JP7806487B2 - Monitoring system - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a monitoring system, and in particular to measures to prevent heatstroke within homes.

Heatstroke occurs when the body's thermoregulation function does not work properly in high-temperature and high-humidity environments, causing heat to build up inside the body. This type of heatstroke can also occur inside homes. In this regard, the heatstroke warning system for dwelling residents disclosed in Patent Document 1 below calculates the WBGT (Wet Bulb Globe Temperature), a heat index, based on the detection results of temperature detection devices in the dwelling's rooms when the detection results of the dwelling's presence detection device indicate that the resident is present, and sends a message to a dwelling monitoring device or the like if the WBGT remains above a threshold for a predetermined period of time.

JP 2016-66198 A

However, home occupants may include people who are particularly susceptible to heatstroke, such as small children or the elderly, and it is desirable to provide these residents with early warning that they are in a situation where heatstroke may occur.

The present invention was made in consideration of the above-mentioned problems, and its purpose is to provide a monitoring system that can issue warnings about heatstroke at appropriate times depending on the attributes of the residents in the home.

To solve the above problem, the monitoring system of the present invention includes an index acquisition means for acquiring an index related to at least one of the temperature and humidity in each of multiple rooms in a house; a resident attribute acquisition means for acquiring resident attributes associated with each room; and a determination means for determining whether or not there is a risk of heatstroke in a room based on the index related to each room acquired by the index acquisition means and criteria corresponding to the resident attributes associated with that room acquired by the resident attribute acquisition means.

Here, the occupant attribute acquisition means may acquire multiple occupant attributes associated with each room. The determination means may determine whether or not there is a risk of heatstroke in the room based on the indicators for each room acquired by the indicator acquisition means and the strictest criteria among the criteria corresponding to each of the multiple occupant attributes associated with the room acquired by the occupant attribute acquisition means.

The determination means may determine that there is a risk of heatstroke if the indicator for each room acquired by the indicator acquisition means remains above a threshold value for a predetermined reference time. The criteria corresponding to the occupant attributes may indicate the predetermined reference time having a length corresponding to the occupant attributes.

The system may further include an at-home occupant determination means for determining which of the occupants of the residence are currently at home. The determination means may determine whether there is a risk of heatstroke in the room based on the indicators for each room acquired by the indicator acquisition means and criteria corresponding to the occupant attributes associated with the room and related to the occupant acquired by the occupant attribute acquisition means.

The system may also include means for transmitting information indicating the risk of heatstroke in each room to a display device.

According to the present invention, heatstroke warnings can be issued at appropriate times depending on the attributes of the residents in the home.

1 is a system configuration diagram of a monitoring system according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the arrangement of sensors in a house. FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an example of room information. FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an example of resident information. FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an example of reference information. FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing the processing of the monitoring unit.

Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

Figure 1 is a system configuration diagram of a monitoring system according to an embodiment of the present invention. Figure 2 is a diagram showing an example floor plan of a house to which a monitoring system according to an embodiment of the present invention is applied. As shown in Figure 2, environmental sensors 001a to 008a are installed in rooms 001 to 008 of the house. The environmental sensors 001a to 008a may be installed on the ceilings or walls of rooms 001 to 008. In the example shown in the figure, a home server 200 is also installed in room 004, which is the kitchen.

The home server 200 is a computer including a CPU, memory, display, and I/O interface. The home server 200 is connected to an external center server 202 via a communication network 201 such as the Internet. Each of the environmental sensors 001a-008a has a built-in temperature sensor and humidity sensor, and periodically transmits temperature and humidity data to the home server 200 via the in-home wiring (not shown), for example, every 30 seconds.

A camera 100 capable of capturing video is installed at the entrance of the house, capturing images of the faces of residents entering and leaving the house. Video data generated by camera 100, or still image data showing the faces of residents extracted from the video data, is transmitted to home server 200 via in-house wiring (not shown). A speaker 101 is also installed in the house, and is connected to home server 200 via in-house wiring (not shown). Speaker 101 outputs audio transmitted from home server 200. In this embodiment, if there is a risk of heatstroke, a warning sound or audio warning is output from speaker 101.

By executing the computer program according to this embodiment, the home server 200 functionally realizes a monitoring unit 200a, a WBGT memory unit 200b, a room information memory unit 200c, a resident information memory unit 200d, a reference memory unit 200e, and an at-home determination unit 200f.

The room information storage unit 200c stores information (room information) related to each of rooms 001 to 008. Figure 3 shows an example of room information stored in the room information storage unit 200c. As shown in the figure, the room information storage unit 200c associates the identification information (ID) of each room, the room's type (for example, private room, kitchen, bathroom, dressing room, or living room), and the identification information (resident ID) of one or more residents who often spend time in that room, and stores these as room information.

The resident information storage unit 200d stores information (resident information) about each resident of the home. Figure 4 is a diagram showing an example of resident information stored in the resident information storage unit 200d. As shown in the figure, the resident information storage unit 200d associates each resident's resident ID, the resident's attributes (here, age), and a flag indicating whether the resident is present in the home (at-home flag) and stores these as resident information.

The reference storage unit 200e stores heatstroke risk assessment criteria corresponding to resident attributes (age). Figure 5 shows an example of the reference information stored in the reference storage unit 200e. As shown in the figure, the reference storage unit 200e stores reference times as reference information indicating the criteria for determining heatstroke risk, corresponding to the range of resident attributes. That is, the monitoring unit 200a determines that there is a risk of heatstroke when the WBGT remains at or above a threshold (e.g., 25) for a reference time period or longer. This reference time differs for each resident attribute (age). For example, as shown in Figure 5, the reference time is set to 2 minutes for ages 0 to 12; 10 minutes for ages 13 to 55; 5 minutes for ages 56 to 65; and 2 minutes for ages 66 or older. That is, the reference time is set shorter, especially for elderly people and young children, so that the risk of heatstroke is assessed earlier.

The at-home determination unit 200f identifies the resident currently in the home based on the video data transmitted from the front door camera 100 or the sequentially transmitted still image data. For example, a machine learning model is used to determine the identity of the resident entering through the front door, and similarly, a machine learning model is used to determine the identity of the resident leaving through the front door. The determination result is stored as an at-home flag in the resident information storage unit 200. That is, if it is determined that a resident has entered through the front door, the at-home flag associated with the resident ID of that resident is changed from 0 to 1. Similarly, if it is determined that a resident has left through the front door, the at-home flag associated with the resident ID of that resident is changed from 1 to 0. Note that the at-home determination unit 200f may identify the resident currently in the home using other methods. For example, each resident may carry an RFID tag, and the ID stored in the RFID tag may be read by an RFID reader installed at the front door. Residents entering and leaving the front door can also be identified in this way.

Figure 6 is a flow diagram showing the processing of the monitoring unit 200a. The processing shown in this figure is executed at predetermined time intervals. As shown in this figure, the monitoring unit 200a first sequentially acquires an index related to at least one of temperature and humidity for each of rooms 001 to 008 (S101). For example, the monitoring unit 200a may hold a table describing the relationship between temperature, humidity, and WBGT, and sequentially acquire WBGT values corresponding to the temperature and humidity sequentially transmitted from sensors 001a to 008a from this table as the index. Alternatively, a simple index related to heatstroke risk may be calculated from temperature alone. The monitoring unit 200a stores the WBGT for each room calculated in this way in the WBGT storage unit 200b (S102).

Next, the monitoring unit 200a obtains the reference time corresponding to each room (S103). Specifically, it accesses the room information storage unit 200c and reads out the resident ID associated with each room. It then accesses the resident information storage unit 200d and reads out the resident attributes associated with each resident ID read out from the room information storage unit 200c. At this time, it is sufficient to read out only the resident attributes associated with resident IDs whose at-home flag is 1. This makes it possible to determine the risk of heatstroke based only on those people currently in the home.

The monitoring unit 200a then accesses the reference memory unit 200e and reads out the reference time corresponding to the resident attributes read out from the resident information memory unit 200d. In this way, one or more reference times corresponding to each room are obtained.

Next, the monitoring unit 200a selects the shortest reference time from the reference times obtained in S103 for each room (S104). In other words, if multiple resident IDs are associated with one room in the room information, multiple reference times corresponding to that room may be obtained. In this case, the strictest standard, i.e., the shortest reference time, is selected as the standard for that room.

Then, the monitoring unit 200a determines whether there is a risk of heat stroke in each room based on the time series of WBGT for each room stored in the WBGT storage unit 200b (S105). Specifically, it checks whether there are any rooms where the WBGT value is above the threshold for at least the reference time selected in S104.

If such a room is found, the monitoring unit 200a outputs a warning sound or audio from the speaker 101. At this time, a message indicating the occurrence of a risk of heatstroke or other information indicating the risk of heatstroke may be sent to a center server 202 installed at a remote medical facility or the like. Alternatively, a similar message or other information indicating the risk of heatstroke may be sent to a display device such as a housemate's smartphone (not shown). In this case, the transmitted information may include information about the room where the risk of heatstroke has occurred and information about the resident associated with that room in the room information. The transmitted information may selectively include only the resident associated with the room who has the shortest corresponding reference time.

The monitoring system described above is equipped with a room information storage unit 200c, a resident information storage unit 200d, and a reference storage unit 200e, and can determine whether or not there is a risk of heatstroke in each room based on the age of the resident who is or is often present in that room, thereby issuing a heatstroke warning at the appropriate time.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment, and various modifications are possible. For example, while age was used as a resident attribute in the above explanation, other attributes of each resident that may affect the risk of heatstroke may also be used. For example, weight or obesity level may also be used.

001a to 008a Environmental sensors, 100 Entrance camera, 101 Speaker, 200 Home server, 200a Monitoring unit, 200b WBGT memory unit, 200c Room information memory unit, 200d Resident information memory unit, 200e Reference memory unit, 200f At-home determination unit, 201 Communication network, 202 Center server.

Claims (4)

an index acquisition means for acquiring an index related to at least one of temperature and humidity in each of a plurality of rooms in the house;
an occupant attribute acquisition means for acquiring an occupant attribute associated with each room;
a determination means for determining whether or not there is a risk of heat stroke in the room based on the indicators related to each room acquired by the indicator acquisition means and criteria corresponding to occupant attributes associated with the room acquired by the occupant attribute acquisition means; and
and an at-home person determination means for determining who is currently at home among the residents of the home,
The determination means determines whether or not there is a risk of heat stroke in the room based on the indicators related to each room acquired by the indicator acquisition means and criteria corresponding to resident attributes related to the resident at home among resident attributes associated with the room acquired by the resident attribute acquisition means.
Monitoring system. The monitoring system according to claim 1,
the occupant attribute acquisition means acquires a plurality of occupant attributes associated with each of the rooms;
The determination means determines whether or not there is a risk of heat stroke in the room based on the index related to each room acquired by the index acquisition means and the strictest standard among standards corresponding to each of the plurality of occupant attributes associated with the room acquired by the occupant attribute acquisition means.
Monitoring system. The monitoring system according to claim 1 or 2,
The determination means determines that there is a risk of heat stroke when a state in which the index related to each room acquired by the index acquisition means is equal to or greater than a threshold continues for a predetermined reference time, and
the standard corresponding to the resident attribute indicates the predetermined standard time having a length according to the resident attribute;
Monitoring system. The monitoring system according to any one of claims 1 to 3 ,
The monitoring system further includes a means for transmitting information indicating the risk of heatstroke in each room to a display device.