Gas meter

Abstract

This gas meter is provided in each of a plurality of residences in demand, and is provided with: an acceleration sensor that detects acceleration; and a control device that, when the acceleration detected by the acceleration sensor becomes equal to or greater than a threshold value, transitions from a normal mode to a calculation mode in which the power consumption in the gas meter is greater than the power consumption in the normal mode, and that changes the threshold value in accordance with prescribed information.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The invention relates to a gas meter. Background Art

[0002] In the past, a seismic sensor that operates in a power saving mode and a computing mode that consumes more power than the power in the power saving mode is known (Patent Document 1). In this seismic sensor, when it is determined that an earthquake has occurred based on the acceleration measured by the acceleration measuring unit, the power saving mode is changed to a computing mode that calculates the earthquake index value based on the acceleration. On the other hand, when it is determined that no earthquake has occurred, the power saving mode is maintained. Thus, it is possible to avoid the situation where the action mode is always in the computing mode, which helps to reduce power consumption.

[0003] Prior art literature

[0004] Patent Literature

[0005] Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent No. 6666023 Summary of the invention

[0006] Problem that the invention aims to solve

[0007] However, since the gas meter is installed outdoors, it is affected by a large amount of noise caused by, for example, vibrations caused by passing cars and trains, vibrations caused by storms, and even resonance vibrations when gas flows in the gas flow path. Therefore, sometimes the change from the power saving mode to the calculation mode is repeatedly triggered by changes in acceleration due to these unexpected vibrations. As a result, the power consumption increases.

[0008] Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a gas meter capable of suppressing power consumption compared with the related art.

[0009] Solutions for solving problems

[0010] The gas meter of the present invention is installed in each of a plurality of demand residences, and the gas meter comprises: an acceleration sensor that detects acceleration; and a control device, wherein the control device switches from a normal mode to an operation mode when the acceleration detected by the acceleration sensor becomes greater than a threshold value, and the operation mode is a mode in which the power consumption in the gas meter is greater than the power consumption in the normal mode, and the control device changes the threshold value according to specified information.

[0011] According to the present invention, the above-mentioned threshold value that serves as a reference when changing from the normal mode to the operation mode is changed according to the prescribed information. In this case, when the above-mentioned prescribed information is, for example, the number of transitions (the number of transitions from the normal mode to the operation mode), the control device changes the threshold value according to the number of transitions. In this case, if the number of transitions increases, the threshold value is increased. Thus, the number of transitions from the normal mode to the operation mode can be reduced. Thus, the situation in which the normal mode is unexpectedly changed to the operation mode due to a large amount of noise caused by, for example, vibrations caused by the passage of cars or trains can be suppressed. Thus, power consumption can be suppressed compared with the past.

[0012] In the above invention, the calculation mode may be an operation mode in which the control device calculates an earthquake index value based on the acceleration.

[0013] According to the above configuration, it is difficult to switch to a calculation mode in which power consumption increases compared to the normal mode due to calculation of the earthquake index value based on acceleration.

[0014] In the above invention, the control device may acquire, as the predetermined information, a history of the number of transitions from the normal mode to the calculation mode at every predetermined time.

[0015] According to the above configuration, the threshold value can be appropriately changed based on the history of the number of transitions per predetermined time period.

[0016] Effects of the Invention

[0017] According to the present invention, it is possible to provide a gas meter capable of suppressing power consumption compared with the related art. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0018] Figure 1 This is a block diagram showing a gas management system including a gas meter according to an embodiment of the present invention.

[0019] Figure 2 It is shown Figure 1 Block diagram of the components of a gas meter in a gas management system.

[0020] Figure 3 This is a diagram showing an example of the number of transitions from the normal mode to the calculation mode for each time period of a day.

[0021] Figure 4 It shows that according to Figure 3 A diagram showing the acceleration threshold value that is changed according to the number of transitions. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0022] The following describes a gas management system according to an embodiment of the present invention with reference to the accompanying drawings. The gas management system described below is only one embodiment of the present invention. Therefore, the present invention is not limited to the following embodiments, and additions, deletions, and changes can be made without departing from the scope of the present invention.

[0023] Figure 1 1 is a block diagram showing a gas management system 100 including a gas meter 13 according to an embodiment of the present invention. Figure 2 It is shown Figure 1 1 is a block diagram of components of the gas meter 13 in the gas management system 100.

[0024] like Figure 1 As shown, the gas management system 100 includes a central server 10 and a plurality of demand residences 20. Figure 1 Although four required houses 20 are illustrated in the figure, in the earthquake safety system 100, the number of required houses 20 may be plural, and may be less than three, or may be more than five.

[0025] In each demand residence 20, for example, two gas containers 11, a switch 12, a gas meter 13, and two gas appliances 14 are provided. Examples of the demand residence 20 include hospitals, schools, government facilities, nursing facilities, ordinary households, and commercial facilities, but are not limited to these. Any building that can use gas is included in the demand residence 20.

[0026] The gas container 11 is also called a gas tank, and a gas such as LP gas (liquefied petroleum gas) is filled in the gas container 11. In the following description, LP gas is simply recorded as gas. In addition, the gas supply here illustrates a method of supplying gas from the gas container 11 to the gas equipment 14, but it can also be set as a method of supplying gas to each demand residence 20 through a conduit buried underground. The switch 12 switches the gas supply path to supply the gas in one of the two gas containers 11 to the demand residence 20. Thus, even if the gas in one of the two gas containers 11 is exhausted, the gas in the other gas container 11 can be supplied to the gas equipment 14.

[0027] The gas meter 13 measures the flow rate of the gas supplied from the gas container 11 in the demand residence 20 to the gas equipment 14. As an example, the gas meter 13 may also include an ultrasonic flow meter as a measuring unit for measuring the flow rate based on the propagation speed of ultrasonic waves in the pipeline where the gas flows. In addition, the gas meter 13 may also include a shutoff valve for shutting off the gas supply path when some abnormality is detected.

[0028] The gas meter 13 has a communication unit 13a. The communication unit 13a has a function of communicating with the central server 10 by wireless. As a wireless communication method between the communication unit 13a and the central server 10, for example, a communication network such as the Internet, LAN (Local Area Network), or LPWA (Low Power Wide Area) can be used. The communication unit 13a periodically sends information on the amount of gas used in the demand residence 20, together with information on the date of use, an ID for identifying the demand residence 20, and information on the area where the demand residence 20 is located to the central server 10. In addition, the communication unit 13a may not be built into the gas meter 13, but may be configured as an external slave device to communicate with the gas meter 13.

[0029] The gas appliance 14 is, for example, a gas stove, a gas water heater, or a gas fan heater, but is not limited thereto, and any appliance that consumes gas is included in the gas appliance 14 .

[0030] The center server 10 has a control device 1, a storage unit 4, and a communication unit 5. The control device 1 is composed of a microcontroller or an ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit), etc. The microcontroller includes a CPU (Central Processing Unit) and a memory (ROM (Read Only Memory) and RAM (Random Access Memory)) storing a program. As the storage unit 4, various memories or a hard disk can be used.

[0031] like Figure 2 As shown, the gas meter 13 includes, in addition to the above-mentioned communication unit 13a, a control device 13b having artificial intelligence 13e, an acceleration sensor 13c, a storage unit 13d storing various information, and a main body 15 as a casing.

[0032] The acceleration sensor 13c is, for example, a known sensor using a piezoelectric element, etc. The acceleration sensor 13c is provided in the main body 15. Specifically, the acceleration sensor 13c is provided in, for example, a control substrate as a printed circuit board provided in the main body 15. When vibration occurs, the acceleration sensor 13c detects accelerations on, for example, three mutually orthogonal axes, i.e., acceleration axes.

[0033] The storage unit 13d stores a threshold As related to the acceleration detected by the acceleration sensor 13c (by Figure 4(described later) In addition, the storage unit 13d stores a history of the number of transitions from the normal mode to the calculation mode at each predetermined time described later.

[0034] The control device 13b receives the acceleration detected by the acceleration sensor 13c. When the acceleration detected by the acceleration sensor 13c becomes greater than the threshold As related to the acceleration stored in the storage unit 13d, the control device 13b changes from the normal mode to the calculation mode. In other words, the normal mode is the operation mode of the control device 13b when the acceleration detected by the acceleration sensor 13c is less than the threshold As. The power consumption in such a normal mode is smaller than the power consumption in the calculation mode.

[0035] On the other hand, the operation mode is an operation mode of the control device 13b when the acceleration detected by the acceleration sensor 13c is above the threshold As, and is an operation mode including the processing of the control device 13b calculating the earthquake index value based on the acceleration. If the acceleration is above the threshold As, the control device 13b calculates the earthquake index value based on the acceleration in the operation mode. The power consumption in such an operation mode is greater than the power consumption in the normal mode. The control device 13b can calculate various values ​​that can compare the scale of the earthquake, such as the SI (Spectral Intensity) value, the intensity, magnitude, amplitude or displacement, which are commonly used to quantify the degree of damage to the building, as the earthquake index value.

[0036] The control device 13b changes the threshold As as follows. First, the control device 13b counts the number of transitions from the normal mode to the operation mode at each specified time (for example, every hour). The control device 13b stores the history of the counted number of transitions in the storage unit 13d as specified information. In this case, the number of transitions may be an average of the number of transitions at each specified time in a past specified period (for example, a week or a month), or an average of the number of transitions at each specified time on the same day of each week in the past specified period.

[0037] The control device 13b changes the threshold As using the history of the number of transitions as specified information. In this case, the control device 13b can change the threshold As through the artificial intelligence 13e using the number of transitions as input. The change of the threshold As by the artificial intelligence 13e is based on machine learning or deep learning. In addition, although it is set to change the threshold As by the artificial intelligence 13e, it is not limited to this.

[0038] The change of the threshold As will be described in detail. Figure 3 This is a diagram showing an example of the number of transitions from the normal mode to the calculation mode for each time period of a day. Figure 4 It shows that according to Figure 3 Graph showing the acceleration threshold As that is changed according to the number of transitions.

[0039] exist Figure 3 An example of the number of transitions from the normal mode to the operation mode is shown in FIG. Figure 3 In the example, the time period from 6:00 to 10:00 and the time period from 17:00 to 20:00 can overlap with the time period for commuting by car, train, etc. In the past, the number of times the acceleration detected by the acceleration sensor 13c reaches or exceeds the threshold value due to the influence of vibrations caused by the above-mentioned commuting methods has increased. In the past, as a threshold, a value of acceleration that can detect an earthquake of magnitude 4, for example, was set in order to collect information on smaller earthquakes that do not cut off the gas. However, the acceleration value that can detect an earthquake of magnitude 4 is a small value as an acceleration value. Therefore, even vibrations other than earthquakes are easily converted to the operation mode.

[0040] In this regard, in the present embodiment, the control device 13b changes the threshold As according to the number of transitions. If the number of transitions is different, the threshold As is changed to a different value. Specifically, Figure 4 As shown in FIG. 1 , if the number of transitions is large, the threshold As is set to a large value. On the other hand, if the number of transitions is small, the threshold As is set to a small value. The threshold As is large in the time period from about 6:00 to 10:00 and the time period from about 17:00 to 20:00 when the number of transitions is large. On the other hand, the threshold As is small in the late night time period when the number of transitions is small.

[0041] In this way, the threshold As is not set uniformly, but is set differently according to the number of transitions. Therefore, even in the time period when the acceleration detected by the acceleration sensor 13c increases, it is difficult to switch from the normal mode to the operation mode. In addition, Figure 4 As1 is the lower limit of the threshold value, and As2 is the upper limit of the threshold value. That is, the change of the threshold value As is performed within the range of more than As1 and less than As2. In addition, the upper limit value As2 of the threshold value is obtained by setting the threshold value of the earthquake that the gas meter 13 can detect and the intensity of which the gas flow path should be cut off as the upper limit value. This upper limit value is determined based on the following viewpoint: from the perspective of the safety function of the gas meter 13, it is necessary to cut off in the event of a large earthquake, but if the threshold value is increased without limit, it becomes impossible to detect a large earthquake.

[0042] As described above, according to the gas meter 13 of the present embodiment, the threshold As related to the acceleration that serves as a reference when switching from the normal mode to the operation mode is changed according to the number of transitions. In this case, if the number of transitions increases, the control device 13b increases the threshold As. As a result, it becomes difficult to switch from the normal mode to the operation mode. As a result, it is possible to suppress the unexpected switching from the normal mode to the operation mode caused by a large amount of noise caused by, for example, vibrations caused by the passage of cars or trains. As a result, power consumption can be suppressed compared to the past. In addition, the gas meter 13 can detect earthquakes of a magnitude that should cut off the gas flow path, but can also detect smaller earthquakes during a period of time with less vibration.

[0043] (Variation Example)

[0044] The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and various modifications are possible without departing from the gist of the present invention. For example, the following modifications are possible.

[0045] In the above embodiment, the upper limit of the number of transitions allowed in a specified period (such as one month) can also be specified from the perspective of ensuring battery driving for, for example, 10 years. In addition, the number of transitions in the specified period after the threshold is changed can be predicted based on the number of transitions at each specified time in the past and the threshold at that time, and the changed threshold can be determined in a manner that the predicted number of transitions is below the above upper limit.

[0046] In addition, in the above embodiment, the number of transitions from the normal mode to the calculation mode is used as the prescribed information, but the present invention is not limited thereto. The prescribed information may also be information on the construction time of, for example, road construction or railway construction. In this case, the number of transitions from the normal mode to the calculation mode can be reduced by increasing the threshold As corresponding to the time period for construction.

[0047] In addition, in the above-mentioned embodiment, the operation mode is set to an action mode in which the control device 13b calculates the earthquake index value based on the acceleration, but it is not limited to this. The operation mode can be an action mode in which the power consumption is greater than the power consumption in the normal mode. For example, it can also be set to an action mode in which the control device 13b obtains the acceleration detected by the acceleration sensor 13c more times than the number in the normal mode. In this case, if the control device 13b obtains the acceleration more times, the power consumption can increase accordingly, so it can be difficult to change to such an operation mode by increasing the threshold As.

[0048] In addition, in the above embodiment, two gas containers 11 and two gas appliances 14 are illustrated, but the present invention is not limited thereto. The number of gas containers 11 may be one or three or more, and the number of gas appliances 14 may be one or three or more.

[0049] Furthermore, in the above-described embodiment, the gas container 11 is filled with LP gas (liquefied petroleum gas) as an example of fuel gas, but the present invention is not limited thereto, and the gas container 11 may be filled with other gases such as oxygen.

[0050] Description of Reference Numerals

[0051] 10: Central server; 13: Gas meter; 13a: Communication unit; 13b: Control device; 13c: Acceleration sensor; 13d: Storage unit; 13e: Artificial intelligence; 20: Demand residence; 100: Gas management system; As: Threshold value.

Claims

1. A gas meter installed in each of a plurality of demand houses, the gas meter comprising: an acceleration sensor that detects acceleration; and Control device, in, When the acceleration detected by the acceleration sensor becomes equal to or greater than a threshold value, the control device switches from a normal mode to a calculation mode in which power consumption in the gas meter is greater than that in the normal mode. The control device changes the threshold value based on predetermined information.

2. The gas meter according to claim 1, wherein: The calculation mode is an operation mode in which the control device calculates an earthquake index value based on the acceleration.

3. The gas meter according to claim 1 or 2, wherein: The control device acquires a history of the number of transitions from the normal mode to the calculation mode at every predetermined time as the predetermined information.

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