JP7127863B2 - Darkroom box for light source monitoring and light source monitoring system - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a light source monitoring darkroom box and a light source monitoring system, and more specifically to a light source monitoring technique for remotely monitoring the state of blinking of a light source such as an LED.

In general, computer racks in data centers are equipped with various computers and network devices. This is the current situation. At present, even if an attempt is made to install a camera for remote monitoring, the camera cannot be installed because there is no space for installing the camera.

The monitoring system described in Patent Document 1 below attaches a web camera to an electrical device such as an LED lighting device, and uses a communication terminal with a wired connection using the electrical wiring of the electrical device such as an LED lighting device to remotely However, it does not disclose any countermeasures against the problem of lack of space for installing cameras.

JP 2014-72885 A

Even if you try to install a camera to remotely monitor the blinking of LEDs that indicate the status of various devices in a data center, etc., there is no installation space and you have to check it manually. The same thing is happening with certain machines and equipment. In other words, the management is left to the person, and remote monitoring is often not possible due to the difficulty of installing a camera.

In view of the above problems, the present invention provides a light source monitoring darkroom box capable of remotely monitoring blinking of light sources such as LEDs that indicate the status of various devices even when there is no space for installing a camera. It is an object of the present invention to provide a light source monitoring system.

The present invention is a light source monitoring darkroom box for monitoring a state such as flickering of a light source of a target device, wherein one end side of an optical fiber for illumination is connected to the light source side of the target device. an array panel installed in the darkroom box and having a plurality of transparent portions arranged in an array for connecting the other ends of the optical fibers to a base plate; a photographing means arranged at a predetermined interval with respect to the array panel; and a photographing means provided in the darkroom box for obtaining image data photographed at a wide angle by the photographing means, and transmitting the image data via a network. to an external terminal.

The present invention also provides a light source monitoring system for monitoring a state such as blinking of a light source of a target device, comprising: an illumination optical fiber having one end connected to the light source side of the target device; a darkroom box; an array panel installed in the darkroom box and having a plurality of transparent portions arranged in an array for connecting the other ends of the optical fibers to a base plate; and the array panel in the darkroom box. image acquisition means for acquiring image data taken at a wide angle by the image acquisition means; and transmission of the acquired image data to an external terminal via a network. and transmitting means.

According to the present invention, there is provided a light source monitoring darkroom box for monitoring a state such as flickering of a light source of a target device, wherein one end side of an optical fiber for illumination is connected to the light source side of the target device, a darkroom box; an array panel installed in the darkroom box and provided with a plurality of transparent portions arranged in an array for connecting the other end side of the optical fiber to a base plate; a photographing means arranged at a predetermined interval with respect to the array panel; and a photographing means provided in the darkroom box for acquiring image data photographed at a wide angle by the photographing means, and transmitting the image data through a network. and transmission means for transmitting the image data to the external terminal. Therefore, even if there is no space for installing a camera near the target device, it is possible to remotely monitor the blinking of the light source indicating the state of each device.

The present invention also provides a light source monitoring system for monitoring a state such as blinking of a light source of a target device, comprising: an illumination optical fiber having one end connected to the light source side of the target device; a darkroom box; an array panel installed in the darkroom box and having a plurality of transparent portions arranged in an array for connecting the other ends of the optical fibers to a base plate; and the array panel in the darkroom box. image acquisition means for acquiring image data taken at a wide angle by the image acquisition means; and transmission of the acquired image data to an external terminal via a network. and transmission means. Therefore, even if there is no space for installing a camera near the target device, it is possible to remotely monitor the blinking of the light source indicating the state of each device.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS It is a conceptual diagram which shows the whole structure of the LED monitoring system of Example 1 of this invention. 2 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of the LED monitoring system of Example 1; FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the functional configuration of a processing unit of the LED monitoring system of Example 1; FIG. FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of image composition according to the first embodiment; 4A and 4B are diagrams showing an example of image processing for distortion correction and color separation according to the first embodiment; FIG. It is a figure which shows the LED monitoring system of Example 2 of this invention, (A) is a figure which shows a whole structure, (B) is a top view which shows an example of an array panel. FIG. 4 is a conceptual diagram showing the overall configuration of an LED monitoring system according to another embodiment of the invention;

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION The best mode for carrying out the present invention will now be described in detail based on examples. The present invention relates to a light source monitoring system for remotely monitoring the blinking state of a light source such as an LED that indicates the operating state of a target device such as a computer or network device. An LED monitoring system in the case of doing so will be described.

First, Embodiment 1 of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 to 5. FIG. FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram showing the overall configuration of the LED monitoring system of this embodiment, and FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of the LED monitoring system of this embodiment. The LED monitoring system remotely monitors the blinking states of the LEDs 14A to 14D provided on the light emitting surface 12 of the target device 10 such as a computer or network device.

As shown in FIG. 2, a plurality of LEDs 14A to 14D are provided on the light emitting surface 12 of the target device 10, and an acrylic panel 16 is provided to cover the LEDs 14A to 14D. One ends of the optical fibers 18A to 18D are connected to through holes 16A to 16D provided at positions corresponding to the LEDs 14A to 14D of the acrylic panel 16 to receive the light. Thereby, it is possible to prevent the optical fibers 18A to 18D from being directly connected and twisted and broken.

The acrylic panel 16 is attached to the light emitting surface 12 of the target device 10 by, for example, a slide type or a magnet type. In the examples of FIGS. 1 and 2, there is one target device 10, but when monitoring the LED status of a plurality of target devices, an acrylic panel is provided for each target device (for each light emitting surface). .

For the optical fibers 18A to 18D, for example, those having a diameter of about 0.5 to 1.0 mm and covered with a black tube are used. For example, an optical fiber for illumination can be used.

The other ends of the optical fibers 18A-18D are connected to any of the transparent portions 24A-24F of the array panel 22 provided inside the darkroom box 20. As shown in FIG. The array panel 22 is obtained by providing a plurality of transparent portions 24A to 24F on a base plate 23 in an array. In the example of FIG. 1, since there are six transparent portions 24A to 24F for four optical fibers 18A to 18D, no optical fibers are connected to the transparent portions 24E and 24F, for example.

A camera 26 is provided in the darkroom box 20 at a predetermined interval so as to face the array panel 22 . The shortest distance between the camera 26 and the array panel 22 is about 4 cm. Since the camera 26 is provided in the darkroom box 20, an expensive camera having a flicker countermeasure function becomes unnecessary and an inexpensive camera 26 can be used.

The camera 26 is connected to a processing device 30 provided outside a darkroom box 30 by a cable 28 (for example, a USB cable), and captured image data is sent to the processing device 30 . The processing device 30 may be, for example, a PC, a smartphone, or a single board computer called Raspberry Pi.

The processing device 30 includes a processor, memory, storage, and communication section, which are connected by a bus (not shown). The processor is configured by, for example, a CPU (Central Processing Unit), and performs various processes by reading and executing various programs stored in a memory. The memory stores programs to be executed by the processor, and is composed of, for example, ROM (Read Only Memory) and RAM (Random Access Memory). For example, various means shown in FIG. 3 are stored. A server 50, which will be described later, also has a similar hardware configuration.

As shown in FIG. 2, data communication is possible with a server 50 and a supervisor terminal 80 via a network 40 such as an internetwork. In this embodiment, the processor 30 and the server 50 form a processing unit 60 that performs various types of processing on acquired image data.

Note that the functions of the processing unit 60 described below may all be provided in the processing device 30, all may be provided in the server (such as a cloud server) 50, or part of the functions may be provided in the processing device. 30 and the rest of the functions may be provided by the server 50 .

FIG. 3 shows a block diagram showing the functional configuration of the processing section 60. As shown in FIG. The processing unit 60 includes image acquisition means 62 , image processing means 64 , distortion correction means 66 , image synthesizing means 68 and transmission means 70 .

The image acquisition means 62 acquires image data captured by the camera 26 . The image processing means 64 binarizes the image data obtained by the image obtaining means 62, for example, and performs color judgment processing. By performing binarization, it is possible to provide the monitor terminal 80 with a judgment of whether the LED is lit or not, such as ◯ or not (see FIG. 1). The distortion correction means 66 corrects the distortion of the image captured by the camera 26 with a wide-angle lens, for example.

The image synthesizing means 68 synthesizes the acquired image data with other image data. For example, by synthesizing a PNG (Portable Network Graphics) design image designed for each monitored object and a camera image, a position-specific image is generated so that the monitor can recognize the image. The transmission means 70 performs data communication with an external terminal such as the supervisor terminal 80 via the network 40 , and is provided in both the processing device 30 and the server 50 .

For example, as shown in FIG. 4, the acquired image is color-judged by the image processing means 64 to generate a processed image 90 showing a mark 92 indicating the red light emitting portion and a mark 94 indicating the green light emitting portion. Then, the image synthesizing means 68 synthesizes the PNG image 100 divided into a plurality of sections, for example, to generate a synthetic image 110, thereby representing which LED is in what state. Therefore, by transmitting the composite image 110 to the monitor terminal 80, it is possible to convey the state of the LED to the monitor in an easy-to-understand manner.

Further, in the example of FIG. 4, a mark 92 indicating a red light emitting portion is shown in the upper left section "A" of the composite image 110, and a green light emitting portion is shown in the second section "3" from the right in the middle row. An indicating mark 94 is shown. By displaying a composite image in this way, it is possible to display the status of LEDs together with indicators such as alarms 1 and 2. FIG.

In the example of FIG. 5, a wide-angle lens camera image 120 photographed by the wide-angle lens camera 26 is subjected to distortion correction by the distortion correction means 66 to obtain a distortion corrected image 122 . The dewarped image 122 is partitioned into sections S1-S12. Then, the color is separated by the image processing means 64, and compared with a reference value determined in advance in the darkroom box 20 where the photographing was performed to determine which one of RGB, for example, like the processed image 124, A mark 126 indicating a red light-emitting portion may be indicated in section S1, a mark 128 indicating a green light-emitting portion in section S6, and a mark 130 indicating a yellow light-emitting portion in section S11 may be indicated and transmitted to server 50. FIG.

Alternatively, data may be transmitted to the server 50 using a symbol indicating the color determined by the image processing means 64 . For example, as in the processed image 140, section S1 has a "R1" symbol 142 indicating red emission, section S6 has a "G1" symbol 144 indicating green emission, and section 11 has a "Y1" symbol indicating yellow emission. and so on to represent symbol 146 .

Such image processing and distortion correction may be performed on the server 50 side by transmitting the image data captured by the camera 26 to the server 50. Alternatively, the image data may be performed by the processing device 30 and sent to the server 50 as numerical values. By doing so, the amount of data communication can be reduced. It should be noted that when there is a change in the lighting of the LED, only a signal notifying that there has been a change or only an image with a change may be sent.

According to the first embodiment described above, a plurality of optical fibers 18A to 18D whose one ends are connected to the LEDs 14A to 14D of the target device 10, the darkroom box 20, the darkroom box 20, and the base plate 23 and an array panel 22 provided with a plurality of transparent portions 24A to 24F for connecting the other ends of the optical fibers 18A to 18D to the array panel 22, and an array panel 22 arranged within the darkroom box 20 at a predetermined distance from the array panel 22. and a processing device 30 for acquiring image data captured by the camera 26 , and transmitting the acquired image data to the server 50 and the monitor terminal 80 via the network 40 .

Therefore, even if there is no space for installing a camera, it is possible to remotely monitor the state of the LEDs 12A to 12D of the target device 10, such as blinking. In addition, multiple LEDs can be multi-monitored, there is no distance restriction because it is not directly monitored by a camera, and it is compact because remote monitoring targets can be gathered in one place by an optical fiber. Furthermore, since the darkroom box 20 is used, flicker countermeasures are possible.

Next, Embodiment 2 of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. 6A and 6B are diagrams showing the LED monitoring system of this embodiment, where (A) is a diagram showing the overall configuration, and (B) is a plan view showing an example of an array panel. The same reference numerals are used for the same or corresponding components as in the first embodiment described above (the same applies to the following embodiments).

In the LED monitoring system of this embodiment, a processing device 30 is provided outside the darkroom box 20A. The array panel 22A in the darkroom box 20A is provided with a total of 12 transparent portions 25 (4 horizontal×3 vertical) arranged in an array. That is, a maximum of 12 optical fibers can be connected to the array panel 22A, and a maximum of 12 LEDs can be monitored.

The distance I1 from the front of the darkroom box 20A to the array panel 22A is, for example, 6 cm, the distance I2 from the array panel 22A to the camera 26 is, for example, 6 cm, and the distance I3 from the camera 26 to the rear of the darkroom box 20A is, for example, , 2 cm. The length L of the darkroom box 20A is, for example, 14 cm, the width W is 5 cm, and the height H is 3 cm, which is a small darkroom box.

Further, in the array panel 22A, as shown in FIG. 6B, the horizontal interval (interval between the centers of the transparent portions 25) I4 between adjacent transparent portions 25 is, for example, 3 mm. A vertical interval I5 is, for example, 3 mm. The transparent portion 25 is formed to have a diameter of 1 mm, for example. The entire array panel 22A is 15 mm wide and 12 mm long.

In this embodiment, darkroom boxes 20B to 20D having the same structure as the darkroom box 20A can be connected to the processing device 30. FIG. That is, if all the transparent portions 25 of the array panels 22 of the four darkroom boxes 20A-20D are used, up to 48 LEDs can be monitored, allowing expansion as needed. Other basic actions and effects are the same as those of the first embodiment described above.

In addition, the above-described embodiment is an example, and can be appropriately modified within a range in which the same effect can be obtained. For example, the size of the darkroom box and the size of the array panel shown in the above-described embodiments are examples, and may be changed as appropriate. For example, the size of the array panel is 12 mm×15 mm in Example 2, but it may be 24 mm×30 mm. Also, as in the LED monitoring system shown in FIG. 7, the processing device 30 may be provided in the darkroom box 20 . By providing the processing device 30 in the darkroom box 20, the cable 28 between the camera 26 and the processing device 30 can be accommodated in the darkroom box 20 to prevent crosstalk.

Also, the LEDs monitored by the present invention can handle small objects such as LED status indications. In this case also, an acrylic panel is attached to the light emitting surface of the target device, and one end of the optical fiber is connected to a portion of the acrylic panel corresponding to the LED. Further, the processing unit 60 shown in the first embodiment is also an example. The processing device 30 and the server 50 may share the responsibility. Also, in the above-described embodiments, the case where the LED is used as the light source has been described, but the light source is not limited to the LED in the present invention. The present invention may also be provided as a darkroom box invention.

According to the present invention, a plurality of optical fibers for illumination , one end of which is connected to the light source side of the target equipment, a darkroom box, and a base plate are installed in the darkroom box, and the other end of the optical fiber is connected to the base plate. An array panel provided with a plurality of transparent portions, a camera placed in a darkroom box at a predetermined distance from the array panel, and a processing device for acquiring image data shot at a wide angle by the camera. In preparation, the acquired image data is transmitted to the server or the monitor terminal via the network. Therefore, even if there is no space for installing a camera, the present invention can be applied to a light source monitoring darkroom box or a light source monitoring system for remotely monitoring the blinking of a light source indicating the state of various devices.

10: Target equipment 12: Light emitting surface 14A to 14D: LED
16: Acrylic panel 16A-16D: Through hole 18A-18D: Optical fiber 20, 20A-20D: Darkroom box 22, 22A: Array panel 23: Base plate 24A-24F, 25: Transparent part 26: Camera 28: Cable 30: Treatment Apparatus 40: Network 50: Server 60: Processing Unit 62: Image Acquisition Means 64: Image Processing Means 66: Distortion Correction Means 68: Image Synthesis Means 70: Transmission Means 80: Observer Terminal 90: Processed Image 92, 94: Mark 100 : PNG design image 110: Synthetic image 120: Wide-angle lens camera image 122: Distortion corrected image 124: Processed images 126, 128, 130: Mark 140: Processed images 142, 144, 146: Symbols S1 to S12: Sections

Claims (6)

A light source monitoring darkroom box for monitoring the state of the light source of the target device, such as blinking,
One end side of the optical fiber for illumination is connected to the light source side of the target device,
a darkroom box;
an array panel installed in the darkroom box and having a plurality of transparent portions arranged in an array for connecting the other ends of the optical fibers to a base plate;
a photographing means arranged within the darkroom box at a predetermined interval with respect to the array panel;
A light source monitoring darkroom box, provided in the darkroom box, which acquires image data captured at a wide angle by the photographing means and transmits the image data to an external terminal via a network. A light source monitoring system for monitoring a state such as blinking of a light source of a target device,
an optical fiber for illumination, one end of which is connected to the light source side of the target device;
a darkroom box;
an array panel installed in the darkroom box and having a plurality of transparent portions arranged in an array for connecting the other ends of the optical fibers to a base plate;
a photographing means arranged within the darkroom box at a predetermined interval with respect to the array panel;
an image acquiring means for acquiring image data shot at a wide angle by the shooting means;
a transmission means for transmitting the acquired image data to an external terminal via a network;
A light source monitoring system comprising: a panel attached to the light source emission surface of the target device;
and
3. A light source monitoring system according to claim 2, wherein one end of said optical fiber is connected to a through hole provided in said panel at a position corresponding to said light source. image processing means for performing binarization processing or color judgment processing on the acquired image data;
and
4. The light source monitoring system according to claim 2, wherein said transmitting means transmits image data that has undergone image processing to said external terminal. distortion correction means for correcting distortion of the acquired image data;
and
4. A light source monitoring system according to claim 2 or 3, wherein said transmission means transmits the distortion-corrected image data to said external terminal. image synthesizing means for synthesizing the acquired image data with other image data;
and
4. The light source monitoring system according to claim 2, wherein said transmitting means transmits the synthesized image data to said external terminal.

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