KR101511566B1 - Security camera and driving method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a surveillance camera and a driving method thereof. The surveillance camera according to an embodiment of the present invention includes an image acquisition unit, a panning drive unit for angularly moving the image acquisition unit left and right, and a tilting drive unit for pivoting the image acquisition unit up and down. At least one of the panning drive unit and the tilting drive unit , Two or more motors, and a drive shaft whose rotational speed is changed by the motors, and the motors are exclusively driven to each other. Thereby, the surveillance camera can drive panning and tilting with various precision and speed.

Description

[0001] The present invention relates to a security camera and a driving method thereof,

The present invention relates to a surveillance camera and a driving method thereof, and more particularly, to a surveillance camera capable of driving panning and tilting at various precision and speed, and a driving method thereof.

A surveillance camera is a device that captures an image of a subject or object in a closed circuit television (CCTV) system, and is used to prevent crime and quickly transmit traffic on the road.

The surveillance camera can generally include a direction adjusting device that can adjust the vertical angle of the surveillance camera or rotate horizontally to capture a wide range. The direction adjusting device is driven by using a high-speed motor, gear, or the like as in the case of the pan tilt device disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2009-0109050. As described above, the direction adjusting device using gears has an advantage that a high torque can be outputted at a lower cost than a case where a drive shaft is connected in series to a motor, but it can be used only in a condition of a predetermined precision due to a fixed gear ratio.

Published Patent Publication No. 2009-0109050

It is an object of the present invention to provide a surveillance camera capable of driving panning and tilting at various precision and speed and a driving method thereof.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a surveillance camera including an image acquisition unit, a panning drive unit for angularly moving the image acquisition unit left and right, and a tilting drive unit for pivoting the image acquisition unit up and down, At least one of the driving units includes two or more motors and a driving shaft whose rotational speed is changed by the motors, and the motors are exclusively driven to each other.

Further, the drive shaft is provided with a plurality of gears including a plurality of gears having different numbers of gears.

Further, motors and gears are coupled to the plurality of gears of the multiple gears, respectively.

Further, when any one of the motors is driven, the remaining motors revolve.

It also includes an encoder that converts the position information into a pulse signal and outputs it.

And a control unit for controlling the operation of the tilting driving unit and the panning driving unit based on the position information output by the encoder.

Further, the drive shaft is formed as a panning drive shaft, the multiple gears are formed at one end of a panning drive shaft, and the other end of the panning drive shaft is formed with a first gear for rotating a fan shaft supporting the image acquisition unit.

Further, a second gear is formed on the fan shaft to engage with the first gear.

The drive shaft is a tilting drive shaft, and the tilting drive shaft is formed with a first pulley.

Further, the image acquiring unit is coupled to the shaft having the second pulley formed at the lower end of the image acquiring unit, and the second pulley is connected to the first pulley by the belt.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a surveillance camera driving method including calculating a displacement amount of an image acquisition unit according to preset coordinates, driving an image acquisition unit according to the calculated displacement amount, Wherein the image acquisition unit is driven by at least one of a panning drive unit and a tilting drive unit, at least one of the panning drive unit and the tilting drive unit includes at least two motors, And a drive shaft whose rotational speed is changed by the drive shaft, and one of the motors is driven according to the calculated amount of displacement.

Further, a plurality of gears including a plurality of gears having different numbers of gears are formed on the drive shaft, and gears connected to the motors are coupled to the plurality of gears of the plurality of gears, respectively.

Further, when any one of the motors is driven, the remaining motors revolve.

The surveillance camera according to an embodiment of the present invention can drive panning and tilting at various precision and speed.

1 is a perspective view schematically showing a surveillance camera according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Fig. 2 is a block diagram schematically showing an internal configuration of the surveillance camera of Fig. 1;
3 is a view showing an example of a tilting driving unit of the surveillance camera of FIG.
FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of a panning drive unit of the surveillance camera of FIG. 1;
5 is a perspective view showing a drive generating unit included in the surveillance camera of FIG.
6 is a flowchart illustrating a driving method of a surveillance camera according to an embodiment of the present invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which: FIG. The present invention may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as being limited to the embodiments set forth herein. Rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art. Is provided to fully convey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art, and the invention is only defined by the scope of the claims. It is to be understood that the terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. In the present specification, the singular form includes plural forms unless otherwise specified in the specification. It is noted that the terms "comprises" and / or "comprising" used in the specification are intended to be inclusive in a manner similar to the components, steps, operations, and / Or additions. The terms first, second, etc. may be used to describe various elements, but the elements should not be limited by terms. Terms are used only for the purpose of distinguishing one component from another.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view schematically showing a surveillance camera according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a block diagram schematically showing the internal configuration of the surveillance camera of FIG. 1. FIG. FIG. 4 is a view illustrating an example of a panning drive unit of the surveillance camera of FIG. 1; FIG.

1 and 2, a surveillance camera 10 according to an embodiment of the present invention includes an image acquisition unit 100, a tilting drive unit 200 for rotating the image acquisition unit 100 up and down, And a panning driver 300 for angularly moving the acquiring unit 100 to the left and right. The surveillance camera 10 includes a control unit 400 for controlling the driving of the tilting driving unit 200 and the panning driving unit 300 and an encoder 500 for outputting the position information to the control unit 400, (Not shown).

The surveillance camera 10 can be vertically and horizontally rotated, and can monitor a desired site at a desired magnification. The surveillance camera 10 is connected to an external control device (not shown) such as a host computer by a control interface 600, and the monitoring function is controlled by an instruction from an external control device. For example, the surveillance camera 10 may be an open loop control system, and can perform surveillance according to the surveillance mode.

In the monitoring mode, there are a manual mode in which the user manually operates the joystick to perform monitoring by adjusting the monitoring camera 10, and a preset mode in which the monitoring position previously stored by the user is sequentially monitored at a predetermined time.

The image capturing unit 100 captures a surveillance region by driving in accordance with a predetermined surveillance mode selected from an external control device (not shown). The image capturing unit 100 may include a lens and an image capturing element. The lens may include a zoom lens ZL and a focus lens FL. The image pickup device converts an optical signal detected at the time of image capturing into an electrical signal and may include a charge coupled device (CCD) or a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) device.

The tilting driving unit 200 rotates the image capturing unit 100 up and down. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of the tilting driving unit 200. However, the present invention is not limited in any way to the understanding of the present invention.

3, the tilting driving unit 200 includes a tilting driving generating unit 210 for providing a driving force, a tilting driving shaft 220 for transmitting a driving force generated by the tilting driving generating unit 210, And may include a first pulley 230 formed thereon.

The tilting drive generating unit 210 includes at least two motors, and at least two motors are coupled to one tilting drive shaft 220. Multiple gears are formed on the tilting drive shaft 220. Here, the multiple gear means a gear including a plurality of gears having different gear numbers.

The number of gears included in the multiple gears is the same as the number of motors included in the tilting drive generating portion 210. Each of the gears of the multiple gears is coupled with the motors included in the tilting drive generating portion 210 at a ratio of 1: . On the other hand, the motors included in the tilting drive generating unit 210 operate exclusively with each other, whereby the rotational speed of the tilting drive shaft 220 is changed, and as a result, the tilting speed of the image pickup unit 100 can be changed . This will be described later with reference to FIG.

A shaft (not shown) having a second pulley 240 may be coupled to the lower end of the image capturing unit 100. The second pulley 240 is coupled to the first pulley 230 by a belt 250. Accordingly, when the tilting drive shaft 220 rotates, the belt 250 coupled with the first pulley 230 transmits power to the second pulley 240, whereby the image acquiring unit 100 rotates up and down .

Meanwhile, the present invention is not limited to the structure of the tilting drive unit 200 described above, and can be used in various spaces by changing the direction of the tilting drive generating unit 210 using a screw gear, a bevel gear, or the like. However, as described later, the tilting drive generating unit 210 includes a plurality of motors connected to one tilting drive shaft 220, and the plurality of motors may be exclusively driven exclusively.

The panning driver 300 moves the image capturing unit 100 to the left and right. 4, the panning driving unit 300 includes a panning driving generating unit 310 for providing a driving force, a driving force generating unit 310 for transmitting a driving force generated in the panning driving generating unit 310, A first gear 330 formed on the panning drive shaft 320; a fan shaft 350 supporting the image pickup unit 100; and a second gear 330 formed on the fan shaft 350 and coupled to the first gear 330 And a second gear 340 that is coupled to the second gear 340.

The panning drive generating section 310 includes at least two motors that operate exclusively with respect to each other, and at least two motors can be combined with one panning drive shaft 320. A plurality of gears including the same number of gears as the number of motors included in the panning drive generating portion 310 are formed at one end of the panning drive shaft 320. The gears of the multiple gears are included in the panning drive generating portion 310 1: 1 < / RTI > Thus, the rotational speed of the panning drive shaft 320 varies depending on the driving of each motor. This will be described later with reference to FIG.

The rotation of the panning drive shaft 320 rotates the first gear 330 and the second gear 340 coupled to the first gear 330 so that the fan shaft 350 rotates to rotate the image capturing unit 100) can be panned. In addition, since the rotational speed of the panning drive shaft 320 varies according to the driving of each motor included in the panning drive generating unit 310, the panning speed of the image pickup unit 100 also changes.

The panning driver 300 described above is provided to assist the understanding of the present invention and does not limit the scope of the present invention in any sense. That is, the present invention is not limited to the structure of the panning driver 300 described above, and the panning driver 300 having various structures can be applied. However, as described later, the panning drive generating unit 310 includes a plurality of motors connected to one panning drive shaft 320, and it is sufficient if the plurality of motors are exclusively driven to each other.

The encoder 500 converts the position information of the pan / tilt into a pulse signal and outputs the pulse signal. The position information is transmitted to the controller 400. The encoder 500 may be classified into an incremental encoder and an absolute encoder according to a pulse counting method, and may be installed on a driven shaft, for example, the fan shaft 350 of FIG. 4, but is not limited thereto .

The control unit 400 controls the overall operation of the surveillance camera 10 using a predetermined surveillance mode selected from an external control device, a motor drive program, pan / tilt position information transmitted from the encoder 500, and the like.

Specifically, the controller 400 controls the operation of a plurality of motors included in the panning drive generator 310 and / or the tilting drive generator 210 to control the pan / tilt speed of the image acquisition unit 100 .

For example, when the panning operation is performed, a low gear ratio is set so as to rotate at a high speed when the motor rotates 90 degrees or more according to the gear ratio of the motors included in the panning drive generating portion 310 and the panning drive shaft 320 coupled thereto When a motor having a high gear ratio is driven and fine adjustment is required close to a target point, fine adjustment can be performed by driving a motor having a high gear ratio. At this time, when one of the motors is driven, the remaining motors are controlled to revolve. Here, the gear ratio means a gear ratio of either a gear attached to a driven motor and multiple gears coupled thereto, as described later in Fig.

The control interface 600 is an interface that supports a path through which the surveillance camera 10 can communicate with an external control device such as a host computer. For example, when a pan / tilt speed control command is inputted from an external control device, the pan / tilt speed control command is transmitted to the controller 400 via the control interface 600, and the controller 400 controls the panning / 310) and / or the tilting drive generating unit 210 to select the one of the plurality of motors.

5 is a perspective view schematically showing a drive generating unit included in the surveillance camera of FIG.

5 exemplifies the tilting drive generating unit 210 included in the tilting drive unit 200 of FIG. 3, but the present invention is not limited thereto, and the drive generating unit of FIG. 5 may include the panning drive generating unit 310 ). That is, according to the present invention, at least one of the tilting driving unit 200 of FIG. 3 and the panning driving unit 300 of FIG. 4 may include the driving generating unit of FIG.

The drive generating unit may include two or more motors 214 and multiple gears 212 formed on the tilting drive shaft 220. The multiple gears 212 include a plurality of gears having different numbers of gears. On the other hand, the number of the plurality of gears included in the multiple gears 212 is equal to the number of the motors 214, and the respective gears of the multiple gears are engaged with the motors 214 in a one-to-one relationship. In one example, FIG. 5 shows multiple gears 212 including three motors 214 and three gears respectively coupled thereto.

The motors 214 include a gear 218 coupled to one end of a rotating shaft 216 and a rotating shaft 216, respectively, thereby coupling with the multiple gears 212. At this time, since the plurality of gears included in the multiple gears 212 have different numbers of gears, the gears 218 attached to the motors 214 can be combined with the multiple gears 212 with various gear ratios.

Further, since the motors 214 are exclusively driven by the control unit, when any one of the motors 214 is driven, the remaining motors 214 are free-run. As a result, the rotational speed of the tilting drive shaft 220 can be changed according to one of the driven motors 214.

For example, as shown in FIG. 5, the rotation speed of the tilting drive shaft 200 can be divided into three stages by the multiple gears 212 including the three motors 214 and the three gears, (100 in FIG. 1) can be tilted by distinguishing speed and precision from low speed high precision, medium speed intermediate speed and high speed low speed.

Accordingly, when the tilting distance is large, fine adjustment is performed by driving the combined motor 214 with a low gear ratio so as to tilt at a high speed and driving the combined motor 214 with a high gear ratio after approaching the target point . Here, the gear ratio means a gear ratio of any one of gears attached to a driven motor 214 and multiple gears coupled thereto.

5 may also be applied to the panning driver 300 of FIG.

In this manner, when at least one of the tilting driving unit 200 of FIG. 3 and the panning driving unit 300 of FIG. 4 includes the driving generating unit of FIG. 5, an extra device for selecting and controlling various gears is added Various tilting and panning speeds can be obtained by controlling each motor 214, and the possibility of failure due to a complicated structure can be reduced.

Further, when zooming is performed simultaneously with the panning and / or tilting operation, it is difficult to focus the subject because the subject is not caught, while the panning and / or tilting speed is controlled so that the image acquiring unit (100 of FIG. 1) The zoom operation is performed based on the target object after moving to the position of the subject by the zooming operation.

6 is a flowchart illustrating a driving method of a surveillance camera according to an embodiment of the present invention. 5 may be included in the panning drive unit 300 with the same configuration as described above. Therefore, it is clear that the tilting drive shaft 220 of FIG. 5 can be applied to the panning drive unit 300 as well The drive shaft 220 is simply referred to as the drive shaft.

6, a method of driving a surveillance camera 10 according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a step of calculating a displacement amount of the image acquisition unit 100 (S100), a step of calculating a displacement amount (S200, S300) for driving the image capturing unit 100 according to the position of the image capturing unit 100 and a step S400 for determining whether the position of the image capturing unit 100 is appropriate.

The amount of displacement of the image capturing unit 100 is at least one of a tilting displacement amount and a panning displacement amount and the displacement amount of the image capturing unit 100 is calculated in accordance with the preset coordinates and the pan / tilt position information of the encoder 500 .

Steps S200 and S300 for driving the image capturing unit 100 tilt and / or pan the image capturing unit 100 based on the calculated amount of displacement.

The panning of the image capturing unit 100 is performed by the panning drive unit 300 and the tilting drive unit 200 and the panning drive unit 300 are controlled by the control unit 400. The panning of the image capturing unit 100 is performed by the tilting drive unit 200, .

As described above, at least one of the tilting driving unit 200 and the panning driving unit 300 includes two or more motors 214 exclusively operated with each other, And one drive shaft 220 for driving the motor. In addition, a plurality of gears 218 including gears having different numbers of gears are formed on the drive shaft 220. The gears 218 connected to the motors 214 are coupled to the gears having different numbers of gears of the multiple gears 212 so that the gears 218 connected to the motors 214 are multi- And can engage with the gear 212.

Therefore, the gear 218 having a specific gear ratio among the gears A, B, and C having various gear ratios according to the calculated displacement amount is selected (S200), and then the motor 214 connected to the selected gear 218 is driven The image acquisition unit 100 can be tilted and / or panned at various speeds and precision (S300). At this time, when any one of the motors 214 is driven, the remaining motors 214 are revolving.

The step S400 of determining whether the position of the image capturing unit 100 is suitable may be calculated according to the preset coordinates and the pan / tilt position information of the encoder 500, The step S100 of calculating the amount of displacement of the image capturing unit 100 and the step S200 and S300 of driving the image capturing unit 100 according to the calculated amount of displacement may be repeated.

For example, when the panning operation is performed, the motor 214 having a low gear ratio is driven so as to rotate at a high speed when the panning operation is performed by 90 degrees or more, and then it is determined whether the position of the image acquisition unit 100 is appropriate. As a result of the determination, if the target point is close to the target point, but fine adjustment is required, fine adjustment can be performed by driving a motor having a high gear ratio.

Thus, according to the present invention, various tilting and panning speeds can be achieved by controlling each motor 214 without the need to add an extra device to select and control the various gears, reducing the likelihood of failure due to a complicated structure .

Meanwhile, the pan / tilt control method of the surveillance camera 10 according to the present invention can be implemented as a computer-readable code on a computer-readable recording medium. A computer-readable recording medium includes any type of recording apparatus in which a program or data that can be read by a computer system is stored. Examples of the computer-readable recording medium include a ROM, a RAM, a CD-ROM, a magnetic tape, a hard disk, a floppy disk, a flash memory, and an optical data storage device. Here, the program stored in the recording medium is expressed by a series of instruction commands directly or indirectly used in an apparatus having an information processing capability such as a computer to obtain a specific result. Also, the term 'computer' may be used to refer to all devices having an information processing capability for performing a specific function by a program, including a memory, an input / output device, and a computing device regardless of the name actually used.

Although the present invention has been described in connection with the above-mentioned preferred embodiments, it is possible to make various modifications and variations without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, it is intended that the appended claims cover all such modifications and variations as fall within the true spirit of the invention.

10: Surveillance camera 100: Image acquisition unit
200: a tilting driving part 210: a tilting driving generating part
212: multiple gears 214: motor
216: rotation shaft 218: gear
220: tilting drive shaft / drive shaft 230: first pulley
240: second pulley 250: belt
300: panning driving unit 310: panning driving generating unit
320: panning drive shaft 330: first gear
340: second gear 350: fan shaft

Claims (13)

An image acquisition unit;
A panning driver for angularly moving the image capturing unit left and right; And
And a tilting drive unit for rotating the image acquisition unit up and down,
Wherein at least one of the panning drive unit and the tilting drive unit includes at least two motors and one drive shaft whose rotational speed is changed by the motors,
The motors are exclusively driven to each other,
Wherein the drive shaft is formed with a plurality of gears including a plurality of gears having different gears, and the plurality of gears and the motors are engaged one to one. delete delete Claim 4 has been abandoned due to the setting registration fee. The method according to claim 1,
And when any one of the motors is driven, the remaining motor revolves. Claim 5 has been abandoned due to the setting registration fee. The method according to claim 1,
And an encoder for converting the position information into a pulse signal and outputting the pulse signal. Claim 6 has been abandoned due to the setting registration fee. 6. The method of claim 5,
And a controller for controlling operations of the tilting driving unit and the panning driving unit based on the position information output from the encoder. The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the drive shaft is a panning drive shaft, the multiple gears are formed at one end of the panning drive shaft, and the other end of the panning drive shaft is provided with a first gear for rotating a fan shaft supporting the image acquisition unit. Claim 8 has been abandoned due to the setting registration fee. 8. The method of claim 7,
And a second gear engaged with the first gear is formed on the fan shaft. The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the drive shaft is a tilting drive shaft, and the tilting drive shaft is provided with a first pulley. Claim 10 has been abandoned due to the setting registration fee. 10. The method of claim 9,
Wherein the image capturing unit is coupled to a shaft having a second pulley formed at a lower end of the image capturing unit and the second pulley is connected to the first pulley by a belt. Calculating a displacement amount of the image acquisition unit;
Driving the image acquisition unit according to the calculated displacement amount; And
And determining whether the position of the image acquisition unit is appropriate,
Wherein the image acquisition unit is driven by at least one of a panning drive unit and a tilting drive unit,
Wherein at least one of the panning drive unit and the tilting drive unit includes at least two motors and one drive shaft whose rotational speed is changed by the motors, and one of the motors is driven according to the calculated amount of displacement A method of driving a surveillance camera driven. Claim 12 is abandoned in setting registration fee. 12. The method of claim 11,
Wherein the drive shaft is formed with a plurality of gears having a plurality of gears having different numbers of gears, and gears connected to the motors are coupled to the plurality of gears of the plurality of gears. Claim 13 has been abandoned due to the set registration fee. 13. The method of claim 12,
And when any one of the motors is driven, the remaining motors revolve.

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