JP3299146B2 - Data collection device for contactless card - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a central device that manages contactless cards, such as entry / exit data stored in a contactless card used in a contactless automatic ticket gate. The present invention relates to a contactless card data collection device that can be collected.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a non-contact type card (hereinafter, referred to as an IC card) having a wireless communication function has been used to transfer a ticket such as a commuter pass.
"Card") and the automatic ticket gate as a non-contact type automatic ticket gate that can communicate with the card, and the non-contact type automatic ticket gate itself (hereinafter referred to as "body") and the card in non-contact It has been proposed that data is exchanged and automatic ticket inspection is performed (for example, JP-A-1-246687).

A contactless automatic ticket gate can provide the convenience of allowing a user to enter and exit a commuter pass without having to insert and remove a commuter pass, and the card has a larger storage capacity than a magnetic ticket. Another advantage is that stored fair card (SF card) data can be easily stored in addition to commuter pass data.

[0004] When the card is provided with the function of an SF card, it can be boarded outside the commuter pass section of the commuter pass.
It is possible to widen the range of use of the card, such as being able to purchase a product at a store at a station or the like.

[0005]

As described above, a card has many features as compared with a magnetic ticket. However, if the history of use of the card is not known, the card may be lost or damaged. It may be inconvenient.

For example, when a card is damaged and the card is to be reissued, there is a disadvantage that the card cannot be reissued if the remaining period or the remaining amount at the time of damage is unknown.

In order to prevent such inconvenience, it is conceivable that every time the card communicates with the main body, the use data of the card is taken into the host computer of the central unit and managed. If the use data of the card is transmitted to the central device, the ticket processing time is inevitably lengthened, and in particular, a new problem of congestion of the ticket gate during rush hour occurs.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned drawbacks, and has as its object to provide a card data collecting apparatus capable of effectively collecting card use history data on a central device side. Is to provide.

[0009]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to achieve the above object, a card data collecting apparatus according to the present invention has a communication line usage rate between a main unit and a central unit for managing cards used in the main unit. Detecting means for detecting, and when the main body and the card are communicated, and when the usage rate of the communication line is equal to or less than a predetermined value, the usage history data such as entrance / exit data stored in the card is used as the Control means for transmitting to the central device and clearing the use history data stored in the card.

[0010]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a card data collection device according to an embodiment. The main body G has a door 1 for opening and closing the ticket gate P on a side surface of the housing H, and a display unit 2 for displaying a passable direction to a user is provided on a front surface of the housing H. ing. In addition, a communication area 3 for transmitting and receiving data to and from a card C possessed by a user by wireless communication is provided in an upper portion of a front portion of the housing H. An antenna a connected to a transmitter described later faces the communication area 3.

S, S... Are human detectors for detecting the entry of a user into the ticket gate passage P, the exit from the ticket gate passage P, or the passage thereof. Installed. Also, on the side of the housing H,
Speaker 5 for providing predetermined voice guidance to the user
Is installed.

Reference numeral 6 denotes a controller for controlling the operation of the main body G, which is mainly composed of a microcomputer. The controller 6 is connected to a transmitter T for transmitting and receiving data to and from the card C.

The transmitter T transmits a transmission signal modulated with data such as the station name and the date of the day from the main body G to the card C via the antenna a, and transmits the reflected signal from the card C, similarly to a known non-contact automatic ticket gate. It has a function of receiving the reflected signal and demodulating the data of the boarding section and the like sent from the card C.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 7 denotes a communication control unit, which is configured to communicate between a main unit G and a central device 8 mainly composed of a host computer for managing a card C.

The usage rate of the communication line between the controller 6 and the central unit 8, that is, the degree of congestion is detected by a detector (not shown) and inputted to the controller 6. When a large station has several tens of main units G and a plurality of communication lines, such as a large station, the number of lines currently being communicated with the number of lines not communicating is determined by the ratio of the number of lines currently communicating to the number of lines not communicating. Can also be used.

Next, the card C will be described with reference to the block diagram of FIG. This card C has a receiving antenna 10a, like an IC card having a wireless communication function.
A reflection antenna 10b for generating a reflection signal by phase-modulating data transmitted from the card C to the main body G, and a reception unit 11 for processing a signal received by the reception antenna 10a
And a CPU 12 having a memory m for storing data from the main body G and for storing data (card data) for a boarding section and the like, and modulating a subcarrier from the CPU 12 with the card data to modulate the phase of the reflected signal. Therefore, a phase modulation unit 13 and a battery E as a driving power supply are provided.

The memory m stores card ID data for identifying the owner (user) of the card C, and also stores predetermined data such as commuter pass data and SF card data. I have. Also, this memory m
Is provided with a storage unit for storing entry / exit data and usage history data of the card such as the usage status of the SF card. The storage unit is configured to be able to store the data for each use.

In the card C having the above-described configuration, when power is supplied from the battery E, the receiving signal provided from the antenna a is received by the receiving antenna 10a. At 11, transmission data from the main body G is extracted and stored in the memory of the CPU 12.

The CPU 12 generates a subcarrier of, for example, 500 KHz, which is sufficiently lower than the frequency of the main carrier (for example, 2.45 GHz) when generating the transmission signal of the main body G, and multiplies the multiplication circuit (see FIG. (Not shown) and a card data (digital signal) to be sent to the main body G by a multiplication circuit (not shown) of the phase modulation unit 13.
Output to Therefore, a signal in which the subcarrier is modulated with the card data is generated from the multiplication circuit.

The generated signal is transmitted through a phase modulation circuit (not shown) of the phase modulation section 13 to the reflection antenna 10b.
Power is supplied to Therefore, when a main carrier wave transmitted in a time-division manner with the transmission signal from the antenna a of the transmitter T hits the reflection antenna 10b and is reflected, the phase is just modulated by the card data.

When the antenna a of the transmitter T receives the reflection signal reflected by the reflection antenna 10b, the reception circuit (not shown) performs detection processing, filter processing and amplification processing to extract data from the card C side. Then, the extracted card data is sent to the controller 6 of the main body G and used for the automatic ticket gate calculation processing.

Next, a control operation for transmitting the use history data stored in the memory m of the card C to the central unit will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

Now, when a user is about to enter and exit and the card C is held over the communication area 3 of the main body G,
Transfer of data between the controller 6 and the card C is started (Yes at step 100; hereinafter, the step is referred to as "S").

As described above, the ticket exchange processing using the card C is performed by the data exchange between the controller 6 and the card C, and when entry and exit are permitted in the ticket inspection processing, the entry and exit data Is the memory m of card C
(S102). When entry / exit is rejected in the above-mentioned ticket gate processing, the door 1 is closed, and at this time, entry / exit data to / from the memory m of the card C is not stored.

At the time of the ticket inspection process, if the usage rate of the communication line between the main unit G and the central unit 8 is equal to or less than a predetermined value,
If the communication line has a margin and is ready for communication immediately (Yes at S104), the usage history data stored in the memory m of the card C is stored in the memory M of the controller 6 by the I of the card C.
After being stored in association with the D data, the data is transmitted to the central device 8 via the communication control unit 7, and the card C is specified and stored in a memory (not shown) of the central device 8. Card C
If the use history data stored in the memory m is taken into the central unit 8, the use history data stored in the memory m is cleared because the card C does not need to hold the use history data ( S106, S108 affirmative, S1
10, S112). Therefore, the memory capacity for storing the usage history data of the card C can be reduced.

As described above, since the use history data of the card C is stored in the central unit 8, when the card C is lost or the card C is damaged, there is an accident.
Based on the usage history data stored in the central device 8, the card C can be reissued according to the remaining period or the remaining amount.

Further, since the usage history data of the card C is stored in the central device 8, for example, if the SF card data of the card C is illegally increased, the card C
Is inconsistent with the balance of the central unit 8,
There is an effect that an abnormal card can be effectively extracted.

Further, communication between the main body G and the central device 8 is as follows.
This is performed when the communication line is not congested, that is, when the main body G is vacant, so that congestion at the ticket gate can be prevented beforehand.

In the above-described example, the data of the card C is temporarily stored in the memory M of the control unit 6 of the main body G, and then transmitted to the central unit 8. However, the data is directly stored without being stored in the memory M. May be transmitted to the central device 8. In the above-described example, the communication with the central device 8 is performed between the main unit G. However, instead of the main unit G, a card-compatible automatic ticket vending machine, an automatic payment machine, or a station store May be performed with a card processing machine installed in the computer.

Therefore, the main body G of the present invention includes a main body of a device capable of processing a card such as the above-mentioned automatic ticket vending machine.

[0031]

According to the present invention, there is provided a card data collecting apparatus, comprising: detecting means for detecting a usage rate of a communication line between a main body and a central device for managing a card used in the main body;
The main body and the card are communicated, and, when the usage rate of the communication line is equal to or less than a predetermined value, transmitting usage history data such as entrance / exit data stored in the card to the central device, Control means for clearing the use history data stored on the card,
This is performed when the communication line is not congested, that is, when the main body is vacant, so that congestion at the ticket gate can be prevented beforehand.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a card data processing device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a controller, a transmitter and a card.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a control operation of card data acquisition.

[Explanation of symbols]

 G Body of contactless automatic ticket gate (body) a Antenna 6 Controller 7 Communication controller 8 Central device C Contactless card (card) E Battery 10a Receiving antenna 10b Reflecting antenna 11 Receiving unit 12 CPU 13 Phase modulation Part T Transmitter

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A detecting means for detecting a use rate of a communication line between a main body of a non-contact automatic ticket gate and a central device for managing a non-contact card used in the main body of the non-contact automatic ticket gate. When the body of the contactless automatic ticket gate and the contactless card are communicated and the usage rate of the communication line is equal to or less than a predetermined value, entry / exit data stored in the contactless card Control means for transmitting usage history data such as the above to the central device and clearing the usage history data stored in the non-contact type card, the data collection device for a non-contact type card.