JP5221272B2 - Information collection device - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to an information collection apparatus, and more particularly, to a collection unit that collects predetermined collection data, and the collection data that has already been compressed in accordance with collection of new collection data by the collection unit. Compression means for performing a first compression process for compressing the collected data to which the data is added, and transmission means for wirelessly transmitting the collected data compressed by the compression means to the roadside device in response to the roadside device entering the communication area; The present invention relates to an information collecting apparatus comprising:

  Business vehicles such as freight transport trucks and taxis are equipped with information collection devices for operation management. The information collection device collects predetermined collection data such as daily business report data generated according to the operation status of the vehicle and records it in a recording medium such as a memory card. Conventionally, delivery of the collected data to the office PC has been performed according to the following procedure. First, the driver operates an end button provided on the information collecting apparatus. In response to this operation, the information collection device adds the collected data to the end of the collected data. Thereafter, the driver removes the memory card from the information collecting device, brings it into the office, and connects it to the PC.

  However, in this method, since the memory card is inserted and removed every time, the connection portion of the memory card is severely deteriorated, which shortens the life of the information collecting apparatus. There are also problems such as driver error and forgetting to remove the memory card. Therefore, for example, a roadside device capable of wireless communication with the information collecting device is provided at the entrance of the office, and the collected data is collected by wireless communication while the vehicle equipped with the information collecting device is communicating in the communication area of the roadside device. It is considered to be transferred to. However, if the amount of data in the memory card is large, a corresponding communication time is required, and during that time, it is necessary to stay in the communication area and wait for the communication to be completed.

  Therefore, in order to shorten the communication time, an information collecting apparatus that performs an operation as shown in FIG. 8 has been proposed. When the information collection device enters the communication area with the roadside device, the information collection device compresses the collected data 1 to n collected so far and transmits the compressed collected data. However, this information collection device cannot transmit the collected data while compressing the collected data, so it still has a long time to stay in the communication area and is inefficient.

  Therefore, an information collecting apparatus that performs the operations as shown in FIGS. 9 and 10 has been proposed. The information collection device shown in FIG. 9 performs compression and transmission to a roadside device each time new collection data is collected (Patent Document 1). However, this information collection device can be used only in a system that can periodically communicate with a roadside device, and cannot be used in a system in which the roadside device is provided only at one location at the entrance of an office.

In addition, the information collection apparatus illustrated in FIG. 10 performs compression every time new collection data is collected. By the way, in a system such as an information collecting apparatus, collected data is periodically generated. For this reason, if the time from the generation of the collected data to the start of communication between the information collecting apparatus and the roadside device is short, the collected data may not be compressed in time. In this case, conventionally, the collected data is transmitted to the roadside device after waiting for the compression of the collected data to be completed. However, when the data size increases, for example, with collected data of about 3 Mbytes, it takes several seconds to compress even if a high-speed method such as a Huffman code is used and a high-speed processor with a processing speed of 3 GHz is used. However, the conventional method of waiting for the completion of compression has a problem that a considerable waiting time is required.
JP 2001-44920 A

  Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide an information collecting apparatus that can eliminate the compression waiting time of collected data during communication with a roadside device and can shorten the communication time with the roadside device.

  In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the invention according to claim 1 is directed to collecting means for collecting predetermined collected data, and collecting data that has already been compressed in accordance with collection of new collected data by the collecting means. Compressing means for performing a first compression process for compressing the collected data to which the new collected data is added, and the collected data compressed by the compressing means for the roadside unit when the roadside unit enters the communication area. And transmitting means for transmitting the new collected data when the transmitting means enters the communication area of the roadside device while the first compressing process is being performed by the compressing means. In the information collecting apparatus, the new collected data is wirelessly transmitted after wirelessly transmitting the already-compressed collected data before adding the data.

  According to a second aspect of the present invention, when the compression means enters the communication area of the roadside device during the first compression process, the first compression process is terminated and the compression is already completed by the transmission means. During wireless transmission of the collected data, a second compression process is performed to compress the new collected data, and the transmission unit performs the first compression process while the first compression process is being performed by the compression unit. Wireless transmission of the new collected data compressed by the second compression processing after wireless transmission of the already compressed compressed data before adding the new collected data The information collecting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein:

According to a third aspect of the present invention, the collecting means stores the new collected data in a collected data memory, and the compressing means stores the new collected data when the new collected data is stored in the collected data memory. The first compression processing for compressing the collected data obtained by adding the copied new collected data to the collected data stored in the compressed data memory after the data is copied to the compressed data memory When the first compression process ends, the collected data stored in the data memory being compressed is copied to the compressed data memory, and the transmission means performs the first compression process by the compression means. If the vehicle enters the communication area of the roadside device while it is being performed, the collected data stored in the compressed data memory is transmitted and then the collected data It lies in the information collecting device according to claim 1, characterized in that transmitting the collected data of the new stored in data memory.

  As described above, according to the first aspect of the present invention, when the transmission unit enters the communication area of the roadside device while the first compression process is being performed by the compression unit, it is necessary to add new collected data. Since the collected data that has already been compressed is transmitted wirelessly and then the new collected data is wirelessly transmitted, there is no compression waiting time for the collected data during communication with the roadside device, and the communication time with the roadside device can be shortened. it can.

  According to the second aspect of the present invention, when the transmission unit enters the communication area of the roadside device while the first compression process is being performed by the compression unit, the compression before adding new collected data is already completed. Since the new collected data compressed by the second compression process is wirelessly transmitted after the collected data is wirelessly transmitted, the communication time with the roadside device can be further shortened.

  According to the third aspect of the present invention, when the first compression process is performed by the compression unit with a simple configuration, when the vehicle enters the communication area of the roadside device, the compression before adding new collected data is already performed. Completed collected data can be transmitted wirelessly.

First Embodiment Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing an embodiment of a communication system incorporating an information collection device 2 of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram of the information collecting apparatus 2 shown in FIG. FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram of the CPU 22A in the information collecting apparatus 2 shown in FIG. FIG. 4 is a block diagram of the roadside device 4 shown in FIG.

  As shown in FIG. 1, the communication system includes an information collection device 2 mounted on a taxi vehicle 1 and a roadside device 4 installed in an office 3 that manages the taxi vehicle 1. . First, the configuration of the information collecting apparatus 2 will be described with reference to FIG. The information collection device 2 includes a vehicle-mounted antenna AT 1, a wireless device 21, a microcomputer (μCOM) 22, and an interface (I / F) 23.

  The in-vehicle antenna AT1 is an antenna mounted on the taxi vehicle 1. The radio device 21 is a device for performing DSRC (Dedicated Shor Range Communication) with the roadside device 4 (to be described later) using the in-vehicle antenna AT1 to receive and transmit data. The radio device 21 has a modulation / demodulation circuit that demodulates and outputs the data received by the vehicle-mounted antenna AT1 to the μCOM 22 or modulates transmission data output from the μCOM 22 and outputs the data to the vehicle-mounted antenna AT1.

  The μCOM 22 is used in various processing steps in the central processing unit (CPU) 22A that performs various processes according to the processing program, a ROM 22B that is a read-only memory storing a program for processing performed by the CPU 22A, and the like. RAM 22C which is a readable / writable memory having a work area, a data storage area for storing various data, and the like. The I / F 23 is an interface circuit for the CPU 22 </ b> A in the μCOM 22 to communicate with the taximeter 5.

  Next, a functional configuration of the CPU 22A of the information collecting apparatus 2 described above will be described with reference to FIG. The CPU 22A includes a collection unit 22A1 as a collection unit, a compression processing unit 22A2 as a compression unit, and a communication data control unit 22A3 as a transmission unit.

  The collection unit 22A1 collects collected data corresponding to daily report data such as the renting time and fee of the taxi vehicle 1 from the taximeter 5, and stores the collected data in the collected data memory 22C1 provided in the RAM 22C. When the collection unit 22A1 stores new collection data in the collection data memory 22C1, the compression processing unit 22A2 copies the new collection data to the compression data buffer 22C2 as a compression data memory provided in the RAM 22C. . It should be noted that the collected data collected so far that has already been compressed is recorded in the in-compression data buffer 22C2. Therefore, the compressed data buffer 22C2 stores collected data that has already been compressed and new copied data that has been copied.

  In addition, the compression processing unit 22A2 performs first dynamic compression on the collected data obtained by adding the new collected data copied to the collected data stored in the compressing data buffer 22C2 and already compressed. Execute.

  The dynamic compression is a method in which, when new collected data is generated, the code tree is updated every time a code constituting the new collected data is read, and compression is performed using the code tree at that time. For example, the month, day, hour, and minute of the business time information are recorded as 1-byte data, and the fee is defined as a 2-byte data format. At this time, if the charge is 1000 yen at 10:10 on October 10, the collected data will be 10,10,10,10,10,00. In dynamic compression, codes “10”, “10”, “10”, “10”, “10”, “00” that make up this collected data are read in order, and a code tree is read each time one code is read. Update and compress using the current code tree. Since the code tree is updated every time a code constituting new collection data is read in this way, the compression process can be performed while reading the collection data. As such a dynamic compression method, dynamic Huffman coding or adaptive Huffman coding may be considered.

  Compression is to reduce the amount of information (entropy) by utilizing data redundancy and bias. A famous compression method is the Huffman coding method. In this method, the data having the highest appearance frequency is given a short code, and the data having the lowest appearance frequency is given a long code, so that the overall average code length is shortened to perform compression. That is, as defined by compression, a higher compression rate can be obtained if there is a bias in the data to be compressed, and the compression rate is lower if there is not much bias. Furthermore, if there is no bias, no compression effect can be obtained.

  As a simple example, not a Huffman code, but a compression method that shows data continuity is shown. As described above, the month, day, hour, and minute of the business time information are recorded as 1-byte data, and the fee is defined as a 1-byte data format with two digits. At this time, if the charge is 1000 yen at 10:10 on October 10, the collected data will be 10,10,10,10,10,00. In this case, the collected data after compression can be expressed by 4 bytes of 10,5,00,1. Next, if it was 2000 yen at 10:20 on October 10, the collected data would be 10, 10, 10, 20, 20, 00. In this case, the collected data after compression is represented by 6 bytes of 10, 3, 20, 2, 00, 1. As in these two examples, even in the same data series, not only the compression rate greatly changes depending on the content but also the compression may not be possible like the second data.

  The compressed data buffer 22C2 stores collected data during the first compression process. Further, when the first compression process is completed, the compression processing unit 22A2 deletes the new collected data that has been compressed and stored in the collected data memory 22C1, and the collected data that has been stored in the compressing data buffer 22C2 has been completed. Is overwritten and copied to the compressed data memory 22C3. As is apparent from the above, while the compression processing unit 22A2 is executing the first compression processing, new collection data that has not been compressed is stored in the collection data memory 22C1, and the data buffer 22c2 being compressed is stored. Is stored in the first compression process, and the compressed data memory 22C3 stores the collected data that has already been compressed before the new collection data is added.

  When the first compression processing is not performed by the compression processing unit 22A2, the communication data control unit 22A3 enters the communication area 7 of the roadside device 4 and the wireless device 21 communicates with the roadside device 4. When started, the collected data stored in the compressed data memory 22C3 and already compressed is output to the wireless device 21 and wirelessly transmitted. Further, the communication data control unit 22A3 causes the taxi vehicle 1 to enter the communication area 7 of the roadside device 4 while the first compression processing is performed by the compression processing unit 22A2, and the wireless device 21 communicates with the roadside device 4. Is started, the collected data stored in the compressed data memory 22C3 and already compressed is output to the wireless device 21 and wirelessly transmitted, and then the new collected data stored in the new data memory 22C1 is wirelessly transmitted. Output to the device 21 and wirelessly transmitted.

  Next, the configuration of the roadside device 4 will be described with reference to FIG. The roadside unit 4 includes a roadside antenna AT2, a radio unit 41, a μCOM 42, and an I / F 43. The roadside antenna AT2 is an antenna that forms a communication area 7 at the entrance 6 of the office 3, as shown in FIG. The taxi vehicle 1 entering the office 3 always passes through the communication area 7. The wireless device 41 is a device for performing DSRC with the information collecting device 2 using the roadside antenna AT2 to receive and transmit data. The radio 41 has a modulation / demodulation circuit that demodulates and outputs the data received by the roadside antenna AT2 to the μCOM 42, or modulates transmission data output from the μCOM 42 and outputs the modulated data to the roadside antenna AT2.

  The μCOM 42 stores a CPU 42A that performs various types of processing according to a processing program, a ROM 42B that is a read-only memory that stores a program for processing performed by the CPU 42A, a work area that is used in various types of processing in the CPU 42A, and various types of data. RAM 42C which is a readable / writable memory having a data storage area and the like. The I / F 43 is an interface circuit for the CPU 42 </ b> A in the μCOM 42 to communicate with the management device 8 configured from a PC (personal computer) on the office 3 side. The management device 8 outputs the transferred collected data from an output terminal 9 such as a printer.

  The operation of the communication system configured as described above will be described below with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 5 and the time chart of FIG. First, when the ignition of the taxi vehicle 1 is turned on, the CPU 22A starts the process shown in FIG. Thereafter, taxi vehicle 1 leaves office 3 from the exit of office 3 and starts business. The CPU 22A determines that it has not entered the communication area 7 because it cannot receive the radio wave transmitted from the roadside device 4 during business (N in Step S1), and Steps S7 to S12 are repeated.

  Specifically, when new collected data such as renting time and fee is generated in the taximeter 5 (Y in step S7), the CPU 22A stores the new collected data in the collected data memory 22C1 (step S8). As is clear from the above, the CPU 22A functions as a collecting means in steps S7 and S8. Thereafter, the CPU 22A copies the new collected data stored in the collected data memory 22C1 into the compressing data buffer 22C2 (step S9). Next, the CPU 22A starts the first compression process described above (step S10), and then proceeds to step S11. In response to the start of the first compression process in step S10, the CPU 22A executes the first compression process described above in parallel with the process shown in FIG.

  On the other hand, if no new collected data has been generated (N in step S7), the CPU 22A immediately proceeds to step S11. In step S11, the CPU 22A determines whether or not the first compression process is being executed. If the first compression process is not being executed (N in step S11), the CPU 22A determines whether or not the operation of step S13, which will be described later, has been executed after the completion of the first compression process (step S11). S12).

  If the operation of step S13, which will be described later, has not been executed after the completion of the first compression process (N in step S12), the CPU 22A stores the new collected data stored in the collected data memory 22C1 and having been compressed. After erasing and overwriting the compressed collected data stored in the compressing data buffer 22C2 in the compressed data memory 22C3 (step S13), the process returns to step S11. On the other hand, if the operation of step S13, which will be described later, is performed after the first compression process is completed (Y in step S12), the CPU 22A immediately returns to step S1. As is apparent from the above, in steps 9 to S13, the CPU 22A functions as a compression unit.

  Thereafter, when the taxi vehicle 1 finishes business and enters the entrance 6 in the office 3, the information processing device 2 receives radio waves from the roadside device 4. In response to this, the CPU 22A determines that communication has started by entering the communication area 7 (Y in step S1), and determines whether or not the first compression process described above is being executed (step S2). ). If the first compression processing is not executed (N in step S2), the CPU 22A outputs and transmits the collected data stored in the data data 22C3 during compression to the wireless device 21 (step S6). The process ends.

  On the other hand, if the first compression process is being executed (Y in step S2), the CPU 22A immediately stops the first compression process being performed in parallel (step S3). In response to the compression stop, the CPU 22A ends the first compression process. Thereafter, the CPU 22A outputs and transmits the collected data stored in the compressing data memory 22C3 to the wireless device 21 (step S4), and then outputs the collected data stored in the collected data memory 22C1. After the transmission (step S5), the process is terminated. As is clear from the above, in steps S1 to S6, the CPU 22A functions as a transmission unit.

  With the above operation, the information collection device 2 performs compression each time new collection data is collected, as shown in FIG. When communication with the roadside device 4 is started during compression, the collected data memory after wirelessly transmitting the collected data that has already been compressed before adding the new collected data stored in the compressed data memory 22C3. The new collection data stored in 22C1 is transmitted. Thereby, the compression waiting time of the collected data during communication with the roadside device 4 is eliminated, and the communication time with the roadside device 4 can be shortened.

  Further, according to the information collecting apparatus 2 described above, the CPU 22A stores new collected data in the new collected data memory 22C1. Further, when new collected data is stored in the newly collected data memory 22C1, the CPU 22A performs the first compression process after copying the new collected data to the compressing data buffer 22C2, and then compresses when the first compression process ends. The collected data stored in the middle data buffer 22C2 is copied to the compressed data memory 22C3. Then, when entering the communication area 7 of the roadside device 4 while the first compression processing is being performed, the collected data stored in the compressed data memory 22C3 is transmitted and then the new data stored in the collected data memory 22C1 is transmitted. Send collected data. Therefore, when entering the communication area 7 of the roadside device 4 while the first compression processing is being performed with a simple configuration, the collected data that has already been compressed before adding new collected data is wirelessly transmitted. be able to.

Second Embodiment Next, a second embodiment will be described. In the first embodiment, collected data is collected by dynamic compression, but in the second embodiment, collected data is compressed by static compression. The configuration of the information collection device 2 of the second embodiment is the same as the configuration of the information collection device 2 already described in the first embodiment with reference to FIGS. 1 and 4, and thus detailed description thereof is omitted here.

  Next, the static compression will be described. Static compression is a method in which when new collected data is generated, all new collected data is read to create a code tree, and then compressed using the created code tree. For example, the month, day, hour, and minute of the business time information are recorded as 1-byte data, and the fee is defined as a 2-byte data format. At this time, if the charge is 1000 yen at 10:10 on October 10, the collected data will be 10,10,10,10,10,00. In the dynamic compression, all the collected data “10,10,10,10,10,00” is read, a code tree is created, and compression is performed using the code tree at that time. Since the code tree is created after reading all the collected data in this way, the static compression cannot simultaneously read the collected data and perform compression processing.

  Next, the operation of the communication system in the second embodiment will be described below with reference to the flowchart of FIG. In the figure, operations equivalent to those already described in the first embodiment described above with reference to FIG. 5 are denoted by the same reference numerals, and detailed description thereof is omitted. First, when the ignition of the taxi vehicle 1 is turned on, the CPU 22A starts the process shown in FIG. Thereafter, taxi vehicle 1 leaves office 3 from the exit of office 3 and starts business. Since steps S1 to S6 are the same as those in the first embodiment described above, detailed description thereof is omitted here.

  When new collected data such as renting time or fee is generated in the taximeter 5 (Y in step S7), the CPU 22A stores the new collected data in the collected data memory 22C1 (step S8). Thereafter, the CPU 22A determines whether or not the first compression process described above is being executed (step S14). If the first compression process is not being executed (N in step S14), the CPU 22A copies the new collection data stored in the collection data memory 22C1 into the compression data buffer 22C2 (step S9). Next, after starting the first compression process described above (step S10), the CPU 22A proceeds to steps S11 to S13. Since S11 to S13 are the same as those in the first embodiment described above, detailed description thereof is omitted here.

  On the other hand, if the first compression process is being executed (Y in step S14), the process immediately returns to step S1 without copying the newly collected data to the data buffer 22C2 during compression. Then, the first compression process being executed is completed, and the process proceeds to step S13, where the CPU 22A erases the newly collected compressed data stored in the collected data memory 22C1 and stores it in the compressed data buffer 22C2. After the stored compressed collected data is overwritten in the compressed data memory 22C3, it is checked whether there is any uncollected collected data remaining in the collected data memory 22C1 (step S15).

  If the collected data remains (Y in step S15), the CPU 22A proceeds to step S9 to copy the remaining collected data into the compressing data buffer 22C2, and proceeds to step S10 to start the first compression process. On the other hand, if collected data does not remain (N in step S15), the CPU 22A returns to step S1. In the first embodiment, new collection data is copied to the compressing data buffer 22C2 every time collection data is generated. However, in the second embodiment, the first compression processing is being executed even if collection data is generated. If this is the case, after the first compression processing is completed, copying to the data buffer 22C2 during compression is performed, and the first compression processing is performed again. Therefore, the operation is applied to static compression in which the acquisition and compression of collected data cannot be performed at the same time.

  In the first and second embodiments described above, new collected data is wirelessly transmitted to the roadside device 4 without being compressed, but the present invention is not limited to this. For example, after the first compression process is stopped in step S3, a second compression process for compressing only newly collected data may be performed. If the new collected data subjected to the second compression processing is stored in the collected data memory 22C1, the compressed new collected data can be wirelessly transmitted to the roadside device 4. Since the second compression process can be performed while transmission of collected data that has already been compressed, the communication time can be further shortened.

  Further, the above-described embodiments are merely representative forms of the present invention, and the present invention is not limited to the embodiments. That is, various modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the present invention.

It is a block diagram which shows one Embodiment of the communication system incorporating the information collection apparatus of this invention. It is a block diagram of the information collection device shown in FIG. FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram of a CPU in the information collecting apparatus shown in FIG. 2. It is a block diagram of the roadside device shown in FIG. It is a flowchart which shows the process sequence of CPU in the information collection apparatus shown in FIG. It is a time chart for demonstrating operation | movement of the information collection apparatus shown in FIG. It is a flowchart which shows the compression processing procedure of CPU in the information collection apparatus shown in FIG. 1 in 2nd Embodiment. It is a time chart for demonstrating operation | movement of the conventional information collection apparatus. It is a time chart for demonstrating operation | movement of the conventional information collection apparatus. It is a time chart for demonstrating operation | movement of the conventional information collection apparatus.

Explanation of symbols

2 Information collection device 4 Roadside device 7 Communication area 22A CPU (collection means, compression means, transmission means)
22A1 Collection unit (collection means)
22A2 compression processing unit (compression means)
22A3 communication data control unit (transmission means)
22C1 Collected data memory 22C2 Data buffer during compression (Data memory during compression)
22C3 compressed data memory

Claims (3)

Collection means for collecting predetermined collection data, and first compression processing for compressing collection data obtained by adding the new collection data to collection data that has already been compressed in accordance with collection of new collection data by the collection means In an information collecting apparatus comprising: compression means for performing transmission; and transmission means for wirelessly transmitting collected data compressed by the compression means to the roadside unit in response to the roadside unit entering the communication area.
When the transmission means enters the communication area of the roadside unit while the first compression processing is being performed by the compression means, the collected data that has already been compressed before adding the new collected data is displayed. An information collection device, wherein the new collection data is wirelessly transmitted after wireless transmission. When the compression means enters the communication area of the roadside device during the first compression process, the first compression process is terminated, and the transmission means wirelessly transmits the collected data that has already been compressed. A second compression process for compressing the new collected data,
When the transmission means enters the communication area of the roadside device while the first compression processing is being performed by the compression means, the collection data that has already been compressed before the new collection data is added. The information collection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein after the wireless transmission is performed, the new collection data compressed by the second compression process is wirelessly transmitted. The collecting means stores the new collected data in a collected data memory;
When the new collected data is stored in the collected data memory, the compression unit copies the new collected data to the compressing data memory and then completes the compression already stored in the compressing data memory. The collected data obtained by adding the copied new collected data to the collected data is compressed, and after the first compression process is completed, the compression stored in the data memory during compression is completed. Copy data to compressed data memory,
If the transmission means enters the communication area of the roadside device while the first compression processing is being performed by the compression means, the collected data is transmitted after transmitting the collected data stored in the compressed data memory. The information collection apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the new collection data stored in a memory is transmitted.

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