JP3049905B2 - Transmitter and receiver - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention aims to prevent dangerous gas usage by transmitting gas appliance information such as the usage status of gas appliances to a gas meter and managing the usage status etc. of each gas appliance collectively by the gas meter. The present invention relates to a gas meter with a safety function and a transmitting device and a receiving device which can be used for signal transmission between gas appliances and the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, gas explosions due to gas leaks,
In order to prevent fire accidents due to forgetting to turn off gas appliances, gas meters equipped with a microcomputer in the gas meter and monitoring the abnormal flow rate of gas, and gas meters compatible with automatic meter reading systems have appeared. In order to further enhance safety, there has been a demand for knowing operation information of each gas appliance with a gas meter, and proposals have been made to transmit ultrasonic waves in gas pipes.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a transmission / reception apparatus conventionally proposed, which will be described below. In FIG. 3, 1 is an outdoor gas pipe, 2 is an indoor gas pipe, 3 is a flow rate measuring means, 4 is a flow rate integrating means, 5 is a flow rate displaying means, 6 is an ultrasonic detecting means such as a microphone, 7 is a demodulating means, 8 Is a comparator,
9 is a code decoding means, 10 is a processing means, and 11 including these is a gas meter.

[0004] Numeral 12 is a fluid control means such as a combustor, 13 is an ultrasonic transmitter, 14 is a modulation means, 15 is a code generation means, and 16 including these is a gas appliance. In FIG. 4, a is the output of the code generator, b is the output of the demodulation means 7, c is the output of the comparator 8, and is a waveform diagram showing each output state.

When the gas appliance 16 starts to be used, the gas is consumed in the fluid control means 12, the flow rate is measured by the flow rate measuring means 3 in the gas meter 11, and the gas consumption is accumulated by the integrating means 4. Then, it is displayed on the display device 5. On the other hand, the various information of the gas appliance 16 is
Is converted into a digital signal a and sent to the modulation means 14. For example, the Manchester code shown in FIG. 4 is used as the digital signal a. Then, after transmitting a code pattern that violates the Manchester code rule as a start signal, an information bit is transmitted. In the example of FIG. 4, four bits of 1, 0, 0, and 1 are shown as information bits. This digital signal a is put on a carrier wave by the modulation means 14 and
3 into the gas pipe 2. Gas meter 1
In 1, a signal transmitted through the gas pipe is received by the ultrasonic detecting means 6, and a digital signal a is outputted by the demodulating means 7.
The signal b with noise is extracted. Then, the signal is binarized by the comparator 8 to become a signal c, the information is decoded by the code decoding means 9, and some processing is performed by the processing means 10 based on the information.

[0006]

As described above, in the conventional configuration, the digital signal a is masked by noise due to noise in various pipes including noise caused by the flow of fluid when the gas appliance is burning. As a result, accurate signal reception was impossible. For this reason, a transmitting / receiving device for exchanging information between the gas meter and the gas appliance has not been put to practical use at present.

[0007] The present invention provides a transmission / reception device capable of exchanging information between a gas meter and a gas appliance or the like.

[0008]

In order to achieve the above object, a transmitting and receiving apparatus according to the present invention generates a digital signal by triggering a fluid control means for controlling a flow of a fluid and a signal from the fluid control means. A transmitter comprising a code generator, a transmitter for continuously transmitting the digital signal a plurality of times, an edge detector for detecting an edge of a change in fluid flow in the pipe, and an operation controlled by the edge detector And a receiving device comprising a decoding means for decoding the contents of the digital signal from the adding means, and an addition means for adding the signals of the analog / digital conversion means a plurality of times. is there.

[0009]

According to the present invention, the signal buried in the noise can be efficiently extracted and the information transmission between the gas meter and the gas appliance can be performed without error by the above configuration.

[0010]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG. The same parts as those in the conventional example are denoted by the same reference numerals. In FIG. 1, 1 is an outdoor gas pipe, 2 is an indoor gas pipe, 3 is a flow rate measuring means, 4 is a flow rate integrating means, 5 is a flow rate displaying means, 6 is an ultrasonic detecting means such as a microphone, 17
Is an edge detecting means, 7 is a demodulating means, 18 is an analog / digital converting means (hereinafter referred to as an A / D converter), 19 is an adding means, 9 is a code decoding means, 10 is a processing means,
11 including these is a gas meter.

Numeral 12 is a fluid control means such as a combustor, 13 is an ultrasonic wave transmitter, 14 is a modulation means, 20 is an N-times sending means, 1
Reference numeral 5 denotes a code generating means, and 16 including these means is a gas appliance. In FIG. 2, a1 is the output of the code generator, a2
Is a waveform diagram showing the output state of the output means 20, N is the output of the demodulation means 7, and c is the output of the addition means 19, showing the output states.

When the gas appliance 16 starts to be used, gas is consumed in the fluid control means 12 and the code generation means 1
5 is started. Then, various information of the gas appliance 16 is converted into a digital signal a1 by the code generating means 15 and sent to the sending means 20 N times. The N-time transmitting means 20 continuously transmits the digital signal a1 N times. Therefore, the output of the sending means 20 becomes the digital signal a2 shown in FIG.
In the modulating means 14, the digital signal a2 is put on a carrier wave and transmitted into the gas pipe 2 via the ultrasonic transmitter 13.

In the gas meter 11, an abrupt change in the flow of the fluid in the gas pipe, which occurs when the gas appliance 16 starts to be used, is detected by the edge detecting means 17. Then, the demodulating means 7, the A / D converter 18 and the adding means 19 are started.
Then, the signal transmitted through the gas pipe is received by the ultrasonic detecting means 6, and the digital signal a is output by the demodulating means 7.
Then, an analog signal b with noise is taken out. And A
The analog signal b is subjected to analog addition by digital arithmetic processing by the / D converter 18 and the adding means 19. In the addition process, the signal of the data period t for one time is analog-added N times. Since the transmitted digital signal a1 is the same signal every t time, the amplitude of the signal becomes N times by N times of analog addition. On the other hand, since the noise has no correlation every t time, the level of the noise amplitude becomes N by analog addition N times.
^1/2 . Therefore, by performing N times of analog addition, the signal-to-noise ratio is improved by ^{N1 / 2} . As a result, the output of the adding means 19 becomes the signal c of FIG. 2 from which noise is relatively removed. Then, the information is decoded by the code decoding means 9, and some processing is performed by the processing means 10 based on the information.

As described above, since the start of the analog addition is obtained from the edge detecting means 17, the analog addition can be started in synchronization with the signal transmission timing of the gas appliance 16, and the signal-to-noise ratio can be efficiently improved. Can be.

In this embodiment, transmission of ultrasonic waves in a gas pipe is considered as a transmission medium, but the present invention is not limited to this. For example, information exchange using radio waves may be used. The point is that it is only necessary to detect a change in the flow of the fluid and start the analog adding operation accordingly.

[0016]

As described above, according to the transmission / reception apparatus of the present invention, the signal-to-noise ratio can be efficiently improved, and as a result, ultrasonic transmission using a fluid pipe as a transmission medium can be performed by a fluid measuring instrument. There is an effect that it can be performed between instruments and.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a transmission / reception device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an output waveform diagram of each unit of the transmission / reception device according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a conventional transmitting / receiving apparatus.

FIG. 4 is an output waveform diagram of each means of the conventional transmitting / receiving apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 9 code decoding means 12 fluid control means 15 code generation means 17 edge detection means 18 analog / digital conversion means 19 adding means 20 N sending means

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuation of front page (58) Field surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G08C 23/00

Claims (7)

(57) [Claims] 1. A fluid control means for controlling a flow of a fluid, a code generation means for generating a digital signal triggered by a signal from the fluid control means, and a sending means for sending the digital signal continuously plural times. Transmission device. 2. An edge detecting means for detecting an edge of a change in a flow of fluid in a pipe, an analog / digital converting means whose operation is controlled by the edge detecting means, and a signal from the analog / digital converting means being transmitted a plurality of times. A receiving device comprising an adding means for adding, and a code decoding means for decoding the contents of the digital signal from the adding means. 3. A transmitting / receiving device comprising the transmitting device according to claim 1 and the receiving device according to claim 2. 4. The transmission device according to claim 1, wherein the transmission device is incorporated in a gas appliance. 5. The receiving device according to claim 2, wherein the receiving device is incorporated in a gas meter. 6. The transmitting device according to claim 1, wherein the transmitting device has an ultrasonic transmitter for transmitting an ultrasonic wave into the gas pipe. 7. The receiving device according to claim 2, wherein the receiving device has an ultrasonic detector for detecting an ultrasonic wave in the gas pipe.