality of data collection computers 7a and 7b installed at the site and an analysis computer 8 for analyzing data collected by the computers are connected via the transmission path 4.
[0005]
Various sensors are connected to the data collection computer. For example, an acoustic sensor 71a and a vibration sensor 71b are connected to the computer 7a so that data relating to sound and vibration can be collected.
[0006]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
By the way, in such a system, the amount of data transmitted via the transmission path 4 becomes enormous. In particular, when the data to be transmitted is an image, there is a problem that it takes several hundreds of kilobytes (kB) per screen, takes a long time, and places a load on other communication.
[0007]
Further, in the method of capturing the next image after the completion of transfer as described above, there is a problem that the image capturing interval is too long when an average image of a fast moving object is obtained. .
[0008]
The details are as follows. In many cases, one image is sufficient for image processing for abnormality monitoring, but an average image is required when trying to quantitatively capture swaying objects such as the combustion flame of a rotary kiln. .
[0009]
In this case, if the images of the number of screens required for averaging are transferred one by one and averaged by the image processing device 6, after the predetermined number of images have been transferred and before the next image is captured, It takes too much time and a fast moving average image cannot be obtained.
Further, since the image data itself has a large data amount, a load is imposed on the transmission path when image data and sensor data from many other data collectors are sent to the same transmission path.
[0010]
FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the flow of operations of the above-described image capture, transfer, and averaging processing, and the procedure is as follows.
(1) Reset the number of image captures.
(2) Repeat image capture and image transfer until a predetermined number of times (number of times required for averaging) is reached. The plurality of transferred images are stored in the receiving device 5.
(3) When the number of images reaches the predetermined number, processing on the image processing device 6 side starts. First, reset the count.
[0011]
(4) A process of calling and averaging images from the receiving device 5 is performed a predetermined number of times (a predetermined average number of times).
(5) After averaging a predetermined number of times, the average image is sent to a recognition processing means (this recognition processing means is provided in the image processing apparatus, but has no direct relation to the present invention, so a detailed description thereof is omitted).
[0012]
Further consideration of the data amount is as follows. For example, in the case of a monochrome digital image, when the resolution is 640 × 480 and the gray level of each pixel is 8 bits, the size of one image is about 300 kB. If the image data for 10 sheets is sent in order to average these 10 sheets, the data amount becomes about 3 megabytes (MB).
[0013]
Furthermore, when 50 image capturing devices 2 are installed on site, the data amount becomes as large as 150 MB. If this is transmitted on a LAN with a transmission speed of 10 MB / Sec, it takes 15 seconds to receive only 50 images (excluding the image capture time) even if there is no other communication.
[0014]
The data transfer of the vibration and acoustic sensors is as follows. When the bandwidth and the resolution of the fast Fourier transform are obtained by the analyzer, the data amount needs to be 500 kB to 1 MB. If five sensors are connected to each of the 50 data collectors, the data amount will reach 250 MB (excluding the sampling time of each sensor).
[0015]
An object of the present invention is to provide an abnormality monitoring system suitable for obtaining an average image of a fast moving object with a small load on a transmission path in view of the above points.
[0016]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
In order to achieve such an object, the present invention is configured such that an image of a monitoring target captured by a monitoring camera installed at a site is transferred to an image processing device via a transmission path, and the image processing is performed. In the abnormality monitoring system configured so that the device can detect the state of the object based on the average image of the image of the object,
An image capture averaging device having a function of capturing an image of the object captured by the monitoring camera and obtaining an average image thereof, and configured to transfer the obtained average image to the image processing device side via the transmission path. It is characterized by having done.
[0017]
[Action]
An average image is obtained by an image acquisition averaging device before transfer. As a result, the number of images to be transferred is significantly smaller than in the conventional system, and the load on the transmission path is reduced.
[0018]
BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION
Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing one embodiment of the abnormality monitoring system according to the present invention. In the figure, parts that are the same as those in FIG. 3 are given the same reference numerals, and descriptions thereof will be omitted.
[0019]
In the figure, reference numeral 12 denotes an image capture averaging device which captures images from the camera 1 and calculates an average of a predetermined number of images. An image processing device 16 processes an image received by the receiving device 5. However, the conventional image averaging process is not performed.
[0020]
The operation related to image capture, processing, and transfer in such a system will be described next with reference to the flow of FIG. The procedure is as follows.
(1) Reset the number of image captures.
(2) The image from the camera 1 is taken into the image taking / averaging device 12, and an average image is obtained every time the image is taken.
[0021]
(3) The operation of (2) is repeated until the predetermined average number is reached, and when the average number is reached, the average image is transferred by the transmission apparatus 3 to the reception apparatus 5 via the transmission path 4.
(4) The average image received by the receiving device 5 is read by the image processing device 16, subjected to appropriate processing, and sent to the recognition processing means.
[0022]
As is apparent from the above operation, in the present invention, by performing the image averaging process in the image capturing and averaging device 12, the number of transmission images is not one but an average. When one image is obtained by averaging ten images, the data amount of the transmitted image is one-tenth that of the conventional case, and the transmission time is one-tenth of the conventional case. As described above, if the time for occupying the transmission path for image transfer is reduced, data from other sensors can be transferred with a sufficient margin.
[0023]
The time required for the averaging process in the image acquisition averaging device 12 is sufficiently fast, and the image from the camera 1 can be acquired at the minimum acquisition interval, and the image is not missed.
[0024]
The foregoing description merely illustrates certain preferred embodiments for purposes of explanation and illustration of the invention. Therefore, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, but includes many more changes and modifications without departing from the spirit thereof.
[0025]
For example, in the embodiment, the object captured by the camera 1 is a combustion flame, but the scope of the present invention is not necessarily limited to the combustion flame. The present invention can be applied to any apparatus that averages images of several objects and detects an abnormality or the like based on the average image.
[0026]
【The invention's effect】
As described above, according to the present invention, the average image is obtained in advance and the average image is transferred. This is effective for systems that perform data transmission.
In addition, since the image capture averaging device can capture the image of the camera at the minimum capture interval, the present invention is also effective when obtaining an average image of a fast-moving object.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing an embodiment of an abnormality monitoring system according to the present invention; FIG. 2 is an operation flow relating to image capture, averaging processing, and transfer; FIG. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an operation flow in a conventional system.
[Explanation of symbols]
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Surveillance camera 3 Transmission device 4 Transmission line 5 Receiving device 7a, 7b Data collector 71a Acoustic sensor 71b Vibration sensor 8 Analyzer 12 Image acquisition averaging device 16 Image processing device

Claims (4)

The image of the monitoring target captured by the monitoring camera installed at the site is configured to be transferred to the image processing device via the transmission path, and the image processing device is based on an average image of the image of the target. In the abnormality monitoring system configured to be able to detect the state of the object,
An image capture averaging device having a function of capturing an image of the object captured by the monitoring camera and obtaining an average image thereof, and configured to transfer the obtained average image to the image processing device side via the transmission path. An abnormality monitoring system characterized by the following. 2. The abnormality monitoring system according to claim 1, wherein the image acquisition averaging device has a function of obtaining an average image each time an image for one screen is acquired from a camera. The abnormality monitoring system according to claim 1, wherein the object captured by the monitoring camera is a combustion flame, and the image processing device detects a state of the combustion flame based on an average image of the combustion flame. 2. The object captured by the monitoring camera is a combustion flame of a rotary kiln, and the image processing device detects a state of the combustion flame based on an average image of the combustion flame of the rotary kiln. Or the abnormality monitoring system according to 2.

Images