WO2016016022A1

WO2016016022A1 - A device and a method to monitor a commercial establishment

Info

Publication number: WO2016016022A1
Application number: PCT/EP2015/066443
Authority: WO
Inventors: Pranava Tripathi; Harsha Ramesh ANGERI; Pavan GOVINDAN; Debasis GOSWAMI
Original assignee: Robert Bosch Gmbh; Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions Ltd.
Priority date: 2014-07-28
Filing date: 2015-07-17
Publication date: 2016-02-04

Abstract

The invention relates to a device 100 and a method to monitor a commercial establishment. The device 100 comprises a first interface (102) to receive at least one consumption parameter of at least one appliance, a second interface (104) to receive occupancy information through at least one occupancy sensing element; an input means (106) to input actual revenue generated. The device (100) calculates expected revenue of the commercial establishment using the consumption parameters and the occupancy information. The device (100) provides an indication if actual revenue of commercial establishment is below expected revenue by a predefined threshold.

Description

TITLE

A device and a method to monitor a commercial establishment

The following specification describes and ascertains the nature of this invention and the manner in which it is to be performed:

Field of the invention

The invention relates to the field of electrical energy monitoring. In particular, the invention relates to monitoring financial performance of a commercial establishment.

Background of the invention

Monitoring of electrical energy consumption by electrical appliances in general is known. The monitoring of energy consumption is done in different premises for different objectives. The objectives may be to determine the energy consumption pattern, costs related to energy consumption etc.

The prior art US-20120290230 discloses a method for monitoring energy consumption. The US-20120290230 discloses a method and apparatus for monitoring energy consumption in buildings and providing consumption awareness to users and building management systems.

Brief description of the accompanying drawings

Different modes of the invention are disclosed in detail in the description and illustrated in the accompanying drawing: Figure 1 shows schematic of a device for monitoring consumption of electrical energy according to one embodiment of the invention.

Figure 2 shows the look up table used to calculated expected energy consumption

Detailed description of the accompanying drawings

Fig. 1 shows a device 100 for monitoring consumption of electrical energy in a commercial establishment, according to one embodiment of the invention.

The device 100 comprises a first interface 102 to receive at least one consumption parameter 103 of at least one appliance, a second interface 104 to receive occupancy information 105 through at least one occupancy sensing element; an input means 106 to input actual revenue generated. The device 100 also comprises a control means 112 which calculates expected revenue of the commercial establishment using the consumption parameters and occupancy information. The control means 112 provides an indication or a warning message to the user if the actual revenue of commercial establishment is below expected revenue by a predefined threshold. The indication or warning may be in the form of a message, audio output etc. The control means 112 may be implemented by using a set of hardware blocks like programmable logics arrays, FPGAs and/or software functions. The control means 1 12 may be implemented in the microcontroller, microprocessor etc.

According to one embodiment of the invention, the method to monitor the commercial establishment comprises the steps : receiving at least one consumption parameter (103) of at least one appliance in said commercial establishment, for a given duration;

receiving occupancy information (105) related to said commercial establishment through at least one occupancy sensing element for said given duration; calculating expected revenue of said commercial establishment in dependence with said at least one consumption parameter and said occupancy information;

The device 100 comprises an output means 108 to convey the results to the user. The device 100 also comprises a memory stored with a set of look up tables 110. The device 100 may be based on a microcontroller, a microprocessor and other logic units. Also the device comprises other basic building blocks like memory, input and output interfaces etc. These building blocks are commonly known and hence not explained. Alternatively the device 100 may be a computer, a laptop, a palmtop, a PDA or any other computing device which has the first interface and the second interface.

The consumption parameters 103 may be electrical parameters of electrical appliances. Also the consumption parameters 103 may be the amount of water and gas consumed by the commercial establishment. The consumption parameters may be a voltage signal, a current signal, a power signal, an energy signal etc. From the consumption parameters 103, the energy consumption of individual electrical appliance is calculated. The water and gas consumption parameters are delivered by gas meter and water meter installed in the commercial establishment. These meters provide the consumption parameters to the device 100. The appliances may refer to electrical appliances and/or water and/or gas consuming appliances like washing machines, dish washers, gas ovens etc.

The first interface 102 may comprise a simple input port of the microcontroller or any other data port in a computing device. Alternatively it may comprise a signal conditioner, an analog to digital converter input of the microcontroller etc. The first interface is connected to at least one measurement unit measuring the consumption parameters 103 of an appliance to receive consumption parameters 103 of the appliance. Alternatively the first interface 102 may be connected to a measurement unit in the main electrical circuit of the commercial establishment. This way a single measurement unit will provide consumption parameters 103 of the electrical appliances connected on the main electrical circuit of the commercial establishment. The consumption parameters 103 may be in the form voltage, current and transients generated on the main power supply lines when a particular electrical appliance is either switched on or switched off. Each electrical appliance generates a recognizable transient on the main power supply lines when the electrical appliance is switched on or switched off. The device may receive consumption parameters regarding water and gas consumption through gas and water meters.

The electrical appliance may be an air conditioner, a fan, a lighting element, a microwave oven, an electrical oven, a boiler, a mixer, a grinder, a food processor, a water treating equipment, a gaming equipment, an exercising equipment, an electric makeup equipment, an electric hair-dressing tool, a computer etc. The list is given for illustration and may not be complete. The commercial establishment may be a restaurant, a hotel, a video games parlor, a gym, a salon, or an internet cafe.

The second interface 104 may comprise a simple input port to the microcontroller or any other data port in a computing device. It may also comprise a signal conditioner, an input pin of an analog to digital converter etc. The second interface 104 is connected to at least one sensing element to sense occupancy in the commercial establishment. The output of the sensing element indicates either presence or absence of users in the premises. The sensing element is one from a set of sensors like a laser sensor, an infrared sensor, a light sensor, a thermal imager, a pressure sensor, a motion sensor, a proximity sensor, a camera, etc. The list is given for illustration and may not be complete.

The input means 106 may be any one from a touch screen, a keyboard, a knob, a virtual keyboard, a joystick etc. The list is given for illustration and may not be complete. The input means 106 may also be used for inputting information from a source other than the user, such as a data port.

The output means 108 may be a display. The output means 108 may also be used for outputting information to something other than the user, such as a data port. The look up tables 1 10 may contain data on energy consumption of different electrical appliances versus the expected revenue. These look up tables may be static ones or may be updated based on the past data. The look up tables are shown in fig. 2.

The control means 1 12 analyzes the inputs from the first interface 102, the second interface 104 and the input means 106. The control means 112 also makes use of the look up tables to determine whether any pilferage is happening in the operations of the commercial establishment. Pilferage is the term used here to indicate loss of income of the commercial establishment. The control means 1 12 is implemented as a software function running in the device 100. The working of the device 100 is used with examples below.

The device 100 monitors and records the consumption parameters of different appliances to compute consumption of electrical energy of the electrical appliances. There are different ways of monitoring the consumption of electrical energy. One of the methods is called as Non-intrusive load monitoring, NILM. Using the NILM method the usage of electrical appliances is disaggregated using a single measurement unit installed in the main electric circuit panel of the commercial establishment. Alternatively, there may be individual measurement units fitted to each electrical appliance. The measurement unit measures the current and voltage signals on the main power supply lines and provides this information 103 to the device 100. The device 100 then determines the transients in the main power supply lines. When each of the electrical appliances is either switched on or switched off a transient is generated in the main power supply lines. Additionally other sensors may be used to resolve ambiguity when more than one electrical appliance generates same transient. For example if an electrical oven and an air conditioner generate same transient, then an occupancy sensor near the said appliances may be used to identify which appliance is on. By identifying the transients in the consumption parameters, the device 100 identifies which electrical appliances are switched-on and which electrical appliances are switched-off. The device 100 continuously monitors and records the consumption parameters of the electrical appliances by identifying the transients. From the consumption parameters, the energy consumption of the electrical appliance is calculated. The energy consumption is divided into different levels, referred as, for example, low, medium and high. The thresholds are predefined for classifying the energy consumption into low, medium and high.

The energy consumption is calculated for a given duration. The given duration may be defined as 8:00 AM to 10:00 PM to cover the operations of the commercial establishment when it is open. Along with monitoring and recording the consumption parameters of each electrical appliance, the device 100 also monitors and records the occupancy information provided by different sensing elements, for the same given duration.

Thus at the end of the given duration, the device computes consumption of electrical energy by each electrical appliance. The consumption of electrical energy by each electrical appliance provides an indication of how long was the electrical appliance on.

While monitoring and recording the consumption parameters of the electrical appliances, the device continuously monitors and records the occupancy information. At the end of the given duration, the occupancy level is computed for sub-durations. Sub-durations are smaller parts of the duration, and may be indicated as morning, afternoon and evening. Morning may be defined as 8:00 AM to 12:00 Noon, afternoon may be from 12:00 noon to 4:00PM and evening may be from 4:00 PM to 10:00 PM. The occupancy level may be classified as low, medium and high for the sub-durations. The occupancy level of Low may represent less than X% seats occupied, occupancy level of medium may represent less than Y% seats occupied and occupancy level of High may represent above Z% seats occupied, where X is lower than Y and Y is lower than Z.

For better prediction of the expected revenues, the expected revenues may be calculated for sub-durations and later consolidated for the entire day. The control means 1 12 in the device 100, refers to the look up tables 1 10 and retrieves the expected revenues for each of the electrical appliances, using the energy consumption level and the occupancy level for different sub-durations. For example, in the look up table in Fig. 2, the electrical appliance may be electrical oven. The control means determines what is the energy consumption level of electrical appliance 1 for a sub duration of morning. Then the control means determines what is the occupancy level for the same sub-duration. Using the two informations from the look up table, the control means retrieves the expected revenue from the look up table. Similarly the control means retrieves the expected revenues for all the electrical appliances. Finally the control means calculates the overall expected revenues by summing up the expected revenues of all the electrical appliances for all the sub-durations. This gives the overall expected revenues for the given duration, for example, expected revenues for the day based on energy consumption of all the electrical appliances for the day and the occupancy information for the day.

Here sub-durations are used to increase the granularity and the accuracy for prediction of expected revenues. Sometimes the overall expected revenue is also referred as expected revenue in this document.

It is possible that the expected revenue may be calculated using only the consumption of electricity by different appliances without taking into account the occupancy levels. But the accuracy or the granularity will be more if the occupancy levels are also considered.

Once the overall expected revenue for the given duration is computed, the control means 1 12 receives the actual revenues for the given duration, from the user, through the input means 106. The control means 1 12 compares the overall expected revenue with the actual revenue for the given duration. The control means 1 12 provides the results to the user in terms of overall expected revenue, actual revenue and the shortfall in the actual revenue compared to the expected revenue. If the actual revenue is falling short than the overall expected revenue by a predefined threshold, a warning message is generated to the user. The warning message indicates that there is some amount of pilferage happening in the commercial establishment leading to loss of revenues. Alternatively it may indicate that there may be wasteful usage of the electrical appliances. Under such scenarios, the user can do further analysis to find out whether it is pilferage or inefficient usage of the electrical appliances.

The values (Nl, N2..) in the lookup table may need fine tuning to calculate the expected revenues more accurately or more realistically. For this purpose the past data may be used to correct the values ( l , N2 etc).

Thus the invention provides an efficient method for monitoring the commercial establishment. The examples and the look up tables are explained with examples of electrical appliances. But the invention works with the consumption parameters from any other appliances which consume gas and water.

Claims

What is claimed is:

1. A device (100) to monitor a commercial establishment, said device comprising :

- at least one interface (102) to

- receive at least one consumption parameter (103) of at least one appliance in said commercial establishment, for a given duration;

- receive occupancy information (105) related to said commercial establishment, for said duration;

- a control means (112) adapted to calculate expected revenue of said commercial establishment in dependence with said consumption parameter and said occupancy information.

2. The device (100) according to claim 1 wherein said appliance is at-least one of an air conditioner, a microwave oven, an electrical oven, a fan, a lighting element, a boiler, a mixer, a grinder, a food processor, a water treating equipment, a gaming equipment, an exercising equipment, an electric makeup equipment, an electric hair-dressing tool , a computer, a gas oven, a washing machine, a dish washer, a gas consumption meter and a water consumption meter.

3. The device (100) according to claim 1 wherein said occupancy sensing element is at-least one of a laser sensor, an infrared sensor, a light sensor, a pressure sensor, a motion sensor, a camera, a thermal imager and a proximity sensor.

4. The device (100) according to claim 1 wherein said input means is at-least one of a touch screen, a keyboard, a knob, a virtual keyboard, a joystick and a data port.

5. The device (100) according to claim 1 wherein said expected revenue is calculated using a set of look up tables (1 10).

6. A method to monitor a commercial establishment, said method comprising the steps:

- receiving at least one consumption parameter (103) of at least one appliance in said commercial establishment, for a given duration;

- receiving occupancy information (105) related to said commercial establishment through at least one occupancy sensing element for said given duration;

- calculating expected revenue of said commercial establishment in dependence with said at least one consumption parameter and said occupancy information;