JPH02115726A - Measuring instrument for quantity of reception light - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To measure the momentary illuminance by storing the signal passing a reception light illuminance-voltage converting part and an LPF in a data input storage part and reading out this signal to process it in a data processing part thereafter and displaying the processing result on a data output part. CONSTITUTION:Data which is converted to a voltage signal by a reception light illuminance-voltage converting part 1 and is smoothed by an LPF 2 is inputted to a data input storage part 5. In the storage part 5, a reception light data time series is stored in a data storage part 4 after conversion to a discrete data at intervals of a unit time in an A/D converting part 3. After data for a certain time is stored, this data is read out to a data processing part 9 to calculate the quantity of reception light. The read value of the voltage signal is converted to the illuminance of light received by a sensor by a data- illuminance converting part 6, and thereafter, it is discriminates whether the illuminance is higher than a set threshold value or not by an illuminance comparing part 7, and only data of high illuminance is used for analysis. The data time series is accumulated in a reception light quantity calculating part 8, and the data processing result is displayed on a data display part 10.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to a received light amount measuring device that calculates the cumulative amount of light received at a certain place, particularly on the surface of a living body during a constant daylight period, and its temporal change.

[Prior Art] It is well known that light, especially sunlight, has a great effect on living organisms. For example, it has long been known that lack of sunlight causes vitamin D deficiency. recently,
Winter depression in high latitude regions is attracting attention. This is because during winter when there is less sunlight, the amount of sunlight that the stopper receives decreases, weakening the synchronization of biological rhythms, and disrupting the phase relationship between the body's body temperature rhythm and sleep-wake rhythm. is thought to be the cause. In addition, symptoms in which the sleep-wake rhythm is disrupted due to the biological rhythm not being synchronized with the 24-hour environmental changes are due to insufficient light reception, which is a factor that synchronizes the rhythm, or a disorder in the light reception function. It has become known that it is often caused by one of the following.

For these biological rhythm disorders and winter depression, currently 2500J! Phototherapy is being performed that involves irradiating artificial light with a high intensity of x or more. In order to confirm the effect of such origin, for example, 1
It is important to measure the amount of light received during the day or in the morning.

By the way, as a technique for measuring the illuminance of light at a certain point at a certain time, an illuminance meter using a photoconductive cell such as CdS or a silicon photocell has been put into practical use.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, the above-described illumination meter alone cannot measure the cumulative amount of received light over a certain period of time or the change in the amount of received light over time. Furthermore, in order to measure the amount of light received by a living body, it is necessary to comfortably attach the light receiving sensor part to a part of the living body that is in contact with the outside air near the surface of the living body, and to make the device for measuring the amount of light received portable. There was a problem in that the illumination meter could not satisfy these conditions.

The present invention aims to solve the above-mentioned problems, and is capable of not only measuring the illuminance from moment to moment, but also measuring the total amount of received light and time changes in the amount of received light within a certain period of time. The present invention aims to provide a light reception amount measuring device that reduces the burden on a living body due to sensor attachment, and allows the measurement device itself to be carried.

[Means for solving the problem] As shown in FIG. 1, the received light amount measuring device according to the present invention has the following features:
A light reception illuminance/voltage converter 1 that converts the illuminance of light received by a photosensor (not shown) into a voltage signal, a low-pass filter 2 that smoothes the converted voltage signal, and a low-pass filter 2 that smoothes the converted voltage signal. Analog data that is converted into discrete data every unit time.
A data input storage unit 5 that includes a digital (A/D) conversion unit 3 and a data storage unit 4 that stores discrete data time series, and a data/illumination conversion unit that converts data read from the data input storage unit 5 into illuminance. part 6, an illuminance comparison part 7 which compares the illuminance data with a set darkness value and discriminates a larger value; and a light receiving part which calculates the cumulative amount of light received within a certain period of time, the time change in the amount of received light, etc. from the time series of the illuminance data that is greater than the set value. It is composed of a data processing section 9 equipped with an amount calculation section 8, and a data output section 11 equipped with a display section 10 that displays the calculated amount of received light.

[Function] According to the above configuration, a voltage signal is generated in the light reception illuminance/voltage converter 1 according to the amount of light received by the photosensor (not shown), and after the signal is smoothed by the low-pass filter 2. , is input into the data input storage section 5. In the data input storage section 5, first, the A/Dg conversion section 3 converts the data into discrete data every unit time (for example, 1 minute), and then the received light amount data time series is accumulated in the data storage section 4. After accumulating data for a certain period (for example, one day), the data is read out to the data processing section 9 to calculate the amount of received light and the like. First, the data/illuminance conversion section 6 converts the read value of the voltage signal into the illuminance received by the sensor, taking into consideration the nonlinear characteristics of the photosensor in the light reception illuminance/voltage conversion section l, and then converts the read value of the voltage signal into the illuminance received by the sensor. 7, it is determined whether the illuminance is greater than the set darkness value, and only the data of high illuminance is used for later analysis. This is especially true when measuring the amount of light received by living organisms.
x~) or similar strong artificial light (2,0001x~)
) is known to have a large effect on living organisms, so this is to remove it from the weak light data time series that has less effect on living organisms. Note that the dark value set in the illuminance comparator 7 is variable, so when discrimination of illuminance is not required, the dark value may be set low. Next, by calculating the cumulative total of the data time series in the received light amount calculating section 8, the total amount of received light within a certain period can be calculated. Furthermore, if the time series is divided into small sections and analyzed by the received light amount calculation unit 8, it is possible to know how much light was received in which time zone.

After kjL, these data processing results are displayed on the data display section 1.
Display at 0.

[Example] FIGS. 2 and 3 respectively show examples of the light receiving illuminance/voltage converter 1, and the one shown in FIG. 2 is an example using a silicon photocell 12 as a photosensor, 3
What is shown in the figure is an example using a CdS photoconductive cell 15. First, in the example shown in FIG. 2, light is transmitted to the visible correction filter 1.
3, the silicon photocell 12 is reached.

Here, an electromotive force is generated in the silicon photocell 12 and a current flows into the current/voltage converter 14, so that the amount of light received is converted into a voltage signal by the current/voltage converter 14. In this example, it is sufficient to measure illuminance as strong as sunlight, so a visible correction filter 13 is inserted to adjust the light input to the silicon photocell 12 to utilize the nearly linear part of the photocell 12's characteristics. Can be done. Next, in the example shown in FIG. 3, when the light reaches the photoconductive cell 15, the electrical resistance of the photoconductive cell 15 decreases. Therefore, constant voltage source 1
6 divided by the photoconductive cell 15 and the reference resistor 17 rises. When this is passed through a high input resistance non-inverting buffer circuit 18, a voltage signal corresponding to the amount of received light can be obtained.

4(a) to (8) respectively show examples of mounting the photosensor portion 20 and the measuring device 21 of the light receiving illuminance/voltage converter 1, and the measuring device 21 excluding the photosensor portion 20 is It includes a light illuminance/voltage conversion section 1 (however, the photosensor section 20 is not included), a low-pass filter 2, a data input storage section 5, a data processing section 9, and a data output section 11. It can be configured as an integrated system centered on a processor, and can be implemented in a size about the size of a notebook, watch, or pencil. The same figure (a
), the photosensor part 20 is placed at the top of the notebook.
A measuring device 2I is mounted at the bottom of the notebook and can be stored in a pocket 22. In the example shown in FIG. 2(b), the measuring device 1V21 is mounted in a wristwatch type, and the sensor part 2 is mounted around the band.
The example shown in FIG. The example shown in fdl in the same figure is Pencil 2
An example in which the sensor part 20 is mounted on the upper part of 4 and the measuring device 21 is mounted on the lower part and attached to the pocket 22, the example shown in the tel of the same figure is an example of the eye! ! Attach the sensor part 20 to 25 and connect the lead wire 2.
This is an example in which a signal is sent to the measuring device 21 at step 3. Here, in the examples shown in (C1 and (e) above), the measuring device 21 itself may be a notebook or a pencil type.

Next, FIG. 5 shows the measuring device 2 using a microprocessor.
1 is shown. The data that is converted into a voltage signal by the received light illuminance/voltage converter 1 and smoothed by the low-pass filter 2 is sent to the sample-hold circuit 3 every unit time.
0 and the A/D conversion circuit 31, the data becomes discrete data. Here, since it is sufficient to divide the illuminance into 256 levels, an 8-bit A/D conversion circuit is sufficient. This signal is taken into an 8-bit microprocessor (CPU) 33 via a parallel I10 controller (Pro) 32 and transferred to a RAM 34. Here, RAM34 is 4
With a size of about K bytes, enough data for one day can be stored. In addition, sample hold circuit 30SA/
D conversion circuit 31. PI032, CPU33 and RAM3
4 corresponds to the data input storage section 5 shown in FIG. Next, when the data is stored for a certain period of time, the data is transferred from the RAM 34 to the CP.
The data is read to the tJ 33, and the data/illuminance conversion section 6, illuminance comparison section 7, and received light amount calculation section 8 are executed.

These can be executed by a program set in the ROM 35, and the processing conditions can also be externally selected using the condition setting switch 36 and the interrupt controller 37. Note that these parts are the data processing section 9 shown in FIG.
corresponds to It is sufficient if 8-bit addition/subtraction, conditional jumps, interrupt subroutine jumps, etc. are possible, so Z
It is sufficient to have an 8-bit CPU equivalent to 80 and a ROM of about 2 Kbytes. Further, data can be displayed from the CPU 33 on a display device 38 such as a liquid crystal. Note that these parts correspond to the data output section 11 shown in FIG.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, the present invention stores the signal that has passed through the light reception illuminance/voltage conversion section and the low-pass filter in the data input storage section, reads it out and processes it in the data processing section, and outputs the signal to the data output section. By adopting a configuration in which the results are displayed, it is possible not only to measure the illuminance from moment to moment, but also to measure the total amount of light received within a certain period of time and changes in the amount of received light over time. Furthermore, since the data input storage section, data processing section, and data output section can be configured as a dual system controlled by a microprocessor, the measurement device can be miniaturized and can be carried.

Therefore, if the present invention is used as a device for confirming the effect of phototherapy described in the above [Prior Art] section, it will be possible for a living body to receive light during a certain period of time, for example, during the day or in the morning. This method is extremely effective because the total amount of received light and the temporal change in the amount of received light can be measured very easily and accurately.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a diagram corresponding to the claims of the present invention, FIGS. 2 and 3 are circuit diagrams each showing an embodiment of the light receiving illuminance/voltage converter according to the present invention, and FIGS. FIG. 5 is a simplified diagram showing an example of mounting the photosensor part of the light receiving illuminance/voltage converter and the measuring device according to the invention, and FIG. It is a block diagram showing an example. 1... Light reception illuminance/voltage conversion unit, 2... Low pass filter, 3... A/D conversion unit, 4... Data storage unit,
5... Data input storage section, 6... Data/illuminance conversion section, 7... Illuminance comparison section, 8... Received light amount calculation section, 9.
...Data processing section, 10...Display section, 11...Data output section.

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) A light receiving illuminance/voltage converter that converts the illuminance of light received by the photosensor into a voltage signal, a low-pass filter that smoothes the converted voltage signal, and a smoothed signal that is sent every unit time. a data input storage section comprising an A/D conversion section for converting into discrete data and a data storage section for storing discrete data time series; a data/illuminance conversion section for converting the data read from the data input storage section into illuminance; Equipped with an illuminance comparison section that compares the illuminance data with a set threshold value and discriminates a larger value, and a received light amount calculation section that calculates the cumulative amount of received light within a certain period and the temporal change in the amount of received light from the time series of illuminance data that is greater than the set value. A received light amount measuring device comprising: a data processing section that calculates the amount of received light; and a data output section that includes a display section that displays the calculated amount of received light.