JP6330142B2 - Gas meter having time synchronization function and gas system thereof - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a gas meter that performs time adjustment by a gas flow rate measurement function without using wireless or other communication means.

  Conventionally, as a method for accurately maintaining the time of the gas meter, the current time information is transmitted to the gas meter by a telegram from a setting device connected by wire, and the gas meter is internally held based on the received time information. A method was used to reset the current time counter. However, using this method requires additional work when the meter reader examines the meter readings of the meters installed in each household.

  In recent years, as a countermeasure for cases where manual meter reading is difficult, there is an increasing number of cases where an automatic meter reading radio is attached to a meter. An automatic meter reading system is shown in FIG. The automatic meter-reading radio includes a radio master unit 103 and a radio slave unit 102. The radio master unit 103 communicates information with the center 105 through a telephone line 109. The radio slave unit 102 is connected to the gas meter 101 through a wired line 106. Then, communication with the center 105 is performed via the wireless master device 103 and the line connector 104. It is also possible to adjust the time using this automatic meter reading radio. The time information is sent from the center 105 to the wireless master device 103 through the telephone line 109 and the wired line 108, and the wireless master device 103 is sent to the wireless slave device 102 by the wireless signal 107, and then the wireless slave device 102 sends the gas meter 101 through the wired line 106. To send to. By relaying the time information as described above, the current time of the gas meter 101 can be synchronized with the current time of the center 105 that is maintained with high accuracy. However, since the information on the current time embedded in the message becomes old as much as the time required for relaying, and the delay time is not necessarily guaranteed to be constant, it causes an error in the time setting of the gas meter. In general, when sending time information by relaying a plurality of devices, there is a problem that the time information becomes old due to a delay, so various methods have been proposed so far (Patent Document 1, Patent Document). 2).

  On the other hand, as a recent situation, movement toward the spread of smart meters has become active. As one of the trends, a service that provides various added values by installing a home server with a wireless function in each household and connecting gas appliances and electrical products to the Internet has been proposed. Until now, among the gas-related equipment installed in general households, the equipment that can communicate with the outside has been limited, but in the future, various equipment will be connected to the network in general and Communication is expected to be possible.

  In order to adjust the time of the gas meter, it is necessary to communicate with the outside in some form in order to acquire time information. As one of the means of communication, the above-described automatic meter-reading radio can be considered, but so far, it is not so popular as to cover all households. On the other hand, there is a fuel cell as one of gas appliances that are expected to spread recently. In order to meet the demand for the visualization of so-called energy, such as the amount of gas used and the amount of power generated, fuel cells may be equipped with the function of connecting to the network via the above-mentioned home server in the future. It seems to be expensive. If this happens, it can be expected that the gas meter will be used as a repeater for acquiring time information even in households where automatic meter-reading radios have not been introduced.

In view of the above background, there is a need for a technique for acquiring time information from other gas equipment connected by a gas pipe without using communication means such as a radio as a time synchronization method mounted on a gas meter.

International Publication No. 2013/071148 JP 2003-317180 A

  When adjusting the time of the meter, the manual method requires additional work at the time of meter reading, and there is a problem that the man-hours of the meter reader increase. In addition, the automatic method has a problem that it is limited to a meter in which wireless and other communication functions are introduced.

  In view of such a background, the present invention has been made in light of the trend of networking gas equipment, and can receive time information from a gas equipment connected to a gas pipe in a house, and a meter. The purpose is to maintain the time of the meter accurately without installing communication means such as a radio on the side.

  However, it is assumed that the gas equipment connected to the gas pipe in the house is connected to the network by wireless / other communication means and acquires time information via the network.

In order to solve this problem, the gas flow rate measuring function originally provided in the gas meter is used. A gas device connected to the network and acquiring time information via the network changes the gas usage amount at a predetermined time, whereby the flow rate in the gas pipe changes. Here, changing the amount of gas used serves as a time signal. The meter detects the flow rate change in the gas pipe by the gas flow rate measuring function, determines that the detection time is the time when the time signal is issued, and sets the internal time counter.
(Hereinafter, the function of changing the amount of gas used for the purpose of issuing a time signal in this way is referred to as a time signal transmission function.)
In addition, since a general gas appliance whose gas usage varies depending on the usage status of the user is connected to the gas pipe, it may become a noise source that hinders the transmission of the time signal. Therefore, when issuing a time signal, the gas meter changes the flow rate created intentionally as a time signal and the flow rate change caused by the user's use of gas equipment by changing the gas usage amount with a predetermined change amount. And make it easy to distinguish.

  The meter detects only the flow rate change within the predetermined range. However, with that alone, when a general gas appliance accidentally causes a flow rate change that falls within a predetermined range, there is a case where the time cannot be distinguished and the time is set incorrectly. In order to prevent such an erroneous setting, the meter side memorizes the number of flow rate changes within a predetermined range for each time, and a time signal is issued for the time when the stored flow rate change frequency is the largest. Performs processing that is regarded as time. As described above, the time determination accuracy is improved by determining the time based on a plurality of observation results. The number of observations of the flow rate is set so as to satisfy the required accuracy of time determination.

As is clear from the above, the gas meter of the present invention receives time information from a gas device having a time signal transmission function through a gas flow rate change in a home gas pipe without being affected by disturbances of other gas devices. Thus, the time can be adjusted and maintained.
Since the synchronization process is performed automatically, there is no need for labor as in the case of manual implementation,
In order to use the flow measurement function originally provided in the gas meter, it is not necessary to install wireless or other communication means on the meter side.

Diagram of automatic meter reading system The figure which shows the whole gas system which concerns on this invention Diagram showing the flow measurement unit The figure which shows the frequency | count of the time change of the gas flow rate and the flow rate change of the predetermined range being detected. The figure which shows the frequency | count which the time change of the gas flow rate over 10 days and the flow rate change of the predetermined range were detected.

  FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an entire gas system according to the present invention. The in-home server 203 acquires time information from the time server 201 via the Internet 202 and transmits the time information to the gas device 204 with a time signal transmission function by a wireless signal 208. The gas device 204 with the time signal transmission function changes the gas flow rate by a predetermined change amount at a predetermined time. For example, a shift is made from an operating state where gas is constantly used to a state where gas is not used. As a result, the flow rate of the entire gas flow 210 flowing in the gas pipe 209 changes.

Here, for simplification of explanation, it is assumed that the gas flow 212 of the gas device A (206) flowing through the branched gas pipe and the gas flow 213 of the gas device B (207) are not changed. (In other words, the entire gas flow 210 and the gas flow 211 of the gas appliance with the time transmission function are the same flow.)
This change in the gas flow rate becomes a time signal for the gas meter 205. The gas meter 205 includes a flow rate measurement unit 214 connected to the gas pipe 209, a time adjustment unit 215, and a time counter 216. The flow rate measuring unit has a function of measuring the flow rate of the gas flowing through the gas pipe 209 and storing the number of changes in the flow rate within a predetermined range and occurring in a predetermined time zone for each time. Then, the time TM having the largest stored flow rate change count is regarded as the time when the time signal is issued.

  Here, the time TM regarded as “the time when the time signal is issued” (hereinafter sometimes referred to as “the flow rate change time”) is based on the time information 219 supplied from the time counter inside the gas meter. .

  The flow rate measuring unit stores in advance a time TS (hereinafter, sometimes referred to as “flow rate change scheduled time”) at which the gas device with the time signal transmission function actually issues a time signal. The TS may be stored at any time before the present invention is implemented (for example, at the time of product assembly, factory shipment, product installation, etc.). The flow rate measuring unit outputs the time lag information 217 to the time adjusting means. This time lag information is represented by TS-TM.

  Naturally, the time information 219 is not necessarily synchronized with the internal time of the gas appliance with the time signal transmission function. The synchronization error is represented by the difference between the time TM and the time TS. The time adjustment unit outputs an instruction signal 218 for adjusting the time to the time counter 216 based on the synchronization deviation, and adjusts the time counter 216. As a method for adjusting the time counter, for example, the time TS may be set as an initial value in the time counter at the moment when the time information 219 reaches the time TM, or the current count value of the time counter may be changed to TS− A method of setting a value obtained by adding TM to the time counter may be used.

In the present embodiment, the gas device 204 with the time signal transmission function is assumed to shift from the operating state in which the gas is constantly used to the state in which the gas is not used. You may make it transfer to the operation state which uses gas. Alternatively, the operating state may be continued without stopping, and the state may be changed by changing the amount of gas used. In short, the range width only needs to be defined so that the flow rate measuring unit 214 can detect a change in the amount of gas used when the gas device 204 with the time signal transmission function issues a time signal.

FIG. 4 shows the number of times a change in gas flow rate over time and a change in flow rate within a predetermined range are detected. Hereinafter, the manner in which the flow rate measuring unit detects a change in the flow rate within a predetermined range will be specifically described with reference to FIG. FIG. 4 includes three graphs 401, 402, and 403, and in each graph, the horizontal axis represents time. The vertical axis of the graph 401 and the graph 402 represents the gas flow rate, and the unit L / h means the number of liters per hour. The vertical axis of the graph 403 represents the number of times a change in the flow rate within a predetermined range is detected. The vertical dotted lines drawn on the three graphs represent the time. From the left, 11:30 pm, 11:40 pm, 11:40 pm, midnight, 0:10 am, 0:20 am Represents 0:30 am. The time TS for issuing the time signal is midnight. Here, the change in the gas flow rate in the time signal of the gas device with the time signal transmission function is -10 L / h in terms of specifications, but in reality there is an error factor such as individual variation, so it is not necessarily exactly -10 L / h. Shall not be. The range of the flow rate detected by the flow rate measurement unit is −10 L / h ± 5 L / h, and the time zone for monitoring the flow rate change is from 11:30 pm to 0:30 am. Here, ± 5 L / h is a flow rate width provided so as not to miss a time signal even if an error factor occurs.
A graph 401 illustrates the time change of the gas flow rate in the gas device with the time signal transmission function, and shows that the gas flow rate has changed from 8 L / h to 0 L / h at midnight.
A graph 402 illustrates a change over time of the total gas flow rate flowing through the gas meter, and similarly to the graph 401, shows that the gas flow rate has changed from 8 L / h to 0 L / h at midnight.

  Here, the gas flow of the gas device A and the gas flow of the gas device B are not changed, and the graph is omitted. The flow rate measurement unit monitors the amount of change in the gas flow rate. And at the moment of changing from 8L / h to 0L / h at midnight, the amount of change in the flow rate becomes -8L / h, which matches the condition of the detected flow range -10L / h ± 5L / h. Increase the count value of the time segment by one. A graph 403 illustrates the number of times a change in flow rate is detected as a histogram in seven time segments from 11:30 pm to 0:30 am. In the flow measurement unit, the time segment at 0:00 am This shows a state after the count value is increased by 1.

  As described above, the flow rate measurement unit counts the number of changes in flow rate within a predetermined range that occurred in each time segment. Therefore, the flow rate measurement unit has a memory (storage unit) for storing the counted value, which is shown in FIG. In performing the counting process, there are a method of using a counter that counts the number of occurrences for each time segment, a method of increasing the data value of the memory by one by corresponding the time segment to the address of the memory, etc. May be adopted.

  FIG. 5 illustrates the change in the gas flow rate over 10 days and the number of times a change in the flow rate within a predetermined range is detected. Hereinafter, the process in which the flow rate measuring unit counts the flow rate change in a specific range and the process until the time when the time signal is issued (flow rate change time) (the process in the determination unit in FIG. 3) are used with reference to FIG. Will be described in detail. The determination unit 302 determines a scheduled gas flow rate change time (flow rate change time) from a plurality of times stored in the storage unit 301. The flow rate change time in this case is a time based on the time counter 216 in the gas meter 205.

FIG. 5 is composed of a total of 20 graphs of 4 columns × 5 columns, and the definition of the vertical and horizontal axes of each graph is the same as FIG. The four vertical columns represent the first day, the second day, the third day, the fourth to the tenth day from the left, and the horizontal five rows from the top indicate the gas flow rate of the gas device with the time signal transmission function and the gas flow rate of the gas device A. Represents the gas flow rate of the gas device B, the total gas flow rate, and the count number. In order to show how the disturbance is eliminated, it is assumed that the gas flow of the gas device A and the gas flow of the gas device B can change, unlike FIG. Further, the details of the determination method in which the value of the gas flow rate matches the flow rate change in the predetermined range has been described with reference to FIG. 4, and therefore, in FIG. 5, the description of the specific value on the vertical axis is omitted. The time notation from 11:30 pm to 0:30 am on the horizontal axis is the same as that in FIG. As for the vertical axis and horizontal axis, the vertical axis represents only one column on the left side, and the horizontal axis represents only one column on the right side. Here, it is assumed that the time is adjusted once every 10 days.

  First, the column for the first day is the same as in FIG. 4, and the flow measurement unit detects the time signal transmitted from the gas appliance with the time signal transmission function at midnight, and the count at midnight is increased by one. The situation is shown. At this time, the time counter is synchronized with the gas device with a time signal transmission function.

  Next, for the column on the second day, the flow rate measuring unit detects the time signal transmitted from the gas appliance with the time signal transmission function at midnight, and the count at midnight was increased by one. 2 is shown. In addition, it is shown that the flow rate measuring unit detects a decrease in the flow rate caused by the end of operation of the gas appliance A at 11:40 pm, and the count number at 11:40 pm is increased by one. Yes. This is a case where the number of counts has increased because the gas flow rate change at the end of the operation of the gas appliance A matches the flow rate change conditions within a predetermined range of the flow rate measuring unit. However, at this stage, since the time adjustment unit does not instruct the time counter to adjust the time, the time is not erroneously adjusted due to disturbance by the gas appliance A. Even at this time, the time counter is synchronized with the gas device with the time signal transmission function.

  And for the column on the third day, the flow measurement unit detects the time signal transmitted from the gas device with the time signal transmission function at midnight, and the state where the count number at 0:10 am is incremented by 1 is shown. Yes. Although the time signal is transmitted from the gas device with the time signal transmission function at midnight, the count of 0:10 am at the time 10 minutes later is increased. This means that the time counter of the meter has become out of sync. Similarly to the second day, a decrease in the flow rate caused by the end of operation of the gas appliance A at 11:40 pm was detected, and the count number at 11:40 pm was 1. It is shown that it is increased by 2 and changed to 2. Gas equipment B started operation at 11:30 pm and increased the gas flow rate, and ended operation at 0:30 am and decreased the gas flow rate. The count value does not change because the flow rate change condition of the predetermined range of the section was not met.

On the fourth day to the tenth day, only the flow rate change by the time signal occurs, and the count value at 0:10 am is shown. The change in the count value on the fourth day is increased by 1 from 1 and changed to 2, and the dotted line indicates that the count value has reached 8 on the 10th day. Yes.
Since the counting operation for 10 days is completed at this time, the flow rate measurement unit determines the time TM at which the time signal is issued. Since the most frequently stored flow rate change count is 8:10 am, the time TM is determined at 00:00 am. Here, the time TM is 0:10 am based on the time information provided from the time counter on the meter side, and the flow rate change scheduled time TS at which the time signal is actually issued is , And stored in the flow rate measurement unit as midnight. The fact that TM and TS do not match means that the time of the gas device with the time signal transmission function is different from the time counter of the gas meter. The flow rate measuring unit outputs time lag information (TS-TM) to the time adjusting unit, and the time adjusting unit adjusts the time counter so that TM and TS match. As the adjustment method, the method already described in the description of FIG. 2 can be used. After adjusting the time counter, the time adjustment unit sends an initialization signal 220 to the flow rate measurement unit, and initializes all the counts stored in the past 10 days to zero. The flow rate measuring unit returns to the first day again and repeats the counting process described above.

  As described above, according to the example of the present embodiment, the flow rate change having a magnitude different from the flow rate change by the time signal is not counted from the beginning, and the flow rate change similar to the time signal is once counted, The process of selecting the time with the highest count in the 10-day observation period is finally excluded. Thus, it can be seen that the time counter is adjusted based on the time signal generated by the gas device with the time signal transmission function by eliminating the influence of disturbance from other gas devices.

In this embodiment, the observation cycle is 10 days, but it may be set to a different period. Moreover, although the period for issuing the time signal is one day, it may be set to a different period.
In addition, when a scheduled operation is set so that a general gas device starts operating once a day, and the set time is the same time as the time signal of the gas device with a time signal transmission function, it acts as a disturbance on each time signal There are concerns. As countermeasures in such a case, a method for extending the count value based on the time signal by shortening the cycle of issuing the time signal to less than one day, or changing the time at which the time signal is issued every day, the reservation time of general gas equipment By applying a method for avoiding the above, it is possible to reduce the influence as a disturbance.

  As described above, the gas meter according to the present invention can be installed in a gas pipe of each household, and an automatic meter-reading radio is installed in a household where a gas device with a time signal transmission function used by connecting to a network is introduced. Even if not, it has a function to automatically adjust and maintain the time.

101 Gas meter 102 Wireless slave unit 103 Wireless master unit 104 Line connector 105 Center 106 Wired line 107 Wireless signal 108 Wired line 109 Telephone line 201 Time server 202 Internet 203 Home server 204 Gas device 205 with time signal transmission function Gas meter 206 Gas device A
207 Gas equipment B
208 Radio signal 209 Gas flow 210 Overall gas flow 211 Gas flow of gas equipment with time transmission function 212 Gas flow 213 Gas flow 214 Flow rate measurement unit 215 Time adjustment unit 216 Time counter 217 Time shift information 218 Instruction signal 219 for adjusting time Time information 220 Initialization signal 301 Storage unit 302 Determination unit 401 Graph 402 showing time change of gas flow rate in gas appliance with time signal transmission function Graph 403 showing time change of overall gas flow rate through gas meter 403 Flow rate in each time section Histogram showing the number of changes detected

Claims (3)

A time counter,
The time at which the gas appliances generates a flow rate change of the gas as a time signal stored as a flow rate change estimated time flow rate change time based on the time of detecting a gas flow rate change of a predetermined range by measuring the flow rate of gas to the time counter A flow rate measurement unit determined as :
A time adjustment unit for adjusting the time counter based on a difference between the flow rate change scheduled time and the flow rate change time ;
Having a gas meter. The flow rate measuring unit is
A storage unit for storing each time the detected number of times of the gas flow rate variation of the predetermined range has occurred in a predetermined time zone time close to the flow change scheduled time,
A determination unit for determining a time at which the number of times stored in the storage unit is the largest as a flow rate change time;
The gas meter according to claim 1. Gas equipment that acquires time information via the network and changes the gas flow rate at the scheduled time;
A gas meter according to claim 1 or 2 ,
Having a gas system.

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