JPH09181849A - Consumer safety system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a consumer safety system by detecting gas leakage early and accurately so as to secure the safety of consumers. SOLUTION: Radio equipments 17-1, 17-2,... installed to gas equipments 13-1, 13-2,... send operating state information of the gas equipments 13-1, 13-2,... to a radio equipment 15 of a microcomputer meter side 3 for each prescribed time. The microcomputer meter 3 collates the operating state information sent from the radio equipment 15 with a gas consumed amount to discriminate whether or not any gas leakage is in existence. When any gas leakage is in existence, a shut off valve is closed and the information of gas leakage is given to a center 11.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a customer safety system using wireless communication.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as a safety measure for consumers in gas use, by monitoring the gas flow rate passing through a microcomputer meter, it is possible to estimate whether or not there is an abnormal use of a gas device and whether or not there is a leak downstream of the microcomputer meter, The shutoff valve was shut down and alarm information was transmitted.

[0003]

However, in such a method, the presence or absence of an abnormality in the gas usage status of each gas appliance and the presence or absence of leakage in the microcomputer meter downstream pipe are determined only by the total flow rate of the gas passing through the microcomputer meter. Since it is estimated that there is no abnormal use, it may be judged as "abnormal use" to shut off the shutoff valve or send an alarm. Alternatively, there is a problem in that it may not be possible to determine “abnormal use” even though it is abnormal use.

Similarly, when the gas leak judgment is performed when the gas equipment is not operating at all, although the accurate judgment is possible, the microcomputer meter has no information for judging "no gas equipment used". Therefore, it is possible to make a "gas leak" judgment only when the special usage situation is judged for a long time. Even if it is determined that "there is a gas leak", there is a problem that the shutoff valve cannot be shut off because of its low reliability.

The present invention has been made in view of such a problem, and an object thereof is to provide a consumer safety system capable of detecting a gas leak early and accurately to protect the safety of the consumer. To provide.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the present invention is installed in at least one gas device, and a wireless device group for transmitting operating status information of each gas device and a microcomputer meter. And a wireless device that receives operating status information transmitted from the wireless device group, wherein the microcomputer meter measures a gas usage amount, and compares the gas usage amount information with the operating status information. It is a customer safety system characterized by detecting leaks.

[0007]

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG.
Embodiments will be described in detail. FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a customer safety system according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, a microcomputer meter 3 is installed in the customer 1, and the microcomputer meter 3 is a T-NCU 5 (network control unit).
Connected to T-NCU5 is connected to C via public line 7.
-NCU 9 (network control unit), and C-NCU 9 is connected to the center 11.

The customer 1 has a plurality of gas appliances, for example, a stove 13-1, an FF air conditioner 13-2, ..., A water heater 1.
3-n are installed. The wireless device 15 is installed in the microcomputer meter 3, and includes a stove 13-1, an FF air conditioner 13-2, ...
Radios 17-1, 17-2, ... are installed in each of ...

For example, the wireless device 17-1 is connected to a signal line taken out from the operation circuit of the stove 13-1, and the state of this signal line is monitored to judge whether the operation of the stove 13-1 is started or stopped. When the state of the stove 13-1 has changed, the operating condition information 21 is sent to the wireless device 15 on the microcomputer meter 3 side by radio. Similarly, the other radios 17-2, ... Send the operation status information 21 of the gas equipment in which the radios 17-2 ,. That is, the driving status information 21
Is sent to the wireless device 15 on the side of the microcomputer meter 3 at regular intervals.

FIG. 2 is a format diagram of the operation status information 21. The operation status information 21 is gas equipment ID 23, ON.
/ OFF information 25 and gas usage information 27.

The gas equipment ID 23 is assigned to each gas equipment 13
It is an ID number assigned to. The ON / OFF information 25 is information indicating whether the gas equipment 13 is operating or stopped, and the gas usage information 27 is information such as “strong”, “medium”, and “weak”. For example, it indicates that the vehicle is being driven “strong”.

The radio 15 on the side of the microcomputer meter 3 receives the operation status information 21 from the radio 17 on the side of each gas device 13 and sends the operation status information 21 to the microcomputer meter 3.
The microcomputer meter 3 measures the gas usage amount passing through the microcomputer meter 3 and compares the gas usage amount with the operation status information 21 to determine whether or not there is a gas leak. If there is a gas leak, an internal shut-off valve (not shown) is shut off to notify the center 11 of the gas leak.

Next, the operation of the consumer safety system will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. First, the wireless devices 17-1, 17-2, ... Connected to the signal lines taken out from the operation circuits of the gas appliances 13 use the microcomputer to output the operation status information 21 of the gas appliances 13 at a predetermined time interval. The data is sent to the wireless device 15 on the meter 3 side (step 301).

The radio 15 on the side of the microcomputer meter 3 receives the operation status information 21 sent from the radios 17-1, 17-2, ... On the side of each gas equipment 13 (step 302),
The operation status information 21 is sent to the microcomputer meter 3.

The microcomputer meter 3 uses a flow meter (not shown) inside the microcomputer meter 3 to measure the amount of gas used. The amount of gas used is compared with the operation status information 21 sent from the wireless device 15 (step 303) to determine whether or not there is a gas leak (step 304). When it is determined that there is a gas leak (step 304), an internal shutoff valve (not shown) is shut off (step 305), and the gas leak is transmitted to the center 11 (step 306).

That is, the amount of gas used which is estimated to have been consumed in view of the operating condition of the gas equipment 13 is compared with the amount of gas used which actually passed through the microcomputer meter 3, and when there is a difference between them, Judge that there is a leak. For example,
If there is a gas usage amount when none of the gas appliances 13 is in use, it is determined that there is a gas leak, the shutoff valve is shut off, and the gas leak is transmitted to the center 11.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the gas leak is judged by comparing the operation status information 21 received at a constant interval with the amount of gas actually used, so that the gas leak can be promptly and accurately. When detected, the shut-off valve can be shut off quickly to protect the safety of customers.

An alarm may be attached to the microcomputer meter 3 so as to give an alarm when a gas leak occurs.

[0019]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, it is possible to provide a consumer safety system capable of early and accurately detecting a gas leak and protecting the safety of the consumer.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a customer safety system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a format diagram of the operation status information 21.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the customer safety system.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 ... Consumer 3 ... Micrometer 5 ... T-NCU 7 ... Public line 9 ... C-NCU 11 ... Center 13 ... Gas equipment 15 ... Radio 17 ……… Radio device 21 ………… Operation status information 23 ………… Gas equipment ID 25 ………… ON / OFF information 27 ………… Gas usage information

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A radio group installed in each of at least one gas equipment and transmitting operation status information of each gas equipment; and a radio equipment installed in a microcomputer meter to receive operation status information transmitted from the radio equipment group. And a wireless device, wherein the microcomputer meter measures a gas usage amount and detects a gas leak by comparing the gas usage amount information with the operation status information. 2. The operation status information includes an ID number of a gas appliance, on / off information of the gas appliance,
The customer safety system according to claim 1, further comprising gas usage information. 3. The customer safety system according to claim 1, wherein the wireless device group transmits the operation status information at regular time intervals. 4. The consumer safety system according to claim 1, wherein the microcomputer meter shuts off an internal shut-off valve when detecting a gas leak and transmits the gas leak to a center.