JP7509559B2 - Monitoring system - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a monitoring system that monitors the living conditions of residents by inferring them from the operating status of a household fuel cell cogeneration system.

A cogeneration system, such as a household fuel cell cogeneration system, is a system that combines a hot water storage unit and a fuel cell unit.

The fuel cell unit continues to consume gas to generate electricity, and the heat generated by the electricity generation heats the water in the hot water storage unit to produce hot water.

Patent document 1 describes a lifestyle monitoring system that can detect abnormalities occurring in the homes of people being monitored, such as elderly people, in accordance with the living conditions of each elderly person and notify service users.

In more detail, the monitoring center of the lifestyle monitoring system is equipped with a host computer that controls the entire server and realizes parameter calculation and notification functions, a data input/output control unit for connecting to a network and sending and receiving data, and a management database that stores individual lifestyle information of the elderly people being monitored that has been calculated using statistical and mathematical techniques. The host computer uses statistical and mathematical techniques to calculate the lifestyle information of each elderly person from the data of the elderly people in question, and parameters for notifying abnormalities for each elderly person are calculated using statistical and mathematical techniques and sent to an in-home device. The in-home device detects abnormalities that occur in the home being monitored based on the parameters calculated for each elderly person and sensor information, and notifies the home of the person being monitored.

Patent document 2 also describes a monitoring system for monitoring the safety of residents, including elderly people living alone, and the security of their homes.

More specifically, the monitoring system includes an electricity usage data acquisition/transmission means for acquiring data on electricity usage in the home of the resident being monitored or the residence being monitored and transmitting the data to the monitoring center, an electricity usage data accumulation/analysis means for accumulating and analyzing the received data on electricity usage in the monitoring center, a life rhythm information viewing means for making the results of the analysis viewable from outside as life rhythm information, and a life rhythm abnormality reporting means for reporting an abnormality to a pre-registered destination if an abnormality is found in the life rhythm information.

JP 2004-287770 A JP2019-061465A

However, while both Prior Art 1 and Prior Art 2 state that the presence or absence of abnormalities in residents and their safety are judged based on their living conditions and notified to the person watching over them, in order to recognize the living conditions of residents, analysis is required based on the usage of each of the water, electricity, and gas utilities in the residence, which imposes a large control burden and often results in misrecognition.

The objective of the present invention is to provide a monitoring system that can monitor the living conditions of residents based on the operating status of a fuel cell cogeneration system without detecting their utility usage, and can quickly notify residents in the event of an abnormality.

The monitoring system of the present invention is a monitoring system that monitors the living conditions of residents of a residence in which a fuel cell cogeneration device is installed, the fuel cell cogeneration device having a power generation unit that generates electricity using gas and a hot water generation unit that generates hot water using heat generated during power generation, and includes an acquisition unit that acquires the operating status of the fuel cell cogeneration device in chronological order, an estimation unit that estimates the living conditions of the residents based on the progress of the operating status in chronological order acquired by the acquisition unit, and a notification unit that notifies some or all of a number of predetermined notifiers when there is an abnormality in the living conditions estimated by the estimation unit;
have.

According to the present invention, the acquisition unit acquires the operating status of the cogeneration system in a time series. The estimation unit estimates the living conditions based on the transition of the operating status in a time series acquired by the acquisition unit. If there is an abnormality in the living conditions estimated by the estimation unit, the notification unit notifies some or all of a plurality of predetermined notifiers.

This allows the system to monitor the resident's living conditions based on the operating status of the fuel cell cogeneration system without detecting the resident's utility usage, and to quickly notify residents in the event of an abnormality.

The present invention is characterized in that the notifiers include at least one of neighbors, relatives, home security companies, and emergency facilities, each of the multiple notifiers is associated with a level of abnormality, and the notification targets are determined based on the level of abnormality.

You can choose who to notify depending on the severity of the abnormality.

In the present invention, the estimation of the living situation includes estimation of at least one of the resident's getting up, breakfast, cleaning, laundry, lunch, going out, returning home, dinner, bathing, and going to bed based on the amount of electricity used, the amount of hot water stored in the tank, and the amount of hot water used in the fuel cell cogeneration system.

Based on the amount of electricity used, the amount of hot water stored in the tank, and the amount of hot water used, it is possible to infer the living conditions by obtaining at least one of the times of day when the resident wakes up, has breakfast, cleans, does laundry, has lunch, goes out, comes home, has dinner, takes a bath, and goes to bed.

Compared to conventional technology, this invention is new in that it can estimate living conditions within the fuel cell cogeneration system, and it is a major advancement in that it pre-registers multiple notification destinations in the event of an abnormality (and determines the notification destination depending on the severity of the abnormality).

According to the present invention, it is possible to monitor the living conditions of residents based on the operating status of the fuel cell cogeneration system without detecting their utility usage, and to quickly notify residents in the event of an abnormality.

1 is a schematic diagram of a cogeneration system according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a control block diagram of a controller according to the present embodiment. FIG. 2 is a transition diagram showing an example of a lifestyle in a residence in which a cogeneration system according to the present embodiment is installed. 5 is a control flowchart showing a living situation monitoring routine executed by a controller according to the present embodiment. 6 shows an abnormality notification processing subroutine in step 114 of FIG. 5, in which (A) is a flow chart showing a simultaneous notification processing routine as a first example, and (B) is a flow chart showing a selective notification processing routine as a second example. FIG. 11 is a characteristic diagram showing the relationship between the duration of an abnormal lifestyle and an abnormality level in a modified example of the present embodiment.

Figure 1 shows a schematic diagram of a household fuel cell cogeneration system according to this embodiment (hereinafter simply referred to as "cogeneration system 10").

The cogeneration system 10 is a system in which a hot water storage unit 12 and a fuel cell unit 14 are installed side by side. Note that "side by side" does not mean that they are physically adjacent to each other, but rather that they are interconnected. In other words, the hot water storage unit 12 and the fuel cell unit 14 may be installed separately and connected by piping, electrical wiring, etc.

As shown in FIG. 1, the cogeneration system 10 is installed along the exterior wall of the house 48, and workers go to the site to carry out the installation work.

Figure 1 shows the system in a state where installation has been completed, trial operation has been completed, and the system is ready for steady operation in conjunction with various facilities in the house 48 (power consumption devices 24, hot water supply facility 49, etc.).

(Configuration of cogeneration system 10)

The cogeneration system 10 is controlled by the controller 16.

The hot water storage unit 12 includes a hot water storage tank 32. The fuel cell unit 14 includes a fuel processor 20 that takes in gas (e.g., city gas 13A) from the gas supply pipe 18 and refines it into hydrogen, a stack 22 that generates and stores electricity through a process centered on reforming hydrogen and oxygen, and an inverter 28 that converts the electricity (DC) stored in the stack 22 into AC and supplies it to a power consuming device 24, which is one of the energy consuming devices such as home appliances (household electrical appliances) and lighting in the house 48.

In FIG. 1, home appliances and lighting are given as representative examples of power consuming devices 24, but in this embodiment, power consuming devices 24 refer to all electrical components required in a house 48, including home appliances and lighting. For example, the hot water storage unit control unit 12D, fuel cell unit control unit 14D (see FIG. 2), remote control panel 46 described below, and gas fan heater 54, etc., related to the cogeneration system 10, belong to the power consuming devices 24.

The fuel cell unit 14 generates heat when generating electricity in the stack 22, so it needs to be cooled.

On the other hand, in the hot water storage unit 12, tap water or the like is taken into the hot water storage tank 32 (supply water) and needs to be heated (warmed) in order to be used for supplying hot water to the hot water supply equipment 49 (shower, bath, sink, etc.) that is installed inside the house 48 and constitutes energy consumption equipment together with the power consumption equipment 24, and for heat exchange in floor heating and air conditioning equipment, etc.

For this reason, the fuel cell unit 14 is equipped with a heat exchanger 30, which exchanges heat between the heat generated by power generation in the stack 22 and the water supplied to the hot water storage tank 32 provided in the hot water storage unit 12 via a water pipe 33.

In addition, the water pipe 33 may be provided with a heater (mainly an electric heater) not shown in the figure, and the water pipe 33 and surrounding equipment may be prevented from freezing by heating the water pipe 33 with the heater.

The inverter 28, which constitutes part of the fuel cell unit 14, is connected to a switching unit 62 that controls switching with the commercial power source 60. The switching unit 62 switches the power supply source (power generated by the fuel cell unit 14 or power from the commercial power source 60) based on instructions from the controller 16.

A power smart meter 63 is installed downstream of the switching unit 62 to monitor the power consumption status.

Depending on the switching by the switching unit 62, the power generated by the fuel cell unit 14 or the power from the commercial power source 60 is input to the power smart meter 63 and supplied to the power consumption device 24. In other words, when a user uses the power consumption device 24, either power is supplied, so there is no problem.

The power smart meter 63 is connected to the controller 16, and the power source is displayed on the remote control panel 46 controlled by the controller 16.

The electricity smart meter 63 analyzes the trends in electricity consumption (power consumption, amount of electricity and change in electricity per unit time, and the time and period of consumption, etc.), making it possible to identify the type of electricity consumption device 24 whose rated power consumption is known in advance, and to recognize its operating state (including on/off timing). The trends in electricity consumed by this electricity consumption device 24 are sent to the controller 16.

A microcomputer meter 50 is attached to the gas supply pipe 18. A branch 18A is provided downstream of the microcomputer meter 50, and one of the branch pipes, 18B, becomes a pipeline that supplies gas to the fuel processor 20.

The other branch pipe 18C is a pipe that supplies gas to gas appliances (such as a stove 52 and a gas fan heater 54) in the house 48.

The microcomputer meter 50 has multiple functions to measure the flow rate of the gas being supplied and to monitor abnormalities in the gas supply. The main monitoring functions include an abnormal outflow monitoring function, a seismic sensing function, a pressure monitoring function, and a long-term use monitoring function.

In addition to the main monitoring functions described above, the microcomputer meter 50 is also equipped with a "micro-leak monitoring function" as a safety function, although it does not actively shut off the gas supply.

(Configuration of controller 16)

As shown in FIG. 2, the controller 16 includes a microcomputer 44 that is made up of a CPU 34, RAM 36, ROM 38, I/O 40, and a bus 42 such as a data bus or control bus that connects these components.

The hot water storage unit control unit 12D and the fuel cell unit control unit 14D are connected to the I/O 40, and the operation of the hot water storage unit 12 and the fuel cell unit 14 is controlled by the controller 16.

An operation information database 70 is also connected to the I/O 40. The operation information database 70 stores, in chronological order, the amount of electricity used, the amount of hot water stored in the hot water tank 32, the amount of hot water used, and the amount of gas used.

Furthermore, a remote control panel 46 is connected to the I/O 40. The remote control panel 46 is installed inside the house 48 (see FIG. 1) in which the cogeneration system 10 is to be installed, and has the function of allowing the user to input commands regarding the cogeneration system 10 and displaying the status of the cogeneration system 10.

A wireless communication module 71 is also connected to the I/O 40. The wireless communication module can use communication technologies such as LTE communication and LPWA (Low Power Wide Area) to directly notify information from the controller to predetermined notification recipients.

In this embodiment, the information notified is abnormal information when a resident's lifestyle deviates from a normal lifestyle.

The predetermined notification recipients include pre-registered cohabitants of the house 48, nearby residents, the maintenance company for the cogeneration system 10, medical personnel, etc. Notification of information to these notification recipients will be described later.

The water temperature in the hot water tank 32 (see FIG. 1) is divided into multiple temperature layers. Multiple thermistors 51 that detect the temperature of the stored hot water are attached to the hot water tank 32 at different height positions, and transmit the detected temperature to the hot water storage unit control unit 12D.

The higher the water temperature, the higher it becomes. Therefore, the water temperature in the hot water storage tank 32 is highest in the top layer and lowest in the bottom layer.

The thermistor 51 detects the temperature of each layer in the hot water storage tank 32 (for example, if the tank is divided into four layers, each of the four layers). The controller 16 controls the timing and amount of water supply from the water pipe 33 based on the temperature detected by the thermistor 51.

Here, the CPU 34 reads the amount of electricity usage, the amount of hot water stored in the hot water tank 32, the amount of hot water usage, and the amount of gas usage stored in the operation information database 70 in chronological order from the operation information database 70 at regular intervals or based on irregular triggers (instructions from the resident, etc.), and infers the lifestyle.

Figure 3 is a timing chart showing, as an example, the amount of hot water used, the amount of hot water stored in the hot water storage tank 32, and the progress of power generation in a typical household lifestyle.

In the lifestyle shown in Figure 3, the power generation period (power generation start and stop times) is set in advance.

After waking up, breakfast, cleaning, and laundry are done, and the amount of hot water and gas used during this period increases, gradually decreasing until lunchtime, at which point the amount tends to increase slightly. While out, tap water is replenished according to the amount of hot water used, and the amount of hot water stored in the hot water storage tank 32 increases as the fuel cell unit 14 generates electricity and heats it.

In addition, hot water and gas usage peaks between dinner time and bedtime, and the amount of hot water stored in the hot water storage tank 32 decreases.

Depending on the amount of hot water used, a backup heat source unit (not shown) may be operated to directly heat tap water.

Here, the operation information database 70 stores reference lifestyle transition information. This reference lifestyle transition information is a characteristic curve that transitions when living a normal life, such as the amount of electricity consumption shown by the solid line in Figure 3. Note that, since a normal lifestyle varies depending on the season, it is preferable to store reference lifestyle transition information for each season or month, for example.

On the other hand, the power usage shown by the dotted line in Figure 3 represents an example of an abnormal lifestyle. It can be seen that this abnormal lifestyle deviates significantly from the standard lifestyle shown by the solid line in Figure 3.

One of the factors that may lead to this situation is an abnormality related to the resident's health. Therefore, in this embodiment, if the lifestyle estimated by reading the amount of electricity used, the amount of hot water stored in the hot water tank 32, the amount of hot water used, and the amount of gas used from the operation information database 70 deviates from the characteristic curve of the reference lifestyle by a predetermined amount or more, some or all of the predetermined notification recipients are selected and notified that they have an abnormal lifestyle.

The notification recipients may be selected so that all recipients are always notified at once, or, as an example, the abnormality level may be determined based on the difference between the estimated lifestyle and the reference lifestyle, and the abnormality level may be associated in advance with the notification recipients.

That is, if the abnormality level is at its lowest, then the person living with the person and nearby residents will be notified, if the abnormality level is at its highest, then medical personnel will be contacted (specifically, an ambulance will be requested to be dispatched), and if the abnormality level is in between (medium level), then the maintenance company for the cogeneration system 10 will be notified.

The operation of this embodiment will be explained below with reference to the flowcharts in Figures 4 and 5.

Figure 4 is a control flowchart showing the living conditions monitoring routine executed by the controller 16.

In step 100, the amount of electricity used is recorded, then the process moves to step 102 where the amount of hot water stored in the hot water tank 32 is recorded, then the process moves to step 104 where the amount of hot water used is recorded, then the process moves to step 106 where the amount of gas used is recorded, and then the process moves to step 108.

In step 108, the information acquired in steps 100 to 106 is stored in the operation information database 70, and the process proceeds to step 110.

Note that it is preferable to capture and store each piece of information in steps 100 to 106 at intervals of about once every 30 seconds, but this is not limited to this. A shorter interval will increase accuracy but increase the amount of information, and a longer interval will reduce the amount of information but decrease accuracy. Therefore, the interval should be determined based on the relationship between processing capacity and target accuracy.

In step 110, it is determined whether it is time to predict the lifestyle.

The estimation period for this lifestyle can be done, for example, on a daily basis to grasp the entire daily lifestyle, but it may also be on an hourly basis, or on a weekly basis or longer. In other words, it can be decided based on the importance of the person whose lifestyle is to be monitored. For relatively elderly or unhealthy people, monitoring can be done on a shorter basis, and for healthy people (such as parents who live in their hometown), monitoring can be done on a longer basis.

If the result of the determination in step 110 is negative, the process returns to step 100 and repeats the above process. If the result of the determination in step 110 is positive, the process proceeds to step 112. From the operation information database 70, information for a predetermined period of time that was acquired in steps 100 to 106 is read, and the process proceeds to step 114.

In step 114, the lifestyle is inferred based on the retrieved information.

In the next step 116, the reference lifestyle change information is read from the operation information database 70, and the process proceeds to step 118, where the estimated lifestyle information is compared with the reference lifestyle information, and the process proceeds to step 120.

In step 120, as a result of the comparison in step 118, it is determined whether there is a discrepancy between the two that is greater than a predetermined value, and whether there is an abnormality in the predicted lifestyle.

If the result of step 120 is negative, it is determined that there is no abnormality, and the process returns to step 100 and the above steps are repeated.

If the result of step 120 is positive, it is determined that an abnormality exists, and the process proceeds to step 122, where abnormality notification processing is executed.

Figure 5 (A) shows the process for Example 1 of the abnormality notification process in step 122 in Figure 4. In step 130, the notification targets registered in advance are read, and then the process proceeds to step 132, where a mass notification is sent to the people in the neighborhood, close relatives, and, in the case of rental housing, the management company or landlord.

In this embodiment, this simultaneous notification is performed by the wireless communication module 71 equipped in the controller 16, allowing for a rapid response.

Figure 5 (B) shows a process related to example 2 of the abnormality notification process in step 122 of Figure 4. In step 140, the degree of deviation between the reference lifestyle and the lifestyle determined to be abnormal is calculated, and then in step 142, the abnormality level is determined from the calculation result.

In the next step 144, the notification recipients according to the abnormality level are read, and the process proceeds to step 146, where the notifiers are notified.

In other words, in Example 2, it is possible to distinguish between those who should be notified and those who do not need to be notified based on the degree of abnormality in their lifestyle.

Specifically, when the abnormality level is low, neighbors and close relatives are contacted. As the abnormality level increases, a pre-contracted security company is contacted, and in the case of rented accommodation, the management company or landlord is contacted. At the highest abnormality level, medical personnel (ambulance, etc.) are contacted.

In this embodiment, this selective notification is performed by the wireless communication module 71 equipped in the controller 16, allowing for a rapid response.

(Variation)

In Example 2 of this embodiment, if the abnormality level is low, the person living in the same house or nearby residents are notified, if it is medium level, the maintenance company for the cogeneration system 10 is notified, and if it is high level, medical personnel are contacted.

In other words, in this embodiment, once a lifestyle is determined to be abnormal, the destination of notification of the abnormality is uniquely determined based on the deviation from a normal lifestyle at that time, regardless of the duration of the abnormality.

In contrast to this, in the modified example, the threshold value for comparing the abnormality level is changed depending on the time that the abnormal lifestyle situation has continued, so that even if the level is the lowest in a short period of time, the abnormality level will transition from medium to high as time passes. This allows the subject to transition to a higher level of urgency as time passes.

In this embodiment (including the modified example), when an abnormality is notified, a wireless communication module 71 provided in the controller 16 of the cogeneration system 10 is used to notify directly from the controller, but a communication network (Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) equipment belonging to a wireless LAN, or a telephone line) set up in the house 48 may also be used. Depending on the environment, public Wi-Fi may also be used.

REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 10 Cogeneration system 12 Hot water storage unit 12D Hot water storage unit control unit 14 Fuel cell unit 14D Fuel cell unit control unit 16 Controller (monitoring unit)
18 Gas supply pipe 18A Branch section 18B Branch pipe 18C Branch pipe 20 Fuel processor 22 Stack (power generation section)
24 Power consuming device 28 Inverter 30 Heat exchanger 32 Hot water tank 33 Water pipe 34 CPU
36 RAM
38 ROM
40 I/O
42 Bus 44 Microcomputer 46 Remote control panel 48 House 49 Hot water supply equipment 50 Microcomputer meter 51 Thermistor 52 Stove 54 Gas fan heater 60 Commercial power supply 62 Switching unit 63 Electricity smart meter 70 Operation information database 71 Wireless communication module

Claims (2)

A monitoring system for monitoring the living conditions of residents of a residence in which a fuel cell cogeneration system is installed, the system including a power generation unit that generates electricity using gas and a hot water generation unit that generates hot water by utilizing heat generated during power generation,
an acquisition unit that acquires an operating status of the fuel cell cogeneration system in chronological order;
An estimation unit that estimates a lifestyle of the resident based on a transition of the time-series operating status acquired by the acquisition unit;
a notification unit that notifies some or all of a plurality of predetermined notifiers when an abnormality is found in the lifestyle predicted by the prediction unit;
having
The notification unit is a monitoring system in which the notification level is increased as the duration of the lifestyle deemed abnormal becomes longer based on the duration of the lifestyle deemed abnormal and the degree of deviation of the lifestyle deemed abnormal from a normal lifestyle, and the notification recipient is determined from among a predetermined number of notifiers depending on the abnormality level . The monitoring system of claim 1, wherein the notifiers include at least one of a neighbor, a relative, a home security company, and an emergency facility, each of the plurality of notifiers is associated with an abnormality level , and the notification recipient is determined based on the abnormality level .