MX2008008959A - Device for bidirectional remote water-meter reading by means of radio, for invoicing in accordance with consumption time bands - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a remote water-meter reading device (8) that comprises an assembly (10) for acquiring consumption data and comprising at least one radio transmitter for transmittingthe information acquired, at least one radio receiver incorporated into the acquisition assembly (10) so as to enable said device (1) to communicate in both directions in order to receive the information from a central unit (2), and an antenna (11) so that said central unit can transmit time/date information such that this transmission of information taken into account by said radio receivers makes it possible to guarantee exact timing/dating of all the acquisition assemblies (10) of the meters that form one and the same lot, characterized in that said meter (8) initiates a volume-consumed measurement at a time determined by a first timing/dating received from the central unit (2) by the receiver and stops it at a time determined by a second timing/dating received from the central unit (2) by the receiver, the volume consumed in the interval between the two timings/datings being stored in a memory and then transmitted to said central unit (2) via the transmitter at a later time.

Description

DEVICE FOR REMOTE BIDIRECTIONAL METER READING OF WATER BY BROADCASTING, FOR BILLING OF AGREEMENT WITH BANDS OF CONSUMER TIME Field of the Invention The present invention relates in general to devices for remote reading of water meters comprising a consumer data acquisition assembly and comprising at least one radio transmitter for transmitting the acquired information, at least one radio-receiver integrated into the acquisition assembly in such a way as to give the device communicating in both directions to receive the information from a central facility and an antenna so that the central facility can send date information so that this information transmission is taken in account by the radio-receivers make it possible to guarantee the exact date of all the acquisition assemblies for the meters that form one and the same population.

Background of the Invention Historically, the world of remote reading of water meters has been divided into two approaches: - the first for distributors who have a precise and dated data requirement, both for monitoring their facilities and for monitoring a few big accounts The reception of information is then frequent, that is, daily in most cases, and precise in terms of synchronization. The cost is often of less importance in relation to the requirement, which has led these distributors to use telephone techniques, either to RTC, or in the case of difficulties in obtaining a telephone line, GSM or its derivatives GPRS and SMS , - the second, for the world of property managers who want to get all the readings of their water meters on a precise date to bill water charges. The precise timing is then quite insignificant, but the cost is a fundamental factor. These property managers and their providers in this way have been led to get communications in a portable radio mode, (ie, with a reader that takes radio broadcasts from a distance of a few tens of meters), then more recently in the fixed station mode. The receivers have been contemplated then that recover the information of the near meters by the way RF, or in the way of short reach by means of repeaters, or in the way of long reach. These receivers then return all the information through the most expensive RTC / GSM means, but this cost is then distributed over a set of measurement points and becomes acceptable. This solution developed within the properties was naturally extended later to the reading of all the meters of customers of water managers. What's more, it became impossible to guarantee the broadcast at a fixed time for all transmitters. As we have seen, a given receiver can collect several dozens of transmitters, but this receiver will be unable to pick them up simultaneously, radio broadcasts are often done in a desynchronized way, or in a random way near a certain emission frequency (for example, 12 hours plus or minus ten minutes) for one and the same receiver. The division between these two approaches was also accentuated by the administration of energy at the measurement point. Specifically, in contrast to other fluids, particularly electricity, there is no power supply in the water meters. The RTC / GSM links, with avid energy modem, have therefore been indicated in the case of an absolute requirement for dated information; this requirement has been relieved directly by means of main links, or by default by means of customizable batteries whose replacement was accepted frequently, for example during periods of the order of a few months. These restrictions are guaranteed only in a few large accounts and therefore have little overall impact on the service economy as a whole. But this solution once adopted makes it possible to scale down the links between the base and the collection server and the measurement points, in both directions (from the measurement point to the server or vice versa). In this way, time is set in the local clocks of the meters or readings are collected at the desired frequency. On the contrary, the requirement of collection in the world of customer administration and divisional remained as a simple requirement for a reading at the monthly, and the administration of energy in the form of a battery of very long duration of the order of fifteen years. Under these conditions, it is unthinkable to contemplate bidirectional, complicated, frequent communications or to contemplate frequent accurate daters. The most that can be done in this regard remains in the storage of a so-called "anniversary" reading at most once or twice a year based on a local clock that is rarely dated (if in fact ever it does) . The management requirements of a water network are similar to the well-known requirements of an electricity network. The production is presented based on automated installations of constant capacity that can produce 24H / 24H. On the contrary, customers consume in a very pointed way during the day (morning and afternoon), generating very significant consumption peaks: in the profession, it is considered that the maximum consumption flow rate can be about 1.8 times the consumption average during the day. This derivation between the production capacity and the pointed requirement is alleviated by conventional means of administration of existence: Water deposits: the profession frequently considers that it is unreasonable not to have less than 12 hours of consumption of storage capacity, which warns of the creation of deposits with a capacity of several hundred cubic meters, networks dimensioned to transport peak flow speeds. These means, of course, are a significant source of investment and overload of administration costs. Therefore, it is of interest to seek means that induce consumers, and preferably to heavy consumers, to reduce their consumption in peak periods. This search is much more crucial since the demand for high flow velocity can lead to consequent pressure depressions in water networks, inconveniencing users who want to be supplied at the same time. The more significant it is to bring global consumption and flow rates, the more significant this phenomenon is. A solution via modem communications and RTC / GSM link is recognized but it has the disadvantage of requiring different administration of communications with different protocols. It also requires a return to relatively expensive hardware compared to that of remote reading in RF mode.

Description of the Invention In order to alleviate the disadvantages of the existing devices, the inventors have developed, which forms the subject matter of the invention, a device for remote reading of water meters comprising a data acquisition assembly for consumption and it comprises at least one radio transmitter for transmitting the requested information, at least one radio receiver integrated in the acquisition assembly in such a way as to give the device communicating in both directions to receive the information from a central installation and a radio antenna. so that the central facility can send date information so that this transmission of information taken into account by the radio-receivers makes it possible to guarantee the exact date of all the acquisition assemblies for the meters that form one and the same population, which characterizes in which the meter begins a measurement of the volume consumed in a program determined by a first date received from the central installation by the receiver and stopped in a program determined by a second date received from the central installation by the receiver, the volume consumed in the interval between the two dates that are stored in a memory, then transmitted to the central installation by means of the transmitter in a deferred program. As a matter of fact, it is easy in the mode of operation of the device according to the invention to send an indication of individual information in a fixed program, such as a date to the entire population of meters under administration from the central facility. However, the loading of information from all meters from the meter population to the central facility can not be done in a concomitant manner for all meters. In this way, it is preferred to store the information to be dispensed into a meter memory and transfer the stored information in a deferred manner in a predetermined or random program in the course of which most other meters will be silent. Advantageously, the device according to the invention additionally comprises a screen that makes it possible to see the program and the period during which consumption takes place. Preferably, the transmitter, the receiver and the acquisition assembly are placed in such a way that they can be integrated into one and the same package and activated by a common electronic card and operated by one and the same energy source. More preferably, the remote reading device according to the invention additionally comprises at least one repeater placed between the meter and the central installation for taking and transferring the radio emission from the meter to the central installation and vice versa. Even more preferably, the radio transmitter and the radio receiver both operate at free frequencies. As a variant, at least the radio transmitter or at least the radio receiver operates on a dedicated frequency. Within this framework, the power of the radio transmitter or the radio-receiver operating on a dedicated frequency is greater than the maximum limit allowed for the free frequencies. In a particular embodiment of the device according to the invention, in which the meter is a mechanical meter, equipped with a transducer that transforms the mechanical movements of the meter into electrical impulses, the acquisition assembly is placed against the transducer to which it is secured , one and the same power source drives the transducer and the assembly and the antenna is linked to the emitter and the receiver by means of a cable, so that the antenna can be placed at some distance from the meter. More particularly, in the case of a meter placed in a gap, the antenna is placed at the top of the gap. More particularly still, in the case of a meter placed in a gap equipped with a cover, the antenna is integrated into the cover of the gap. In this particular embodiment, if the cover is metallic, the antenna consists of the cover of the gap. As a variant, if the cover is made of an electrically non-conductive material, the antenna is embedded or molded into the cover. More particularly in the case of a meter placed in a gap terminated with a cover, the cover comprises on its lower surface, a connector which is connected to one end of the antenna and into which the cable link can be plugged. radio to the transmitter and the receiver.

Preferably, the cable is a coaxial cable. Advantageously, the energy source is chosen from cells and / or batteries. The device according to the invention therefore refers to a bidirectional RF radio transmitter (transmitter and receiver) that emits in the same radio system as conventional reading transmission apparatuses, and can be dated by the radio link. RF This device makes it possible to fix one and the same population of remotely read meters, on the one hand, conventional transmitters to transfer conventional information that refers to the volume consumed, consumption flow rate, maximum-minimum, etc., in a random program , and on the other hand, transmitters that are dated at the desired frequency and that can be parameterized from the receiver or from the database / server, dispatching stored readings at the desired speeds and times. The device according to the invention confers the main advantages of - allowing the administration of hourly rate rates, and - allowing the administration of an individual transmission protocol, - allowing the use of the RF transmission network equipped for the requirements of clients that do not require any dated administration of the readings, therefore it makes it possible to reduce the investment costs. For this purpose, the information transfer radios have become bidirectional. The radio then manages two services beyond its conventional function of transmitting information: - the administration of precise dating by virtue of the transmission from the server, and - the transmission to a local presentation of the consumptions by predefined time interval, and either by virtue of radio broadcasting or by any other means. These functionalities make it possible to easily define a motivating water tariff rate in times of consumption withdrawal for heavy consumers that can change their demand at night, such as, for example, in a non-exhaustive way: - golf clubs and their sprinklers, - municipal sprinklers, and - swimming pools that admit the public. The invention will be better understood in reading the detailed description but not limiting, given below with reference to figures 1 and 2 in which: Figure 1 represents an operation diagram of the device according to the present invention, and Figure 2 represents a device according to the present invention, placed in a gap provided with a metal cover that acts as the antenna. Represented in Figure 1 is an operation diagram of a network of devices for remotely reading water meters according to the present invention. These devices 1 (detailed in Figure 2 in a particular embodiment) consist of a meter, in particular a mechanical meter equipped with a transducer placed against the meter and which transforms the mechanical movements of the meter into electrical impulses, a data acquisition assembly of consumption in the form of electrical impulses, comprising at least one radio transmitter for transmitting the acquired information and one antenna. These devices 1 additionally comprise a radio receiver integrated in the acquisition assembly in such a way as to give the device communicating in both directions to receive the information from a central installation 2 and in particular a date. Represented in one and at the same time in the Figure 1, are the devices 1 installed in private residences 3 of the chalet type and in sets of properties 4 that together group the consumptions of all the residents. It should be noted that to facilitate reading of the extraction, devices 1 and 2 are represented on a scale much larger than the properties. The dimensions of devices 1 are only of the order of a few tens of centimeters. The devices 1 can communicate either directly with the central installation 2, for example placed on the top of a property 5 located in the heart of the population of the installed devices, or also, in the case of a highly urbanized and not very open field, with repeaters 6 placed at regular intervals between the devices 1 and the central installation 2 to counterbalance the loss due to the obstacles, the repeaters in turn transmit the received information to the central installation 2 or to the device 1 depending on the direction of the information. In this way, it is possible to operate equally well with free frequencies, in particular when it is necessary to use repeaters 6, or with dedicated frequencies in particular in the case of an open field. The benefit of using a dedicated frequency is the ability to increase the emission power and therefore the useful distance between the transmitter of the device 1 and the receiver 2 or 6. In the case of free frequencies, particularly in an urban scenario, The scope of this device is only a few tens of meters while it reaches 500 meters to 1 kilometer with a dedicated frequency. In an open field, this is to say one that is slightly urbanized, the range of the device at the dedicated frequency can reach several kilometers. Therefore, in this way it is possible to reduce the number of repeaters, or eliminate them instead. These repeaters 6 are positioned to resume and transmit the information received from the device 1 to a central acquisition facility 2. By increasing the scope of issuers, it is therefore possible to decrease their utility and thus reduce the cost of an installation. At the end of the day, the information collected by the central facility is transferred to a database 7 from where the information can be dispatched and in particular a date in the opposite direction. Figure 2 illustrates a particular embodiment of the device according to the invention. The latter is a remote water meter reading device comprising a mechanical meter 8, a transducer 9 placed against the meter 8 and which transforms the mechanical movements of the meter 8 into electrical pulses, a mounting to acquire the electrical pulses 10 comprising a radio transmitter for transmitting the acquired information and a radio receiver integrated in the acquisition assembly 10 to give the device communicating in both directions to receive the information from a central facility and in particular a date. This device is also provided with an antenna 11. This antenna 11 is placed at some distance from the meter and is connected to the radio mount (transmitter and receiver) by means of a cable 12. In the example shown, the acquisition and acquisition assembly 10 transducer 9 are furthermore placed to allow them to be integrated in the same block or package 13 and activated by a common electronic card and one and the same individual power source drives transducer 9 and acquisition assembly 10. In this way, the transfer of the electrical impulses generated by the transducer 9 to the acquisition assembly 10 is therefore carried out in a direct manner. This device makes it possible to circumscribe most of the disadvantages found in the transmission of information by broadcasting, specifically, the placement of the antenna, starting point of the radio wave in the most appropriate location for the clearest possible emission and reception, making only when placing the antenna 11 out of place, its cable 12 which is connected to the acquisition assembly 10 possibly is very long. It also allows significant savings by minimizing the cost of manufacturing the device and by reducing service and consumption to a minimum. Here, only a single source of energy is used, for example cells or batteries, and only an individual electronic card is made. In practice, the cable 12 connecting the antenna 11 to the acquisition assembly 10 is a coaxial cable. When placing the antenna out of place 11, in this way it is possible to use all the metallic or electrically conductive device to play this role. In the case represented here, the volumetric meter 8 is installed in a buried hole 14 provided with a cover 15. Therefore, it is possible to use this cover 15 in the aspect of the antenna 11 when wiring it to the acquisition assembly 10 by means of the cable 12. To facilitate this connection, it is possible to contemplate a connector 16 placed on the cover 14 and in which the broadcasting cable 12 that connects the emitter / receiver is plugged directly. In the case where the cover 15 is made of an electrically non-conductive material, the antenna 11 is then embedded or molded in the cover 14. In the same way, a connector 16 linked to one end of the antenna 11 can be seen and in which can be plugged into the broadcasting cable 12 that links to the transmitter / receiver. This typical case is not represented here. The fact of using the cover 15 in the aspect of the antenna 11 or in the aspect of the antenna support 11 makes it possible to have a radio wave starting point located at ground level instead of at a certain distance below the ground, in the case of a meter 8 buried. This arrangement makes it possible to improve the efficiency of the communication between the device and the central installation or the repeater. In addition, the device will allow a much easier installation. Specifically, the technician will not have to intervene in the gap in order to fix an antenna or a radio block, this is sometimes difficult because of the difficulty of accessibility within the latter. Then the adjustment of the meter according to the information and coupling of the cable to the cover in the case of a metal cover is satisfied, possibly to replace the cover with another where a connector will be eliminated. The same holds true for gaps whose cover is not electrically conductive. The simple replacement of the cover will allow easy coupling of the meter to your antenna and its practical installation of the device as a whole. The invention described in this way is perfectly suitable for the distribution of water but the technology described can be carried perfectly to any other fluid whose flow rate is measured mechanically, such as for example gas. Although the description has been given mainly with respect to a mechanical meter, the invention applies to any type of meter, in particular electronic.

Claims (15)

1. CLAIMS 1. Device for remote reading of water meters, comprising a data acquisition assembly for consumption and comprising at least one radio transmitter for transmitting the acquired information, at least one radio-receiver integrated in the acquisition assembly of a Such way to give the device communicating in both directions to receive the information from a central installation and an antenna so that the central facility can send date information so that this transmission of information taken into account by the radio-receivers makes it is possible to guarantee the exact date of all the acquisition assemblies for the meters that form one and the same population, characterized in that the meter starts a volume measurement consumed in a program determined by a first date received from the central installation by the receiver and stops in a program determined by a second date received from the center installation to the receiver, the volume consumed in the interval between the two dates that are stored in a memory, then transmitted to the central installation by means of the transmitter in a deferred program. Remote reading device according to claim 1, characterized in that it additionally comprises a screen that makes it possible to see the program and the period during which consumption takes place. Remote reading device according to any one of claims 1 or 2, characterized in that the transmitter, the receiver and the acquisition assembly are placed in a way to allow them to be integrated in one and the same package and activated by a common electronic card and are powered by one and the same energy source. 4. Remote reading device according to any of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that it additionally comprises at least one repeater placed between the device and the central installation to take and transfer the radio broadcast from the meter to the central installation and vice versa. 5. Remote reading device according to any of the preceding claims, characterized in that the radio transmitter and the radio-receiver both operate at free frequencies. Remote reading device according to any one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that at least the radio transmitter or at least the radio receiver operates on a dedicated frequency. 7. Remote reading device according to claim 6, characterized in that the power of the radio transmitter or that of the radio-receiver operating at a dedicated frequency is greater than the maximum limit allowed for the free frequencies. 8. Remote reading device according to any of the preceding claims, wherein the meter is a mechanical meter, equipped with a transducer that transforms the mechanical movements of the meter into electrical impulses, characterized in that the acquisition assembly is placed against the transducer to which it is assured, that one and the same energy source drives the transducer and the assembly and that the antenna is linked to the emitter and the receiver by means of a cable, so that the antenna can be placed at some distance from the meter . 9. Remote reading device according to any of the preceding claims for the meter placed in a gap, characterized in that the antenna is placed in the upper part of the gap. 10. Remote reading device according to claim 9 for a meter placed in a gap provided with a cover, characterized in that the antenna is integrated into the cover of the gap. Remote reading device according to claim 10, characterized in that the cover is metallic and the antenna consists of the cover of the gap. Remote reading device according to claim 10, characterized in that the cover is made of an electrically non-conductive material and the antenna is embedded or molded in the cover. 13. Remote reading device according to one of claims 10 to 12characterized in that the cover comprises, on its lower surface, a connector that is connected to one end of the antenna and into which the radio cable that connects the emitter and the receiver can be plugged. 14. Remote reading device according to any of claims 8 to 13, characterized in that the cable is a coaxial cable. 15. Remote reading device according to any of claims 13 to 14, characterized in that the energy source is chosen from between cells and / or batteries.