JPH0122907B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a fault identification method for a plurality of operating devices that include electrical or mechanical functions.

In general, as a method for monitoring the operating status of multiple devices that operate electrically or mechanically from a remote location and identifying the presence or absence of a failure, A dedicated signal line is installed between the monitor and the monitoring device, and inquiries are made through this signal line to obtain a response, or a common response bus is installed and each monitored device sends a response signal to indicate the presence or absence of a failure for each device. The method used was to attach an identification code and send it back. For this reason, the former method requires a large number of signal lines, and is generally uneconomical in terms of equipment because the monitoring equipment must have as many signal transmitting and receiving circuits as possible in anticipation of future expansion. It was hot. On the other hand, in the latter method, the number of signal lines is reduced by using a common response bus, but it has the disadvantage that a complicated coded signal circuit must be provided for each device on the monitored device side.

An object of the present invention is to eliminate the above drawbacks, reduce the number of transmission/reception signal lines connecting a monitoring device and a monitored device, and provide a connecting device by simply providing a simple additional circuit to a plurality of monitored devices. The object of the present invention is to provide a fault identification method for a plurality of devices that can economically expand the number of devices.

According to the present invention, in a method that targets a plurality of devices that operate including electrical or mechanical functions, and detects and identifies the presence or absence of a fault through a fault detection circuit provided in these devices, a separate method is used. Probing pulse sending means for serially searching for the presence or absence of a fault in the plurality of devices, each of the plurality of devices having means for checking the output of the fault detection circuit using a probe input pulse; transmitting the exploration input pulse as a response pulse to a common bus through the checking means, and means for delaying the exploration input pulse and transmitting it to the next cascade-connected device; If there is no fault in the plurality of devices, the checking means of the plurality of devices sequentially transmits the pulses sent from the probe pulse sending means as probe input pulses from the first connected device, thereby delaying the sequential feed. The device is configured to send back response pulses from each of the devices, and when a failure occurs in any of the devices, stop sending back response pulses from the device in which the failure has occurred and devices subsequent thereto. A fault identification method for a plurality of devices is obtained.

Next, the fault identification method according to the present invention will be explained in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment according to the present invention. This system consists of a monitoring device 1 that monitors a plurality of devices for the presence or absence of failures, and five monitored devices 2 to 6. and signal lines 11 to 15 cascaded to each monitored device in order to transmit a pulse signal from the monitoring device 1 to the monitored devices 2 to 6 to detect the presence or absence of a fault, and these monitored devices 2 to 6. A shared response bus 16 is commonly connected to the devices 2 to 6. First, a probe pulse signal is applied from the monitoring device 1 to the monitored device 2 through the signal line 11. At this time, the monitored device 2 does not respond at all if it is in a fault state, but if it is in a normal state, it sends a response pulse signal to the response bus 16, and the pulse width is 1.5 to 2 times the pulse width of this output signal. A pulse signal with a delay of 100 seconds is output to the signal line 12.

FIG. 2 shows a specific example of a circuit added to the monitored device 1 to perform the above operation. In the figure, signal line 11 is a two-input AND
Connected to one input of gate 7. The other input of this gate 7 is connected to a fault detection circuit (not shown) which generates a signal which is "0" when the device itself is in a fault state and "1" in other cases. The pulse signal output of AND gate 7 is sent to amplifier 8.
The pulse signal is outputted to the response bus 16 via the delay line 9, and after being delayed by the delay line 9, the pulse signal is supplied onto the signal line 12 via the amplifier 10.

Referring again to FIG. 1, other monitored devices 3 to 6
are configured similarly to the monitored device 2 and perform the same operations, so that these operations intermittently send out as many pulses as the number of monitored devices that are not in a fault state onto the response bus 16. , is sent back to the monitoring device 1. Therefore, by counting the number of pulses with a counter provided in the monitoring device 1, it is possible to identify which monitored device is in a failure state. Assuming that the fourth monitored device 5 in FIG. The result is as shown in Figure 3.

In the above embodiment, the case where the number of devices to be monitored is 5 has been described, but it goes without saying that the invention is not limited to this and may be applied to a larger number of devices. .

As is clear from the above description, according to the present invention, the number of signal lines connecting the monitoring device and the monitored device can be reduced by simply adding a simple circuit to the monitored device, and the monitoring device The number of monitored devices can be increased as needed, as long as the capacity of the counters provided in the It can be easily applied to the many power supply circuits installed for each voltage supplied or for each location in the equipment, and the many cooling fans installed in each part of the equipment. The benefits of simplification and economy are significant.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a circuit diagram showing an additional circuit of the monitored device in FIG. 1, and FIG. 3 is an example of a failure state in FIG. 1. This is a time chart shown by operating pulses. In the figure, 1 is a monitoring device;
2 to 6 are monitored devices, 7 is an AND gate, 8, 1
0 is an amplifier, 9 is a delay line, 11 to 15 are signal lines,
16 is a response bus.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In a method for detecting and identifying faults in a plurality of devices each having a predetermined function and each equipped with a fault detection circuit, an additional circuit is provided in each of the devices, and these additional circuits provided in each device are
It has a configuration in which a plurality of devices are connected in series to a probe pulse sending means for detecting the presence or absence of a fault, and the output of the fault detection circuit is connected to the probe pulse sending means to each of the additional circuits of the plurality of devices. means for checking with a probe input pulse applied from If the plurality of devices are fault-free, the checking means of the additional circuits in the plurality of devices sequentially sends out the probe pulses to the first connected device. By inheriting the output pulse from the means as a probing input pulse, sequentially delayed response pulses are sent back from the additional circuits of the respective devices, and in the event of a failure in any of the plurality of devices, 1. A fault identification method for a plurality of devices, characterized in that returning response pulses from additional circuits of the device in which the fault has occurred and devices subsequent thereto is stopped.