Remote monitoring system and method

• US 6,172,605 B1
• Filed: 07/01/1998
• Issued: 01/09/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 07/02/1997
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Matsumoto, Takashi, Kumazaki, Tsutomu
• Primary Examiner(s): MULLEN, THOMAS J
• Application Number:
  US09/108,377
• Time in Patent Office: 923 Days
• Field of Search: 340/541, 340/540, 340/500, 340/286.02, 340/531, 340/533, 348/7, 348/143, 348/152, 348/154-156
• US Class Current: 340/500
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19667 Details realated to data compression, encryption or encoding, e.g. resolution modes for reducing data volume to lower transmission bandwidth or memory requirements
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19669 Event triggers storage or change of storage policy
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/188 Capturing isolated or intermittent images triggered by the occurrence of a predetermined event, e.g. an object reaching a predetermined position signal generation from motion picture films H04N5/253

Abstract

The present invention concerns a remote monitoring system and method. In the monitoring terminal unit 10, a TV camera 11 pictures a monitoring object and a sensor 18 watches for any abnormality in the monitoring object. The monitoring images from the TV camera 11 is encoded in the resolution set in an encoder 12. The encoded image data is continuously written in an image storage 14 in a cyclic way. In addition, real-time images pictured by the TV camera or stored images are transmitted to the monitoring central unit 20 via connection control unit 132 only when an abnormality is detected. The monitoring central unit 20 displays on the monitor 27 the images thus sent in. In that remote monitoring system, the resolution to give to the image encoder 12 is fixed at a constant value in the normal state and is raised to a higher value than normal in case of abnormality. That permits watching the monitoring object in a high resolution.

Claims

1. A remote monitoring system comprising;

a monitoring terminal unit provided with a TV camera to picture a monitoring object,

a sensor to watch for an abnormality in the monitoring object, an encoder to encode the monitoring image from said TV camera in a set resolution,

an image storage to write in the encoded image data in a continuous and cyclic manner and

a connection control means to control connection for communication, and a remotely located monitoring central unit which will be connected with said monitoring terminal unit by said connection control means through a communication line in case said sensor detects an abnormality so that real-time images on said TV camera or stored images will be transmitted and displayed on a monitor in the monitoring central unit, and

an encoding control means for setting the resolution of said encoder to a fixed level in the normal state and to a value higher than the fixed level when an abnormality is detected.

2. The remote monitoring system as defined in claim 1, wherein

said encoding control means gradually lowers the resolution of said encoder established in said case of detection of an abnormality down to the level of resolution for real-time images which are transmitted after establishment of connection with said monitoring central unit in such a way that reaching said level of resolution is timed to the predicted point of completion of connection preset in said connection control means.

3. The remote monitoring system as defined in claim 2, wherein

in case the connection between said monitoring terminal unit and said monitoring central unit can not be established before the passage of a certain period of time during which completion of connection is predicted, that is, a resolution adjusting period in which the resolution is maintained at the same level as that for said real-time images, said encoding control means gradually lowers the resolution from the resolution level for said real-time images until the connection time-out point preset in said connection control means at which point the attempt to connect with the monitoring central unit will be regarded as failure and at the same time the writing in of image data continues until said time-out point as long as the capacity of said image storage remains available.

4. The remote monitoring system as defined in claim 1, wherein

said connection control means is provided with a function that reattempts to establish a connection with said monitoring central unit in case an attempt to get a connection with said monitoring central unit fails, said reattempting repeated a preset number of times at a preset interval.

5. The remote monitoring system as defined in claim 1, wherein

said monitoring terminal unit is provided with a data multiplexer for multiplexing the real-time image data outputted by said encoder and the stored image data from said image storage,

and said monitoring central unit is provided with a data separator to separate multiplexed image data sent in from said monitoring terminal unit,

an image storage to store real-time image data and stored image data outputted from said data separator respectively,

an image decoder to decode the respective outputted data from said image storage and

a multiple screen control to so control the display as to display on the monitor said real-time image and said stored image simultaneously or separately.

6. The remote monitoring system as defined in claim 5 wherein

said monitoring terminal unit is provided with a memory control means to control the readout of image data and said memory control means reproduces a stream of monitoring images by putting together said stored image data stored in said image storage and said real-time image data.

7. The remote monitoring system as defined in claim 5, wherein

said multiple screen control simultaneously displays on the monitor a stream of monitoring images, system control images for changing the setting of the system, and makes a change or switch-over in the makeup of monitor screen including display position, display size and number of display screens.

8. The remote monitoring system as defined in claim 5, wherein

said monitoring central unit is provided with an input control means to input control information for changing the resolution of said monitoring terminal unit.

9. The remote monitoring system as defined in claim 1, wherein

said monitoring terminal unit is provided with a memory control means to control the writing in of image data in said image storage and the read-out of said image data therefrom and at the same time said memory control means reads out and transmits the stored image data from said image storage from the point of completion of connection by said connection control means.

10. The remote monitoring system as defined in claim 9,

wherein a specific period before or after the moment of detection of abnormality is set in said memory control means and when said stored image data is read out from said image storage, said stored image data for said set period is read out.

11. The remote monitoring system as defined in claim 9, wherein

said memory control means finishes writing image data in said image storage when the connection with said monitoring central unit is completed and can transmit said stored image data repeatedly as demanded by said monitoring central unit.

12. The remote monitoring system as defined in claim 9, wherein

said memory control means continues writing image data in said image storage even after the connection with said monitoring central unit is completed and can transmit image data from said image storage as delayed image data along with said real-time image data.

13. The remote monitoring system as defined in claim 12, wherein

when the communication between said monitoring terminal unit and said monitoring central unit is resumed after an interruption, said memory control means will transmit said stored image data from a point before or after the moment of interruption of communication along with the real-time image.

14. A remote monitoring method which comprises,

in a monitoring terminal unit, having a TV camera picture a monitoring object and a sensor watch out for any abnormality in said monitoring object, encoding the monitoring images from said TV camera in a set resolution and writing said encoded images in an image storage in a continuous and cyclic manner, and in case of detection of an abnormality by the sensor, connecting said monitoring terminal unit with a monitoring central unit and displaying on a monitor in said monitoring central unit real-time images by said TV camera and stored images sent in from said monitoring terminal unit,

the resolution for images to be encoded being fixed at a constant value in the normal state and raised from the normal-state value in case of abnormality.

15. The remote monitoring method as defined in claim 14, wherein

the resolution raised for images to be encoded in said case of detection of an abnormality is gradually lowered down to the level of resolution for real-time images which are transmitted after establishment of connection with said monitoring central unit in such a way that reaching said level of resolution is timed to the preset predicted point of completion of connection.

16. The remote monitoring method as defined in claim 15, wherein

in case the connection between said monitoring terminal unit and said monitoring central unit can not be established before the passage of a certain period of time during which completion of connection is predicted, that is, a resolution adjusting period in which the resolution is maintained at the same level as that for said real-time images, then said resolution is gradually lowered from the resolution level for said real-time images until the preset connection time-out point at which point the attempt to connect with the monitoring central unit will be regarded as failure and at the same time the writing in of image data is continued until said time-out point as long as the capacity of said image storage remains available.