JPH11238190A - Meter reading system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To accurately report the abnormal conditions in the case that an aged person living at home alone falls into an abnormal situation. SOLUTION: A gas meter reading terminal equipment 1, a telephone set 2 and a gas meter 3 are provided for respective households A and B where the aged person living alone is at home respectively. The terminal equipment 1 periodically inputs gas use data from the gas meter 3 connected to itself, performs an analysis processing, and in the case that the gas using amount of the gas meter 3 is extremely less than a normal using amount, judges that the aged person at home is in the abnormal situation such as sickness or the like and calls a nursing center 6. Then, when the nursing center 6 responds, abnormal information is reported to the nursing center 6 together with the telephone number of the telephone set 2.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a meter reading system for detecting and reporting an abnormal situation of an elderly person living alone at home.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, the number of elderly people living alone at home has been increasing. In consideration of such an abnormal situation such as a sickness of the elderly at home, an abnormality reporting system for reporting abnormalities of the elderly at home has recently been introduced. This abnormality notification system includes a terminal device connected to a telephone line and a center device. Then, when the elderly at home possesses the terminal device and the elderly at home operates the buttons of the terminal device after noticing his own abnormality, the terminal device automatically calls the center device via the connected telephone line. The center apparatus recognizes that the elderly at home has fallen into an abnormal situation in response to the incoming call based on the call.

[0003]

However, such an abnormality notification system does not notify the center device when an abnormal situation occurs in which the elderly at home cannot operate the buttons of the terminal device. There was a problem that there was a problem that the function of the abnormality notification system could not be fully utilized. Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide an accurate notification of an abnormal situation when an elderly at home falls into an abnormal situation.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to solve such a problem, the present invention provides a meter for detecting the usage of gas or water and sewage and outputting it as usage information together with the date and time of use;
A meter reading system including a terminal device that inputs usage information from a meter and transmits the information to a predetermined destination, and an analysis unit that analyzes whether the usage amount is abnormal based on the usage information.
An alarming means for outputting an alarm as human body abnormality information when the analyzing means analyzes the abnormal usage amount is provided. Further, the terminal device includes an analysis unit and an alarm unit,
When the usage information is the abnormal usage amount, the terminal device transmits the human body abnormality information to a predetermined destination. In addition, an analysis unit and a warning unit are provided at a predetermined destination, and when the usage information transmitted from the terminal device is input, the predetermined destination is analyzed to determine whether it is an abnormal usage amount, and is analyzed as an abnormal usage amount. And an alarm output. When collecting usage information, the terminal device sends a meter reading request to the meter, and the meter sends usage information to the terminal device in response to the meter reading request. The terminal device collects usage information from the meter at regular intervals. The terminal device collects usage information from the meter at a predetermined time.

[0005]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a meter reading system according to the present invention. In the figure, the system includes a terminal device 1 which is a gas metering terminal, a telephone 2 connected to the terminal device 1, a gas meter 3 metered by the terminal device 1, and a connection to the terminal device 1 via a telephone line. (A care center) 6 and a center (a gas company center) 7 which are connected to the switching center 5 via a telephone line and are respectively connected to the switching center 5 via a telephone line.
It is composed of

Here, the terminal device 1, telephone 2 and gas meter 3 are provided for each of the homes A and B,
For example, a call is made to the terminal device 1 of each of the homes A and B every month, the amount of gas used in each home is input from the gas meter 3, and the gas usage data is collected. Further, a gas sensor (not shown) for detecting gas leakage is connected to the terminal device 1. When the gas sensor detects gas leakage or the like, the terminal device 1 calls the center 7 to report an abnormality. . The present invention focuses on gas and water and sewage systems that are always used by the elderly at home, and easily utilizes the gas (water and sewage) meter reading system that is currently being installed in each household to easily detect abnormalities in the elderly at home. To identify. That is, the terminal device 1 periodically inputs gas use data from the gas meter 3 connected thereto, makes a call to the care center 6, and transmits the gas use data to the care center 6. Thereby, the care center 6
The side can recognize the gas consumption of the elderly at home in each of the homes A and B. If the gas consumption is extremely lower than the normal usage, the elderly at home have fallen into an abnormal situation such as illness. Can be easily identified.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the gas meter 3. In the figure, a gas meter 3 includes a CPU 31 having a built-in memory 31A, a gas flow rate input from a gas inlet 32, and a detected gas flow rate.
A flow rate display unit 34 for displaying a used gas flow rate; a clock IC 35; and an interface 36 that is an interface with the terminal device 1.
Consists of A battery (not shown) is used as a power supply for the gas meter 3. Here, the CPU 3 of the gas meter 3
1 is to regularly input the gas usage amount detected by the gas flow rate detection unit 33 and used by the user,
When the gas is used, the gas usage is displayed in the gas flow rate display section 3.
4 and stored in the memory 31A. In this case, the date and time data of the clock IC 35 is read out, and the date and time of use is also stored. Here, when there is a meter reading request from the terminal device 1, the gas use data and the use date and time stored in the memory 31A are transmitted to the terminal device 1 via the interface 36.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the centers 6 and 7, and particularly shows the configuration of the receiver 8 of the centers 6 and 7. The receiver 8 is provided with a CPU 81, and the CPU 81 has a ROM 82 via a bus BUS.
RAM 83, clock IC 84, serial interface 8
5 and the interface 86 are connected. Here, the serial interface 38 is connected to the computer 9,
A printer (not shown), for example, is connected to the interface 39. The bus BUS has an interface 8
9, 90 are connected. Furthermore, each interface 8
NCUs 9 and 90 are used to acquire and release lines.
(Network control devices) 87 and 88 are connected respectively. The control signal generation circuit 91 controls each NCU 8 under the control of the CPU 81.
7 and 88, and outputs a control signal such as a response signal to the incoming call.

Next, FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the gas meter terminal device 1. As shown in FIG. The terminal device 1 is connected to the telephone line L and to the telephone 2 via the switch 12. Further, the terminal device 1 is connected to the above-described gas meter 3 via a telegram meter interface 26, and is also connected to a water meter 4 having substantially the same configuration as the gas meter 3 via a telegram meter interface 27.

The CPU 11 of the terminal device 1
1A is built-in. The CPU 11 includes a switch 13 for closing the loop of the line L and outputting a dial pulse to the line L, a PB generator 15 for transmitting a PB signal to the line L, and detecting an incoming call arriving at the line L. Incoming call detecting section 18, hook detecting section 20 for detecting whether telephone 2 is off-hook through switch 19, and PB for detecting PB signal arriving on line L via transformer 21.
Receiver 22 and 1 arriving at line L when line L arrives
A 1650 Hz detection unit 24 for detecting a 650 Hz signal via the transformer 21 and the amplifier 23, a clock IC 25,
The telegram meter interfaces 26 and 27 described above are connected. Each unit of the terminal device 1 is supplied with a power supply voltage V from a power supply unit 28 composed of a battery.

Here, the CPU 11 checks whether or not the telephone 2 goes on-hook by closing the contact of the switch 19 and detecting a signal from the hook detecting unit 20. When the telephone 2 goes on-hook for calling, The switch 12 is driven to switch its contact to the telephone 2 side. After that, the telephone 2 makes a dial call to talk with the other party, and when the telephone call ends and the telephone goes on-hook, the contact of the switch 12 is disconnected from the telephone 2 and connected to the switch 13.

When an incoming call arrives at the line L and the incoming call is transmitted by the incoming call detection unit 18, the CPU 11 closes the contact of the switch 13 and responds to the incoming call. Is input via the 1650 Hz detection unit 24. If the signal of 1650 Hz is detected, it is determined that the incoming call is from the center 7 of the gas company, and the gas metering request information is transmitted to the gas meter 3 via the electronic meter interface 26. In response to the gas metering request, the gas meter 3 returns the latest gas use data (that is, the accumulated gas use value) and the use date and time. When the CPU 11 receives these data, it outputs the data to the PB generator 15 and sends it to the line L via the attenuator (ATT) 16, the amplifier 17, the transformer 14, the switches 13 and 12 as a PB signal. As a result, these gas usage data are transmitted to the center 7 via the exchange 5 and the center 7 calculates the gas usage fee. If the signal of 1650 Hz is not detected at the time of the incoming call, the incoming call is not an incoming call from the center 7 but a general incoming call. The incoming call is sounded and the incoming call response of the telephone 2 is sent to the hook detecting unit 20.
When the signal is detected via, the incoming call bell signal is stopped. As a result, an incoming call is made on the telephone 2 side.

The CPU 11 refers to the time data of the clock IC 25 and transmits gas metering request information to the gas meter 3 via the electronic meter interface 26 at regular time intervals, for example, every hour. Then, the CP of the gas meter 3
U31 responds to the gas metering request and returns the latest gas use data stored in the memory 31A and the use date and time to the terminal device 1 side.

When the CPU 11 inputs the gas use data and the use date and time from the gas meter 3, after confirming that the telephone 2 is not in use, it drives the switch 13 to close the contact so that the line L is connected. The telephone number of the care center 6 which is captured and stored in the memory 11 in advance is transmitted. That is, if the telephone number is a PB dial, the PB generator 15 generates a PB signal corresponding to the telephone number and sends it to the line L1. When the telephone number of the care center 6 is a DP (dial pulse) signal, a dial pulse signal corresponding to the telephone number is generated by opening / closing the contact of the switch 13 and transmitted to the line L.

By making a dial call to the care center 6 in this way, the care center 6 is called. When a response to the call on the care center 6 side is detected by a response detection circuit (not shown), the CPU 11 sends a signal from the gas meter 3. The gas use data and its use date and time, and the telephone number of the terminal device 1, which have already been input, are generated from the PB generator 15 as PB signals and transmitted to the care center 6 via the line L and the exchange 5. In this case, the care center 6 stores the gas usage amount and the usage date and time in the memory for each telephone number of each terminal device, and when these data are received from the terminal device 1, the computer 9 receives the data this time. An analysis process is performed to determine the gas usage during this period by subtracting the previous gas usage value from the memory from the gas usage value, and whether the elderly living alone is using gas normally during this time, that is, living in a normal pattern. A process is performed to determine whether or not the operation is performed.

The CPU 11 periodically outputs a meter reading request to the water meter 4 via the telegram meter interface 27 to obtain the water usage data and the usage date and time. The date and time of use is similarly transmitted to the care center 6. In this case, the care center 6 similarly stores the water usage and the date and time of use for each telephone number of each terminal device in the memory. After subtracting the previous accumulated water use value from the memory from the accumulated water use value received this time, an analysis process is performed to determine the amount of water used during this time, and whether the elderly living alone is using the water (water and sewage) normally That is, a process of determining whether or not the person is living in a normal pattern is performed.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the operation of the main part of the present system. The first operation of the present system will be described based on this flowchart. Gas meter terminal 1
When the CPU 11 detects the time data of the clock IC 25 and reaches a predetermined time, it sends a gas meter reading request to the gas meter 3 via the telegram meter interface 26 in step S1. When the CPU 31 of the gas meter 3 inputs the meter reading request via the interface 36, the gas use data detected by the gas flow rate detection unit 33 and stored in the memory 31 and the gas meter value indicating the use date and time are stored in the terminal device 1 in step S2. Return to Terminal device 1
When the gas meter value is input, a call is made to the care center 6 in step S3, and when the care center 6 responds, the gas data value and its own telephone number are transmitted to the care center 6. In the computer 9 of the care center 6, when the gas data value and the telephone number are inputted via the receiver 8, a step S
The analysis processing described above is performed in step 4.

The CPU 11 of the gas meter terminal device 1
Sends a gas meter reading request to the gas meter 3 in step S5 when the time of the clock IC 25 indicates the time when a certain time has elapsed from the "gas meter reading request" time in step S1. The CPU 31 of the gas meter 3 responding to the meter reading request similarly returns the gas meter value of the memory 31 to the terminal device 1 in step S6. Upon inputting the gas meter value, the terminal device 1 calls the care center 6 in step S7, and transmits the gas meter value and its own telephone number. In the computer 9 of the care center 6, when the gas data value and the telephone number are input, step S8
Perform analysis processing.

That is, a gas data value corresponding to the received telephone number is read from a memory (not shown) connected thereto, and based on the read cumulative value of the previous gas meter and the cumulative value of the gas meter received this time, the gas data in the interval is read. During this time, an analysis process is performed to analyze whether the elderly person living alone is using gas properly or not. And
If it is determined that the gas is not normally used during this time, an abnormal display is displayed on a display unit (not shown). Further, the computer 9 of the care center 6 stores the difference between the gas meter accumulated values (that is, for example, the gas usage amount between the previous time and the current time) in the memory for each use date and time, and based on the stored contents, the relevant elderly person. Is determined, and if the accumulated value of the gas meter does not increase even after the date and time has passed, it is determined that the elderly person has fallen into an abnormal situation and is not living with a normal life pattern.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the operation of a second main part of the present system. In the case of the first operation shown in FIG. 5, the care center 6 performs the analysis processing, whereas in the case of the second operation shown in FIG. 6, the gas meter terminal device 1 performs the analysis processing. That is, C of the gas meter terminal device 1
The PU 11 detects the time data of the clock IC 25 and, when a predetermined time comes, sends out a gas meter reading request to the gas meter 3 in step S11. CPU of gas meter 3
31 responds to the meter reading request and returns the gas meter value stored in the memory 31 to the terminal device 1 in step S12. In this case, upon inputting the gas meter value, the CPU 11 of the terminal device 1 performs an analysis process in step S13.

That is, the CPU 11 stores the gas meter value inputted in the past in the memory 11A, subtracts the previous gas meter accumulated value in the memory 11A from the gas meter accumulated value inputted this time, and analyzes the gas usage during this time. I do. During this time, if a predetermined amount of gas is used and the normal usage pattern is reached, the CPU 11 of the terminal device 1
Stores the gas meter value input this time in a new area of the memory 11A, and similarly sets the time of the clock IC 25 to the gas meter 3 at step S14 when a certain time has elapsed from the "gas meter reading request" time of step S11. A gas meter reading request is sent. The CPU 31 of the gas meter 3 responding to the meter reading request also stores the
Is returned to the terminal device 1 in step S15. When the gas meter value is input to the terminal device 1, the analysis process is similarly performed in step S16.

If the result of the analysis indicates a normal use pattern, the CPU 11 of the terminal device 1 stores the input gas meter value in a new area of the memory 11A, and sets the time of the clock IC 25 to step S14. Similarly, in step S17 at a time when a predetermined time has elapsed from the "gas meter reading request" time, a gas meter reading request is sent to the gas meter 3. The CPU 31 of the gas meter 3 responding to the meter reading request similarly returns the gas meter value of the memory 31 to the terminal device 1 in step S18. When the terminal device 1 inputs the gas meter value, it proceeds to step S19.
The analysis is performed in the same manner.

As a result of the analysis in step S19, if the amount of gas used during that time (between steps S15 and S18) is extremely small, the CPU 11 of the terminal device 1 determines that the elderly at home are in an abnormal situation such as illness. Judge that it has fallen.
In this case, the CPU 11 of the terminal device 1 calls the care center 6 in step S20, and when the care center 6 responds, the telephone number of the telephone 2 preset in the memory 11A, the ID of the terminal device 1, Is notified to the care center 6 of a signal indicating that the elderly at home are in danger without being used. When the care center 6 receives the abnormal information, the care center 6 displays the abnormal state of the elderly at home. By such notification, the caregiver of the care center 6 provides care for the elderly at home. Note that the receiver 8 and the computer 9 may be provided in a hospital without being provided in the care center 6. Further, the gas meter reading terminal device 1 sends out a gas meter reading request to the gas meter 3 at regular time intervals and inputs the gas meter value. A value may be input.

[0024]

As described above, according to the present invention, the usage of gas or water and sewage is detected, and whether or not the usage is abnormal is analyzed based on the usage information of the meter which outputs the usage date and time as usage information. However, in the case of abnormal usage, an alarm is output as human body abnormal information, so that when an elderly at home falls into an abnormal situation, the abnormal situation can be accurately reported. In addition, the terminal device is provided with analysis means and alarm means, and when the usage information of the meter is an abnormal usage amount, the terminal device transmits the human body abnormality information to a predetermined destination, so that the terminal device uses the existing terminal to transmit the information. Anomalies can be reported to the destination. Also, an analysis unit and an alarm unit are provided at a predetermined destination,
When the usage information transmitted from the terminal device is input, the predetermined destination is analyzed to determine whether it is an abnormal usage amount. If the usage amount is abnormal, an alarm is output. Thus, abnormalities of the elderly at home can be accurately detected. When collecting usage information from the meter, a meter reading request is sent to the meter, and the meter sends usage information to the terminal device in response to the meter reading request. Can be collected. In addition, since the usage information is collected from the meter at regular intervals, the usage pattern of gas or water and sewage of the elderly at home can be accurately grasped, and therefore, abnormalities of the elderly at home can be accurately detected. In addition, since the usage status is collected from the meter at a predetermined time, the processing load on the device can be reduced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a meter reading system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a gas meter constituting the system.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a gas meter terminal device constituting the system.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a care center constituting the system.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the operation of a first main part of the system.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the operation of a second main part of the system.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Gas meter reading terminal device 2 ... Telephone 3 ... Gas meter
4 ... water meter, 5 ... exchange office, 6 ... care center.

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A meter reading system comprising: a meter for detecting a usage amount of gas or water and sewage and outputting as usage information along with a usage date and time; and a terminal device for inputting the usage information from the meter and transmitting it to a predetermined destination. Analysis means for analyzing whether or not the abnormal use amount based on the use information, and an alarm means for outputting an alarm as human body abnormal information when the analysis means analyzes the abnormal use amount A meter reading system comprising: 2. The terminal device according to claim 1, wherein the terminal device includes the analysis unit and the alarm unit, and the terminal device transmits the human body abnormality information to the predetermined destination when the usage information is an abnormal usage amount. A meter reading system. 3. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined destination includes the analysis unit and the alarm unit, and the predetermined destination is an abnormal usage amount when the usage information transmitted from the terminal device is input. A meter reading system which analyzes the data and outputs an alarm when the usage is analyzed as abnormal. 4. The terminal according to claim 1, wherein the terminal device sends a meter reading request to the meter when collecting the usage information, and the meter sends the usage information to the terminal device in response to the meter reading request. A meter reading system for sending. 5. The meter reading system according to claim 4, wherein the terminal device collects the usage information from the meter at regular intervals. 6. The meter reading system according to claim 4, wherein the terminal device collects the usage information from the meter at a predetermined time.