JP4766923B2 - Electrical machine operation method - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a method for remotely operating an electric machine such as an air conditioner, a television, and a lighting device via an electric communication line.

Conventionally, there is one disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-151620 as a method for executing a specific operation in a home appliance by electronic mail.

As shown in FIG. 15, this is a remote control system having a device that can be remotely controlled by a terminal connected via a network, and the device sends an e-mail to the terminal. Communication means for performing transmission / reception, extraction means for extracting operation keys described in the subject field of the e-mail, storage means for storing a correspondence table in which the operation keys and operation programs are associated, and the correspondence The system comprises a determining unit that determines an operation program corresponding to the operation key from the table, and an execution unit that executes an operation based on the operation program.

Specifically, in order to realize remote operation from a user terminal, a feature is that a unique electronic mail address is assigned to each home appliance to be remotely operated. Another feature is that each home appliance is equipped with a processing block module (referred to as a program for sending and receiving e-mails and causing operations inside the home appliance).

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-102071 FIG.

However, according to the system disclosed in Patent Document 1, it is indispensable to provide communication means (electronic mailer module) in each home appliance to be controlled, and the electronic mailer module is mounted. No household appliances can be used. Therefore, it may be necessary to replace home appliances when introducing this system, which may increase costs for the user. Also, depending on the situation, with the introduction of the system, when replacing household appliances, it becomes necessary to discard household appliances that are currently in use, and discarding household appliances that can still be used may worsen environmental problems. is there.

In addition, the mail format for home appliance operation is determined in advance, and if the format is entered incorrectly, the system will not accept the operation and you forget the format. May make the system unusable.

In addition, when operating on multiple home appliances, it is necessary to send an email to the electronic mailer module provided on each home appliance. When operating many home appliances, In addition to having to remember a specific format for operating home appliances, there is a problem that it is necessary to send an e-mail to a plurality of destinations, which is troublesome. In particular, when an e-mail is transmitted from a mobile phone or a portable information terminal, there is a problem that a communication cost (packet cost, etc.) for transmission increases and a cost for use increases.

Therefore, the object of the present invention is to use an ordinary electric machine as the object of operation when operating the electric machine through the telecommunication line, and the cost can be kept low. Along with
Sentences to be included in e-mails should be natural, and users can use them without having to remember the format for operations.
In addition, an object of the present invention is to provide an electromechanical instrument operating method capable of preventing operation errors as much as possible.

In order to achieve the above object, according to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for operating a predetermined electric machine tool by an electric machine tool operating device via an electric communication line. The step of receiving an e-mail and the e-mail received by the e-mail analyzing unit for analyzing and processing the content of the e-mail provided in the electromechanical instrument operating device is an e-mail to be operated by the electric machine Determining whether the received e-mail is a target of operation of the electric machine, extracting operation target device information, operation details information, and operation date / time information from the e-mail, and analyzing the e-mail and the target device information obtained in section, and the operation content information, electricity that describes the operation content information obtained from the operation time and date information Transmitting the e-mail towards the sender creates a mail text, and having a, wherein there is a reply e-mail from the sender, and, when the final operation is permitted, the electromechanical and the target device information instrument driver is removed from the first received e-mail, the operation content information, and created by the electromechanical instrument driver, permission ultimately operate against the reply e-mail was obtained A permission phrase representing a phrase is sequentially stored in a phrase storage database provided in the electromechanical instrument operating device, and an operation signal is output to the electromechanical instrument . is doing. As a result, an e-mail sent to operate the electric machine is obtained, equipment information to be operated is obtained, desired operation content information is obtained, scheduled operation date / time information is obtained, An operation signal can be output to the operation target device at the scheduled operation date and time. In addition, the sender can grasp the recognized operation target device, the operation content, and the operation date and time. Also, when an e-mail is sent using the same word / phrase next time by accumulating the word / phrase when the operation is finally permitted, the word / phrase that was canceled, or the word / phrase of the operation content as a database. This makes it possible to more reliably determine the operation content intended by the user.

When operating electrical machinery through a telecommunication line, normal electrical machinery can be used as the target electrical machinery, and the costs can be kept low. Thus, the user can provide an electromechanical device operating method that can be used without having to learn the operation format and that can prevent operation errors as much as possible.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a view showing an example of an electromechanical instrument operating apparatus using the electrical mechanical instrument operating method of the present invention.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes an electromechanical instrument operating device, which is a central processing unit composed of a communication unit 10 that communicates by connecting to a network, and a CPU and memory that are connected to the communication unit 10 and process information Unit 11, an electronic mail processing unit 12 that receives an instruction from the central processing unit 11 and receives an e-mail from a mail server 2 connected to the Internet network 3, a user database that stores user information (user DB) 13, device database (device DB) 14 for storing the operation target electric machine appliance, schedule database (schedule DB) 15 for storing the scheduled operation date and time, and the operation signal is transmitted to the operation target electric machine device It is comprised from the apparatus operation part 16 to perform.

The e-mail processing unit 12 includes an e-mail receiving unit 121 equipped with mail client software for receiving and processing e-mail, and an e-mail analyzing unit equipped with software for analyzing the contents of the received e-mail. A portion 122 is provided.

In addition, as an example of the electric machine tool operated by the device operation unit 16, a lighting fixture 5, an air conditioner 6, and a VTR deck 7 are shown. The lighting fixture 5 is turned on and off by a power supply via a relay provided in the device operation unit. The air conditioner 6 and the VTR deck 7 are operated using an infrared signal from an infrared transmission unit provided in the device operation unit 16. As the infrared signal for operation, a signal storing an operation signal pattern in an infrared remote controller of each home appliance manufacturer is used. In addition, when operating an electric machine that is not compatible with the infrared remote controller or performing an operation without using the remote controller, the power supply is switched on and off using a relay provided in the device operation unit 16.

Next, the operation of the method for operating the electromechanical apparatus will be described.
[Information registration stage]
<User registration process>
First, the user of the electromechanical appliance operating device 1 registers user information. Registration is performed by accessing the electromechanical appliance operating device 1 from a computer (not shown) connected to the router 4 and inputting from an input form prepared in advance. The input information is registered in the user DB 13 by the central processing unit 11. FIG. 2 shows the structure of the user DB and the registered information. The registered information has a unique ID (automatic allocation), user name information, mail address information, mail server information to be connected, connection account information for the mail server, password information, This is the operation keyword that becomes the title of the email when performing the operation.

<Operation target device registration process>
Subsequently, the user inputs information on the electric machine / equipment to be operated. The input information is registered in the device DB 14 by the central processing unit 11. FIG. 3 shows the structure of the device DB and the registered information. The registered information includes an ID (automatic allocation) having a unique value, a device name, and an operation content corresponding to the device. Regarding the contents of the operation, it is desirable to write many possible descriptions about the notation that the user may write in the mail. For example, for the lighting fixture 5, the operation content is “ON” or “OFF”. Regarding the air conditioner, in addition to “ON” and “OFF”, the operation content includes information such as “set temperature 20 ° C.” and “set temperature 28 ° C.”. It should be noted that the device name is duplicated and entered for the device item, which is related to the analysis of the device operation content described later.

[Initial use stage]
When the information registration process is completed, the use is started.
<Standby / Reception Stage>
FIG. 4 shows a flowchart of the e-mail standby / reception stage. The central processing unit 11 of the electric machine / tool operating device 1 performs a counting process with a timer in order to connect to the mail server at regular intervals (S001). For example, it may be set every 10 minutes according to the frequency with which the user sends an e-mail for operation. Of course, it doesn't matter if you set it every 60 minutes.

When the count processing by the timer is completed, the user DB 13 is referred to, and the connection mail server information, connection account information, and password information are read from the user DB (S002).

After extracting predetermined information in step S002, connection to a predetermined mail server is attempted using the information (S003). In step S004, it is determined whether or not connection to the mail server has been established. If the mail server cannot be connected, the process returns to step S003 and the process is repeated. If the connection to the mail server can be established, the process proceeds to the next step S005.

In step S005, it is confirmed whether there is a mail in the reception space (inbox) of the corresponding connection account of the mail server. If there is no e-mail addressed to the connection account, the process returns to step S001 to repeat the process. If there is an electronic mail, the electronic mail is received (S006). After receiving, it returns to step S001 again and repeats the process.

<Email selection stage>
Next, the received e-mail sorting process will be described. FIG. 5 shows a flowchart for performing e-mail selection processing.
First, the central processing unit 11 reads e-mail address information from the user DB 13 and sends it to the e-mail processing unit (S101).
An instruction is issued to the analysis unit 122 of the e-mail processing unit 12, and the analysis unit 122 extracts sender information from the received mail (S102).
Here, FIG. 6 simply shows the header information of the e-mail. In the header information of the e-mail, the From column is a portion where the e-mail sender information is written. The information shown in the From column is compared with the mail address information stored in the user DB 13 (S103). If they match, it is determined that the senders match, and the next step Proceed to If they do not match, it is determined as nonconforming and the electronic mail is discarded (S110).

Next, when the sender is appropriate, the central processing unit 11 reads the operation keyword information from the user DB 13 and sends it to the e-mail processing unit (S104), and the analysis unit 122 of the e-mail processing unit 12 The title information is extracted from the received mail (S105), and it is determined whether the title information is appropriate. According to the e-mail header information of FIG. 6, since the subject column as the title information is “operation”, the operation proceeds to the next step because it matches the operation keyword of the user DB. If the title is not appropriate, the e-mail is discarded (S110).

Next, when the title information is appropriate, the text information is extracted from the received mail (S107), the device information is read from the device DB 14 (S108), and it is determined whether the text is appropriate (S109). The determination is performed by matching the body information (content field) of the received mail with the device information stored in the device DB 14 and the body information of the received mail. If there is no match, it is determined as inappropriate and the electronic mail is discarded (S110).

Here, since the text of the received mail indicates “Air conditioner ON”, it matches the device name in the device information. Therefore, the air conditioner item in the device DB is acquired, and further, among the air conditioner items, the operation is performed. Get the contents and search for a match with "On". In this example, since there is an item whose operation content is “ON”, it is determined to be appropriate.

<Equipment operation stage>
If it is determined that all are appropriate in the flow up to this point, the device operation unit 16 operates the target device with respect to a predetermined operation content. In this case, the target device “air conditioner” is operated with the operation content “ON”. Specifically, an infrared signal suitable for “ON” is sent from the device operation unit 16 to operate the air conditioner.

If the user of the electromechanical appliance operating device 1 miswrites the mail, if the sender information is appropriate so as not to impair the convenience of the user, the title information of the email and the usage The program keyword processing is performed so that the operation keyword in the operator DB 13 and the device information in the device DB 14 are searched together and matched with as much registration information as possible. For example, if the title information of the electronic mail is “ON”, the user desires to set “ON” to “ON”. Therefore, although it does not match the operation keyword of the user DB 13, the device information item of the device DB 14 includes the characters “air conditioner”. A predetermined infrared signal is output from the device operation unit 16 and the air conditioner is turned on.

In the embodiments so far, the sender information is used to determine whether the sender matches or does not match. However, when using the electromechanical appliance operating device 1, in order to prevent unauthorized use from a third party other than the appropriate sender and to improve the safety, various judgments are made in the match / mismatch of the sender. An example in which conditions are added will be shown.

FIG. 14 shows an example in which constant information arbitrarily determined by the user, variable information, equation information arbitrarily set, and arbitrary keywords are added to the items of the user DB 13 and registered. The conditions that the central processing unit 11 of the electric machine / equipment operating device 1 determines that the sender is appropriate include an arbitrary keyword determined in advance and a correct solution of the equation in the text of the e-mail. Is the case.

Here, the equation to be set arbitrarily is when the variable information is a date.
"Date information" x "Constant" + 1
This is an equation that can be freely determined by the user.

For example, in the case of the above equation, if the operation date is “May 23”, “23” is substituted, and if “8” is registered in the constant, “8” is substituted. By substituting, the solution obtained is
(23 × 8 + 1) = “185”
It becomes. If an arbitrary keyword is registered as “12345”, the character to be compared is “12345”.

If these numbers “185” and “12345” are written in the text of the e-mail, it is determined that the sender is appropriate.

Subsequently, for the purpose of making the electromechanical appliance operating device 1 operate as intended by the user and increase the convenience, it receives an e-mail from an appropriate user, analyzes the contents, and analyzes the device. Before transmitting an operation signal from the operation unit to the electrical machine instrument, an e-mail text that describes the operation target device information recognized by the analysis unit 122, operation content information, and operation date and time information is stored in the e-mail processing unit. An example of creating an e-mail and sending an e-mail to the sender is shown below.

FIG. 7 shows an electromechanical instrument operating device for carrying out the present embodiment. Compared with the electromechanical appliance operating apparatus 1 described above, a transmission unit 123 and a creation unit 124 are added to the electronic mail processing unit 12. The creation unit 124 creates an e-mail body that describes the operation target device information, operation content information, and operation date / time information recognized by the analysis unit 122, and creates mail header information based on a predetermined mail format. The transmission unit 123 is a part for transmitting the created electronic mail via the communication unit 10. Since other parts are the same as those described above, the description thereof is omitted.

FIG. 8 shows an example of the text of the email created by the creation unit 124. This is because the e-mail sent from the user indicates that the target device is “air conditioner”, the operation content is “ON”, and the operation date and time is “May 23 18:00”. This is the case.

The e-mail created in this way is once replied to the user and asked for permission to operate from the user. FIG. 9 shows a flowchart for replying. First, the electronic mail created by the creation unit 124 is sent back to the user (S201).

Subsequently, a predetermined time is counted to wait for a reply mail from the user (S202). In the present embodiment, the fixed time is set to 15 minutes. Of course, the fixed time is not fixed to 15 minutes and can be set freely.

When the count for a certain time is completed, it is determined whether or not there is a reply (S203). Specifically, as shown in the previous steps S002 and S003, a connection is made to the mail server, and it is confirmed whether there is a mail for the connection account.

If there is no reply mail, an operation signal is transmitted to the device operation unit and the operation target device is operated (S205). If there is a reply mail, the contents of the reply mail are analyzed by the analysis unit 122 to determine whether the contents are permitted. Judgment is made by comparing whether there are words in the text that mean affirmation. The phrase meaning affirmation is a phrase such as “OK”, “Good”, “Operation available”, “Yes”. These phrases are stored in advance as a positive phrase dictionary in the software area of the analysis unit 122. If there is an affirmative phrase, it is determined that “operation is permitted” and an operation signal is transmitted to the device operation unit (S205).

If the reply mail contains the words “cancel”, “prohibit operation”, or “stop”, it is determined that “the operation has been canceled” and the process is terminated.

Also, if the reply mail contains the words “change” or “correction”, it is determined that “the operation content has been corrected”, and mail data reflecting the correction content is created by the creation unit ( S206), a reply operation is performed again for the e-mail from the user (S201).

Next, as a function for further improving convenience, there is provided a step of registering a recognition result in the word / phrase storage DB when the electronic mail transmitted from the user is analyzed and as a result permission is obtained. An operating method may be provided. FIG. 10 shows an example in which a step of registering in the phrase storage DB is provided. The phrase storage DB is a DB provided together with the user DB 13, the device DB 14, and the schedule DB 15 in the electric machine / equipment operating device 1.

FIG. 11 shows the structure of the phrase storage DB and the registered phrases. The phrase storage DB stores an operation content phrase that represents the operation content, an operation target device phrase that represents the operation target device, a permitted phrase that represents the permitted permission, and a cancellation that represents the word that was the case of the cancellation. Words are remembered. This phrase storage DB sequentially stores words and phrases when the user sends an e-mail with a natural style (natural sentence), and the words and phrases when the operation is finally permitted, In addition, by accumulating words and phrases of the operation contents as a database, there is an effect that the operation contents intended by the user can be determined more reliably when an e-mail is transmitted using the same words and phrases next time. In other words, when an e-mail with the content “Turn on electricity” is sent, there is no such word in the user DB 13 or device database 14 that has been registered in advance, but every time the operation is repeated. The machine / tool operating device side learns specific words and phrases so that the user can learn the habit and easily reach the intended operation.

Next, a case where there are a plurality of device operations will be described. When there are a plurality of operation schedules, simultaneous processing such as a flow for analyzing an electronic mail from a user and a flow for sending a reply mail to the user may be required. In such a case, it is conceivable that the storage area (memory) of the central processing unit prepared in advance is insufficient and the processing is stopped. Therefore, a case where an operation schedule is registered in the schedule DB 15 will be described. An explanation will be given together with the above-described flowchart for selecting e-mails.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart for registration in the schedule DB. Here, step S401 is a step that proceeds after determining an appropriate one for the above-mentioned e-mail from the user.

In FIG. 12, first, in step S401, it is determined whether or not to cancel the schedule for the contents for which an operation instruction has been given in advance. As will be described later, the decision on canceling a schedule is performed by adding a schedule ID to a reply mail to the e-mail from the user, and processing the e-mail body or title including the schedule ID. Do.

Specifically, when a user cancels a schedule, the schedule ID is electronically stored together with character strings such as “cancel” and “cancel” using the contents of the email text or the schedule ID described in the title. Write in the body of the email or in the title. The analysis unit determines whether or not the schedule ID and the character string indicating cancellation are included in the electronic mail. If the result is determined to require cancellation, the corresponding schedule is canceled (S402).

Next, step S411 for determining a partial change in the schedule will be described. When a user changes a schedule, the schedule ID is set in the email text or with a text string such as “change” or “correction” by using the text content of the email or the schedule ID described in the title. In the title. If these character strings are described in the body of the e-mail or in the title, it is determined that the schedule will be changed.

Next, a character string indicating the new schedule is extracted from the body of the email or from the title, and the corresponding schedule ID portion in the schedule DB is updated (S413). Then, an e-mail indicating the change is created by the creating unit and transmitted by the sending unit (S414).

And an operation signal is transmitted with respect to the electric machine instrument made into object by an apparatus operation part (S415), and apparatus operation is performed (S419).

In step S416, as in step S412, the element character string necessary for the device operation instruction is extracted from the electronic mail text. The element character string includes the name of the device that the user wants to operate, an operation instruction (VTR recording, recording stop, playback, recording channel, power ON / OFF of the device, etc.), operation time, and the like.

Next, in step S417, the device operation start time, the operation target device, and the operation items are combined from the element character string extracted in step S416 and registered in the schedule DB. FIG. 13 shows the structure and registration information of the schedule DB. In the schedule DB, a schedule ID, device information to be operated, operation content information, and date / time information to be operated are registered.

In step S418, an e-mail describing the schedule created in step S417 is transmitted to the e-mail address of the user who has instructed the device operation.

In step S415, a device operation instruction is issued to the device operation unit based on the device operation schedule in the schedule DB created in step S413 or step S417.

In step S420, an e-mail with text content informing the user that the device operation has been performed is transmitted to the user who has instructed the device operation. The e-mail is created by the creating unit.

In step S421, it is determined whether or not the schedule registered in the schedule DB has been completed. If all of the schedules have not been completed, the process returns to step S415 when a predetermined time has come, and the device is operated. In S420, an e-mail is transmitted to the user. In this way, by sending a confirmation e-mail during the operation, the user can know that “the operation is surely performed” and can get a sense of security.

According to the electric machine operation method of the present invention, it is possible to operate a predetermined electric machine using an e-mail. Therefore, home appliances such as the lighting device, the air conditioner, and the VTR deck described in the present embodiment. There is a possibility that on / off control and other operations can be performed by remote control by using a relay that can tolerate power capacity not only for equipment but also for industrial machines. In addition, there is a possibility that it can be used for equipment operation in various places such as a store after closing and a warehouse that is usually unattended.

It is a block diagram of the apparatus to which the electromechanical appliance operating method of the present invention is applied. It is the figure which showed the database provided in an apparatus. It is the figure which showed the database provided in an apparatus. It is the figure which showed the flowchart which receives an email. It is the figure which showed the flowchart which classifies whether it is an appropriate electronic mail. It is the figure which showed the header information of an email. It is a block diagram of an apparatus showing a second embodiment. It is the figure which showed the reply mail transmitted from an electric machine instrument operating device. It is the figure which showed the flowchart regarding the reply mail transmitted from an electric machine instrument operating device. It is a flowchart at the time of providing a phrase memory database. It is the figure which showed the phrase memory | storage database. It is a flowchart at the time of providing a plan database. It is the figure which showed the plan database. It is the figure which showed the other example of the user database. It is the figure which showed the conventional remote control apparatus.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Electric machine operation apparatus 10 Communication part 11 Central processing part 12 E-mail process part 121 Receiving part 122 Analysis part 123 Transmission part 124 Creation part 13 User DB
14 Equipment DB
15 Schedule DB
16 Device operation unit 2 Mail server 3 Internet 4 Router 5 Lighting fixture 6 Air conditioner 7 VTR deck

Claims (1)

A method of operating a predetermined electric machine tool by an electric machine tool operating device via an electric communication line,
Receiving the electronic mail from the predetermined mail server by the electromechanical appliance operating device;
Determining whether the electronic mail received by the electronic mail analysis unit for analyzing and processing the content of the electronic mail provided in the electric machine operation device is an electronic mail to be operated by the electric machine;
In a case where the received e-mail is a target of operation of the electric machine, the step of extracting operation target device information, operation details information, and operation date / time information from the e-mail;
And a step of creating an e-mail text describing the operation target device information obtained in the e-mail analysis unit, the operation content information , and operation date and time information, and transmitting the e-mail to the sender. ,
If the sender sends a reply to the email and the operation is finally permitted ,
And the electromechanical instrument driver the operation target apparatus information retrieved from the first received e-mail, the operation content information, and created by the electromechanical instrument driver, permission ultimately operate against the reply e-mail Sequentially storing a permitted phrase representing the obtained phrase in a phrase storage database provided in the electromechanical appliance operating device;
Outputting an operation signal to the electromechanical device ;
A method for operating an electromechanical instrument, comprising:

Images