Monitoring system

Abstract

To provide a watching system capable of issuing a warning about heat stroke at appropriate timing according to an attribute of a resident in a house.SOLUTION: A watching system comprises sensors 001a to 008a that acquire a temperature and humidity of each room, and a home server 200. The home server 200 acquires an attribute of a resident such as an age associated with each room, and determines whether or not there is a risk of heat stroke in each room based on an index obtained from the temperature and humidity of each room and a criteria corresponding to the resident attribute associated with each room.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1

Description

[Technical Field]

[0001] The present invention relates to a monitoring system, and more particularly to a measure against heatstroke in a home. [Background technology]

[0002] Heatstroke occurs when the body's thermoregulation function does not work properly in environments with high temperatures and humidity, 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 result of the presence detection device indicates that the resident is at home, 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. [Prior art documents] [Patent documents]

[0003] [Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2016-66198 Summary of the Invention [Problem to be solved by the invention]

[0004] However, residential occupants may include individuals who are particularly susceptible to heatstroke, such as young children or the elderly, and it is desirable for these individuals to receive early warning that they are in a situation where heatstroke may occur.

[0005] The present invention has been 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. [Means for solving the problem]

[0006] In order to solve the above problems, the monitoring system of the present invention includes an index acquisition means for acquiring an index related to at least one of the temperature or humidity in each of a plurality of rooms in a house, a resident attribute acquisition means for acquiring resident attributes associated with each of the rooms, and a determination means for determining whether or not there is a risk of heatstroke in the room based on the index related to each of the rooms acquired by the index acquisition means and criteria corresponding to the resident attributes associated with the room acquired by the resident attribute acquisition means.

[0007] Here, the occupant attribute acquisition means may acquire a plurality of the occupant attributes associated with each of the rooms, and the determination means may determine whether or not there is a risk of heat stroke in the room based on the index for each of the rooms acquired by the index acquisition means and the strictest standard among the standards corresponding to each of the plurality of occupant attributes associated with the room acquired by the occupant attribute acquisition means.

[0008] The determination unit may determine that there is a risk of heat stroke when the index for each room acquired by the index acquisition unit remains equal to or greater than a threshold value for a predetermined reference time. The criteria corresponding to the occupant attribute may indicate the predetermined reference time having a length corresponding to the occupant attribute.

[0009] The home management system may further include an at-home occupant determination unit that determines which of the occupants of the home are currently at home. The determination unit may determine whether or not there is a risk of heat stroke in a room based on the indices related to each room acquired by the indices acquisition unit and criteria corresponding to those related to the occupants among the occupants associated with the room acquired by the occupant attribute acquisition unit.

[0010] The device may further include means for transmitting information indicating the risk of heatstroke in each room to a display device. [Effects of the Invention]

[0011] According to the present invention, a warning about heat stroke can be issued at an appropriate timing depending on the attributes of the residents in the house. [Brief explanation of the drawings]

[0012] [Figure 1] 1 is a system configuration diagram of a monitoring system according to an embodiment of the present invention. [Figure 2] FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the arrangement of sensors in a house. [Figure 3] FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an example of room information. [Figure 4] FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an example of resident information. [Figure 5] FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an example of reference information. [Figure 6] FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing the processing of the monitoring unit. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0013] Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

[0014] FIG. 1 is a system configuration diagram of a monitoring system according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of the floor plan of a house to which the monitoring system according to an embodiment of the present invention is applied. As shown in FIG. 2, environmental sensors 001a to 008a are attached to rooms 001 to 008 in the house. The environmental sensors 001a to 008a may be attached to the ceilings or walls of the 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.

[0015] The home server 200 is a computer including a CPU, memory, a display, and an I / O interface. The home server 200 is communicatively connected to an external center server 202 via a communication network 201 such as the Internet. Each of the environmental sensors 001a to 008a has a built-in temperature sensor and humidity sensor, and periodically transmits temperature and humidity data to the home server 200 via in-home wiring (not shown), for example, every 30 seconds.

[0016] A camera 100 capable of capturing video is installed at the entrance of the house, and captures the faces of residents entering and leaving the house. Video data generated by the camera 100, or still image data showing the faces of residents extracted from the video data, is transmitted to a home server 200 via in-house wiring (not shown). A speaker 101 is also installed in the house, and the speaker 101 is also connected to the home server 200 via in-house wiring (not shown). The speaker 101 outputs audio transmitted from the home server 200. In this embodiment, when there is a risk of heatstroke, a warning sound or audio is output from the speaker 101.

[0017] By executing the computer program according to this embodiment, the home server 200 is configured to functionally realize 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.

[0018] The room information storage unit 200c stores information (room information) relating to each of the rooms 001 to 008. Fig. 3 is a diagram showing an example of room information stored in the room information storage unit 200c. As shown in the figure, the room information storage unit 200c stores, as room information, the identification information (ID) of each room, the type of the room (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 the room, in association with each other.

[0019] The resident information storage unit 200d stores information (resident information) about each resident of the house. Fig. 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 stores, as resident information, the resident ID of each resident, the resident's attributes (here, age), and a flag indicating whether the resident is in the house (at-home flag), in association with each other.

[0020] The reference storage unit 200e stores heatstroke risk judgment criteria corresponding to resident attributes (age). FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of the reference information stored in the reference storage unit 200e. As shown in FIG. 5, the reference storage unit 200e stores a reference time as reference information indicating the heatstroke risk judgment criteria, corresponding to a 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 varies depending on the resident attribute (age). For example, as shown in FIG. 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 judged earlier.

[0021] 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, the machine learning model is used to determine the identity of the resident entering through the front door, and similarly, the 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 manner.

[0022] FIG. 6 is a flow diagram showing the processing of the monitoring unit 200a. The processing shown in FIG. 6 is executed at predetermined time intervals. As shown in FIG. 6, the monitoring unit 200a first sequentially acquires an index related to at least one of temperature and humidity for each of the 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 the sensors 001a to 008a from the table as the index. Alternatively, a simple index related to the risk of heatstroke may be calculated from the temperature alone. The monitoring unit 200a stores the WBGT for each room thus calculated in the WBGT storage unit 200b (S102).

[0023] Next, the monitoring unit 200a acquires 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 the resident ID whose at-home flag is 1. This makes it possible to determine the risk of heatstroke based only on the people currently in the home.

[0024] The watching unit 200a then accesses the reference storage unit 200e and reads out the reference time corresponding to the resident attribute read out from the resident information storage unit 200d, thereby obtaining one or more reference times corresponding to each room.

[0025] Next, the monitoring unit 200a selects the shortest reference time from the reference times acquired in S103 for each room (S104). That is, if multiple resident IDs are associated with one room in the room information, multiple reference times corresponding to that room may be acquired. In this case, the strictest standard, i.e., the shortest reference time, is selected as the standard for that room.

[0026] Thereafter, the monitoring unit 200a determines whether or not 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 or not there is a room where the WBGT value is equal to or greater than the threshold value for the reference time period selected in S104.

[0027] 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 transmitted 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 transmitted to a display device such as a smartphone of a roommate (not shown). In this case, the transmitted information may include information about the room where the risk of heatstroke occurred and information about the resident associated with the 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.

[0028] According to the monitoring system described above, the system is equipped with a room information memory unit 200c, a resident information memory unit 200d, and a reference memory 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, so that a warning about heatstroke can be issued at an appropriate time.

[0029] The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment, and various modifications are possible. For example, although age is used as a resident attribute in the above description, other attributes of each resident that may affect the risk of heat stroke may be used. For example, weight or obesity level may be used. [Explanation of symbols]

[0030] 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

1. 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 room that are acquired by the resident attribute acquisition means and that are related to the resident at home. Monitoring system.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. The monitoring system according to any one of claims 1 to 3, The system further includes a means for transmitting information indicating the risk of heat stroke in each room to a display device. Monitoring system.

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