JP4774400B2 - Monitoring system - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a monitoring system including a monitoring camera device and an image recording / reproducing device, and more particularly to a technique for recovering a recording failure of an image recording / reproducing device.

  In recent years, digitalization of image processing has progressed, and a hard disk is often used as a recording medium for a monitoring system because of easy handling. The recording capacity of the hard disk is larger than that of USB (Universal Serial Bus) memory and DVD (Digital Versatile Disk) drive, but a monitoring system that stores recorded images for several months to a year is equipped with multiple hard disks. For example, a plurality of recording apparatuses having a larger capacity such as a RAID (Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks) apparatus are connected to the controller of the monitoring system for recording. In this case, recording is sequentially performed in a ring shape on each recording device, and when recording is completed on all recording devices, overwriting is performed in order from the oldest image. A LAN (Local Area Network) or the like is used for connection between the controller of the monitoring system and the recording apparatus.

  When the above-mentioned RAID device is used as a recording device, recording can be continued even if a predetermined number of hard disks fail, but the hard disk in the recording device is normal due to a defective LAN cable or poor control in the recording device. Nevertheless, recording may not be possible.

  As a countermeasure in this case, for example, a backup memory device as described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-36369 (Patent Document 1) is provided, and recording is temporarily transferred to the backup memory device when a failure occurs. Can be applied.

JP 2007-36369 A

  When the method disclosed in Patent Document 1 is applied, recording to the backup unit occurs when a failure occurs in the recording apparatus. Therefore, the backup unit requires reliability and performance equivalent to those of the recording apparatus, resulting in poor cost performance. End up.

  An object of the present invention is to provide a high-reliability monitoring system that does not cause image loss when a failure occurs in a recording apparatus at a low cost.

The above object is achieved by the following configuration.
(1) Surveillance camera device that performs photographing, a plurality of recording devices for recording photographed image data, a notification device that notifies a failure of the recording device, and a plurality of backup recording devices that back up data in the recording device Are connected to the controller, and recording device control means for writing or reading image signals taken by the monitoring camera device to or from a plurality of recording devices, and a plurality of backups for backing up the recording data in each recording device In a monitoring system comprising processing means and failure notification means for notifying a failure by a notification device when a failure occurs in the recording device, means for sequentially writing to a plurality of recording devices, and writing start of each recording device Means for copying recording data to backup recording device associated with each recording device, and when a failure of the recording device occurs A means for temporarily transferring writing to the next recording device and stopping the copy process to the backup recording device, and means for reporting a failure through the reporting device by means of the failure reporting means, Means for transferring writing of image data to a new recording device when a backup recording device associated with the recording device to which writing has been transferred is replaced with a new one, and a recording start position of the recording device to which writing has been temporarily transferred And means for continuing recording and copying the recording data of the start of writing of the new recording device to a backup recording device associated with the recording device.
(2) In the monitoring system, a plurality of recording devices are each divided into two regions, one region records image data, and the other region is a backup recording device associated with the recording device to be recorded next. It is configured to be used as:

  According to the present invention, it is possible to improve the reliability of the monitoring system.

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

  A first embodiment of the monitoring system according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.

  FIG. 1 shows a schematic configuration according to an embodiment of the monitoring system of the present invention. An outline of the operation will be described with reference to FIG.

  An image signal photographed by the monitoring camera device 101 is input to the controller 100 of the monitoring system. In the controller 100, the input image signal is digitized and compressed by the image signal processing circuit 110, converted into image data suitable for recording, and output to the recording apparatus control circuit 102. The recording device control circuit 102 records the input image data on a plurality of recording devices 103. In the present embodiment, description will be made on the assumption that image data is recorded on three recording devices 103a, 103b, and 103c. The above-mentioned image data is sequentially recorded in a ring shape on the recording device 103, and when the recording is completed on all the recording devices, the oldest recording data is overwritten (103a → 103b → 103c → 103a...). When the recording device control circuit 102 starts writing image data to any of the recording devices 103a, 103b, and 103c, the recording device control circuit 102 reads out from the head of the recording data written in synchronization with the start timing and outputs the read data to the backup processing circuit 104. The backup processing circuit 104 performs copying to the corresponding one of the backup memories 106a, 106b, 106c associated with the recording devices 103a, 103b, 103c in which the input recording data has been written. The controller 100 may prepare the same number of slots as the number of backup memories and install the backup memory. However, in the monitoring system, when the incident occurs, the function can suck up the recorded data at the time of the incident and submit it to the police. For example, when USB is adopted as a memory interface, a plurality of backup memories 106 can be mounted via the hub 105. When the recording device control circuit 102 detects a failure of the recording device 103, the failure notification circuit 107 notifies the failure by the notification device 109 via the public line 108, for example. On the monitor 111, an input image from the camera 101 and a reproduced image from the recording device 103 can be viewed.

  With reference to FIG. 2, the relationship between the recording process 201 to the recording apparatus 103 and the recording data backup process 202 to the backup memory 106 will be described. When the image data recording process 201 is started for one of the recording apparatuses 103, the backup process 202 is performed in the backup memory 106 associated with the recording apparatus 103. Assuming that the image data recording process 201 to the recording apparatus is performed in the order of (103a → 103b → 103c → 103a...), When the recording process 201 shifts from the recording apparatus 103c to the recording apparatus 103a, the recording apparatus 103a A backup process 202 for recording data to the backup memory 106a is started. When the recording image period stored in the recording device 103 is TRm, the backup image period stored in the backup memory 106 is TRb, and the backup processing period required to back up the TRb image is TB, TRb <TB <TRm. Perform backup processing in relation. Increasing TB can reduce the load applied to the backup process 202, and decreasing TB enables maintenance such as replacement work when a failure occurs in the backup memory 106. Therefore, the backup process 202 is reliably performed even if the processing capacity and reliability of the backup memory 106 are not high.

  FIG. 3 shows processing when a recording operation failure occurs in one recording apparatus 103. Assume that a failure (1) occurs in the recording apparatus 103a during the recording process to the recording apparatus 103a, and subsequent access cannot be performed. When the recording device control circuit 102 detects an abnormality in the recording device 103a, the recording device control circuit 102 determines that the subsequent recording process is impossible, and shifts the recording to the recording device 103b where the next recording process is performed (2) and causes a failure in the failure notification circuit 107. Notification (3). At this time, the top portion of the recording device 103b is overwritten and the past recording data disappears from the recording device 103b. However, since the backup processing is performed in the backup memory 106b, the past recording data remains in the backup memory 106b. . Even if the recording is transferred to the recording device 103b due to the occurrence of a failure, the backup processing to the backup memory 106b is not performed. The failure notification circuit 107 transmits (4) to the maintenance manager that a failure has occurred. Upon receiving the failure occurrence (5), the contractor dispatches the worker to the site (6), and replaces the backup memory 106b associated with the recording device 103b currently performing the recording process with a new backup memory 306b. (7) At the same time, the recording apparatus 103a in which the failure has occurred is replaced with a new recording apparatus 303a (8). After the replacement, the recording device corresponding to the backup memory 106a becomes the recording device 303a, and the backup memory corresponding to the recording device 103b becomes the backup memory 306b. If the above exchange processing is performed within the backup image period TRb from the recording transition (2) to the recording apparatus 103b, the backup memory 106b is exchanged and stored, so that no recording data is lost. When the recording process is performed on the recording apparatus 103b for the period TRb, the recording process is shifted to the replaced recording apparatus 303a (9), and the recording data at the head of the recording apparatus 303a is synchronously backed up to the backup memory 106a (10 ) After that, when the recording of the replaced recording device 303a becomes full, the recording is transferred to the recording device 103b. However, if overwriting is performed from the beginning of the recording device 103b in this case, the storage period of the recording data is shortened. Then, the recording start position of the recording apparatus 103b is shifted (11) by a period TRb from the beginning of the recording apparatus 103b. The recording form at this time is shown in FIG. With the above processing, it is possible to prevent the loss of recording and cope with the failure of the recording apparatus 103.

A second embodiment of the monitoring system according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.
In the first embodiment, the backup device 106 is prepared as a recording medium different from the recording device 103. However, in the second embodiment, the recording device 103 is divided into two areas, and one of them is the main recording area 503, and the recording process 201 is performed. Then, the backup process 202 is performed with the other as the backup area 506.

  FIG. 6 shows processing when a recording operation failure occurs in one recording apparatus 103. Compared to the first embodiment, since the backup area 506 is included in the recording device 103, the replacement device at the time of failure is only the recording device 103 in which the failure has occurred.

  The preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described above.

  According to the present invention, in the monitoring system, the recording device control means sequentially writes to the plurality of recording devices, and when writing to all the recording devices is completed, the oldest recording data in the plurality of recording devices is overwritten. In addition, the recording device control means reads out the recording data of an arbitrary backup image period from the start of writing in synchronization with the timing at which writing to each recording apparatus is started, and the backup processing means associates the recording data with each recording apparatus by the backup processing means Copy to. When a writing failure occurs in a certain recording device, the recording device control means temporarily transfers writing to the recording device to which writing is performed next to the recording device in which the failure has occurred, and backup associated with the recording device to which writing has been transferred. The copying process to the recording device is stopped, and the failure is notified by the failure notification means through the notification device. The worker who has received the notification replaces the failure recording device and the backup recording device associated with the recording device to which writing has been transferred with a new one. The recording device control means shifts the writing of the image data to the new recording device within the backup image period remaining in the backup recording device before the replacement, and the next recording start position of the recording device to which the writing has temporarily shifted Is shifted by the backup image period. Further, in synchronization with the timing at which writing has shifted to a new recording device, recording data for an arbitrary period from the start of writing is copied to a backup recording device associated with the recording device in the same manner as described above.

  As described above, by backing up necessary data in advance, it is possible to improve the reliability at a low cost.

1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a monitoring system according to a first embodiment of the present invention. The block diagram which shows the outline | summary of the recording processing process of the monitoring system which concerns on 1st Example of this invention. The block diagram which shows the outline | summary of the recovery process performed when the failure of the monitoring system which concerns on 1st Example of this invention occurs. Explanatory drawing which shows the outline | summary regarding the recording method after the recovery process of the monitoring system which concerns on 1st Example of this invention. The block diagram which shows schematic structure of the monitoring system which concerns on the 2nd Example of this invention. The block diagram which shows the outline | summary of the recovery process performed when the failure of the monitoring system which concerns on 2nd Example of this invention occurs.

Explanation of symbols

100 Controller 101 Camera 111 Monitor

Claims (2)

A surveillance camera device for photographing, a plurality of recording devices for recording the photographed image data, a notification device for notifying the failure of the recording device, and a plurality of backup recording devices for backing up the data in the recording device are connected. A recording device control unit configured to write or read image signals captured by the monitoring camera device to a plurality of recording devices, and a plurality of backup processing units to back up recording data in each recording device. In a monitoring system comprising a failure notification means for notifying a failure by a notification device when a failure occurs in the recording device, means for sequentially writing to a plurality of recording devices, and recording start data of each recording device Means for copying to a backup recording device associated with each recording device, and the following when a failure occurs in the recording device: Means for temporarily transferring writing to the recording device and stopping the copying process to the backup recording device, and means for notifying the failure through the notification device by means of the failure notification means. When the backup recording device associated with the transferred recording device is replaced with a new one, the means for shifting the writing of the image data to the new recording device and the recording start position of the recording device to which the writing has been temporarily changed are changed. And means for continuing the recording and copying the recording data of the start of writing of the new recording device to a backup recording device associated with the recording device. 2. The monitoring system according to claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of recording devices is divided into two regions, one region records image data, and the other region is used as a backup recording device. A characteristic surveillance system.

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