JP2010073042A - Fire alarm - Google Patents

Abstract

[PROBLEMS] To improve workability of an operation test by eliminating the need for a drawstring regardless of the power feeding method.
A control unit performs an operation test when detecting a trigger sound having a sound pressure level exceeding 70 decibels from an acoustic signal collected by a microphone. Therefore, since the operation test can be performed by the control unit 1 by generating a trigger sound, even if a power supply method using a battery as a power supply is used instead of a power supply method using a power supply as in the conventional example, The workability of the operation test is improved by eliminating the need for a test drawstring.
[Selection] Figure 1

Description

  The present invention relates to a fire alarm.

  In recent years, since the obligation to install fire alarms in houses has become legal, the penetration rate of fire alarms has increased rapidly.

  Here, the fire alarm is always detecting fire, but when there is no fire, that is, when the alarm is not sounding, it is judged whether it is functioning normally. I can't. For this reason, conventional fire alarms are equipped with a test function that sounds a test sound on a trial basis and self-diagnose whether there is an abnormality such as a disconnection or short circuit in an internal circuit. The test function works by pulling on the pull string.

  Here, since the fire alarm is obliged to be installed at a position close to the ceiling or the ceiling of the wall, the aesthetics of the room is impaired when the length of the drawstring is increased in consideration of operability. was there.

On the other hand, in Patent Document 1, an operation switch is provided on a power line for supplying power to a fire alarm from a commercial AC power supply, and a test is performed by operating the operation switch to turn power on / off. Thus, a fire alarm that eliminates the need for a drawstring has been proposed.
JP 2008-33427 A

  However, when installing a fire alarm in a new house, it is relatively easy to pre-wire the power line and install an operation switch. However, when installing a fire alarm in an existing house, a new power line It is difficult from the viewpoint of cost and workability to wire the cable or to arrange the operation switch. Therefore, there is a high possibility that a fire alarm using a battery as a power source will be installed in an existing house. However, since the conventional example described in Patent Document 1 is premised on feeding from a commercial AC power supply, it cannot be applied to a fire alarm using a battery as a power supply.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object thereof is to provide a fire alarm device that does not require a drawstring and improves the workability of the operation test regardless of the power feeding method.

  In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the invention of claim 1 includes a fire detection means for detecting a fire, an acoustic sounding means for sounding a sound, and an alarm sound to the acoustic sounding means when the fire detection means detects a fire. Control means for sounding, sound collecting means for collecting ambient sounds, and trigger sound detecting means for detecting a predetermined trigger sound from the sounds collected by the sound collecting means, the control means comprising a trigger sound An operation test is performed when the detection means detects a trigger sound.

  According to the first aspect of the present invention, it is possible to cause the control means to perform an operation test by emitting a trigger sound, so that the workability of the operation test is improved regardless of the power feeding method without requiring a drawstring.

  According to a second aspect of the invention, in the first aspect of the invention, the trigger sound detecting means detects a sound exceeding a predetermined sound pressure level as a trigger sound.

  The invention of claim 3 is characterized in that, in the invention of claim 1, the trigger sound detecting means detects a specific voice message as a trigger sound.

  According to the invention of claim 3, by using a specific voice message (for example, “test start”) as a trigger sound, it is possible to prevent an operation test from being erroneously performed with a daily sound (life sound, etc.). .

  According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the invention, the trigger sound detecting means detects a sound outside the audible frequency range as a trigger sound.

  According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, when the trigger sound does not become a noise, and the sound having a frequency higher than the frequency range of the audible range (ultrasonic wave) is used as the trigger sound, the sound in the audible range is the trigger sound. Compared to the case, it reaches far away, so multiple fire alarms can be tested simultaneously.

  According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in any one of the first to fourth aspects, the sounding means includes a converter that reversibly converts an electrical signal and a sound wave, and the sound collecting means includes the converter. It is characterized by collecting sound.

  According to the fifth aspect of the present invention, the acoustic ringing means and the sound collecting means share the converter, thereby reducing the cost.

  The invention according to claim 6 is the invention according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein the control means detects the trigger sound before the predetermined time elapses from the time when the previous operation test was performed. In this case, the operation test is not performed.

  According to the sixth aspect of the present invention, it is possible to prevent the operation test from being performed more than necessary, and particularly when the battery is used as a power source, it is possible to suppress wasteful consumption of the battery.

  According to the present invention, regardless of the power feeding method, the draw string is not required, and the workability of the operation test is improved.

(Embodiment 1)
As shown in FIG. 1, the fire alarm of the present embodiment includes a fire detection unit 2 that detects a fire, an acoustic ringing unit that rings a sound, a sound collection unit that collects ambient sounds, a light emitting diode, and the like. A display unit 8 that emits a light source to display a fire occurrence alarm, and a control that causes the sounding means to sound an alarm when the fire detection unit 2 detects a fire and to display a fire occurrence alarm on the display unit 8 Unit 1 and a battery power supply unit 9 that creates an operating power supply for each unit using a battery as a power source.

  For example, the fire detection unit 2 detects a fire by detecting smoke, heat, flames, and the like generated with the fire. The sounding means includes a sound source circuit unit 3 that converts the sound data output from the control unit 1 into an analog sound signal, an amplifier unit 4 that amplifies the sound signal output from the sound source circuit unit 3, and the amplifier unit 4. It is comprised with the speaker 5 which converts the amplified acoustic signal into sound and rings. The sound collecting means includes a microphone 6 and an amplifying unit 7 that amplifies an acoustic signal output from the microphone. However, detailed configurations of this type of fire detection unit 2 and sound source circuit unit 3 are well known in the art, and detailed description thereof is omitted.

  The control unit 1 realizes the following functions by executing a program stored in the memory with a microcomputer. First, when a fire detection signal is input to the control unit 1 from the fire detection unit 2 that detects a fire, the control unit 1 stores alarm sound data stored in a built-in memory (not shown). The data is read and output to the sound source circuit unit 3 and a control signal is output to cause the light source of the display unit 8 to emit light. Here, the alarm sound data stored in the memory includes the voice message data “Fire” and the frequency continuously changed over a predetermined frequency range (for example, 300 Hz to 4 kHz). Sweep sound data. The alarm sound data output from the control unit 1 is converted into an analog sound signal by the sound source circuit unit 3 and then amplified by the amplification unit 4, and an alarm sound (voice message and sweep sound) is generated from the speaker 5. . In this way, by sounding two kinds of alarm sounds, a voice message and a sweep sound, it is easy to distinguish from a buzzer sound generated by an electric device, and the occurrence of a fire can be reliably notified.

  Secondly, the control unit 1 detects a predetermined trigger sound from the sounds collected by the sound collecting means (the microphone 6 and the amplification unit 7), and performs an operation test when the trigger sound is detected. For example, since the sound pressure level of a normal conversation voice is about 60 decibels and the sound pressure level of a ringing sound ringed from a telephone is about 70 decibels, a sound having a sound pressure level higher than 70 decibels is detected as a trigger sound. do it. Such a trigger sound may be a sound intentionally generated by the user by some method, or a sound generated unintentionally by the user.

  The control unit 1 performs an operation test when a trigger sound having a sound pressure level exceeding 70 decibels is detected. Specifically, the control unit 1 tests whether or not the fire detection unit 2 can detect a fire normally. If the test result is normal, the control unit 1 stores “normal” in the built-in memory. If the test result is abnormal, the voice message data “Failure” stored in the built-in memory is read out to the sound source circuit unit 3. Output. Further, the control unit 1 reads out data of a test alarm sound (for example, a voice message such as “Testing in progress”) stored in the built-in memory and outputs the data to the sound source circuit unit 3. Then, it can be confirmed that the fire detection unit 2 is operating normally by confirming that the sound message “normal” is sounded from the speaker 5, and a test alarm sound is also sounded from the speaker 5. By confirming that the sound source circuit unit 3 and the speaker 5 are operating normally, it can be confirmed.

  Thus, according to the present embodiment, it is possible to cause the control unit 1 to perform an operation test by emitting a trigger sound. Even if it is the electric power feeding system to perform, there exists an advantage that the workability | operativity of an operation test improves because the drawstring for operation tests is unnecessary.

(Embodiment 2)
In the first embodiment, a loud sound having a sound pressure level exceeding 70 decibels is used as a trigger sound. Therefore, this trigger sound may be a noise, which may cause trouble for neighboring neighbors.

  Therefore, in this embodiment, a specific voice message (hereinafter referred to as “test voice message”) is used as a trigger sound, and the voice recognition unit 10 is provided as trigger sound detection means for detecting the trigger sound (FIG. 2). reference). However, since the configuration other than the voice recognition unit 10 is the same as that of the first embodiment, the same components are denoted by the same reference numerals, and illustration and description thereof are omitted.

  The speech recognition unit 10 includes an A / D conversion unit 11, an acoustic processing unit 12, a phoneme dictionary unit 13, a word collation unit 14, and a word dictionary unit 15. The analog acoustic signal collected by the microphone 6 is amplified by the amplification unit 7 and then converted into a digital acoustic signal (acoustic data) by the A / D conversion unit 11. The acoustic processing unit 12 collates with the analysis unit 12a that detects the speech section of the acoustic signal and the phoneme dictionary held by the phoneme dictionary unit 13 to determine what phoneme component the signal (speech signal) in the speech section has. And a phoneme matching unit 12b for analyzing whether or not it is included. Here, the phoneme dictionary held by the phoneme dictionary unit 13 is derived by statistically processing various utterance patterns. The word matching unit 14 compares the phoneme information output from the sound processing unit 12 with words registered in the word dictionary unit 15 (words constituting a test voice message; for example, “start test”). By performing the verification, the test voice message included in the acoustic signal is recognized. Note that the recognition result by the voice recognition unit 10 is passed to the control unit 1. However, since the detailed configuration and operation of the voice recognition unit 10 described above are well known in the art, a detailed description thereof will be omitted.

  Then, the control unit 1 performs an operation test when the voice recognition unit 10 recognizes (detects) the test voice message.

  As described above, according to the present embodiment, the test voice message intentionally issued by the user is used as the trigger sound, so that it is possible to prevent the operation test from being erroneously performed with daily sounds (life sounds, etc.). .

(Embodiment 3)
By the way, since fire alarms are installed in distant places such as kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms, etc., in general houses, for example, trigger sounds (particularly embodiments) near fire alarms installed in kitchens. Even if the test voice message (2) is generated, it may not be detected as a trigger sound by fire alarms installed in other places. For this reason, it is necessary to individually generate a trigger sound in the vicinity of each fire alarm device, which takes time for the operation test.

  Therefore, in the present embodiment, a sound outside the human audible range (generally 20 to 20 kilohertz), for example, a sound (ultrasonic wave) having a higher frequency than the audible range is used as a trigger sound, An operation test is performed when an ultrasonic wave in a specific frequency band is detected in the collected acoustic signal. Specifically, the control unit 1 performs discrete fast Fourier transform on the acoustic signal output from the amplifying unit 7 and detects a trigger sound when the sound pressure level in the specific frequency band exceeds a predetermined threshold value. Judge that In addition, the ultrasonic wave utilized for a trigger sound can be generated using a dog whistle, for example.

  Thus, according to the present embodiment, since the sound outside the human audible range is used as the trigger sound, the trigger sound does not become noise, and an ultrasonic wave having a frequency higher than the frequency range of the audible range is used as the trigger sound. In this case, the sound reaches far away compared with the case where the sound in the audible range is used as the trigger sound, so that a plurality of fire alarms can be simultaneously tested. However, since the configuration of the present embodiment is the same as that of the first embodiment, the same components are denoted by the same reference numerals, and illustration and description thereof are omitted.

  By the way, in Embodiments 1 to 3, if a converter (for example, a piezoelectric vibrator) that reversibly converts sound (vibration of air) and an electric signal is used instead of the speaker 5, the converter is used instead of the microphone 6. It is also possible to collect ambient sounds using. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 3, the amplifying unit 4 constituting the sounding means and the amplifying unit 7 constituting the sound collecting means are connected to the control unit 1 by the switching unit 17 and switched to the control unit 1. 4 is connected, the alarm sound is emitted from the converter 16, and when the amplifying unit 7 is connected, the surrounding sound is collected by the converter 16, and converted by the acoustic sounding means and the sound collecting means. By sharing the device (piezoelectric vibrator) 16, cost reduction and downsizing can be achieved. Note that the switching control of the switching unit 17 is performed by the control unit 1, and the converter 16 is normally connected to the amplification unit 7, and the converter 16 is connected to the amplification unit 4 only when an alarm sound is sounded.

  In addition, it is desirable that the operation test be performed periodically. However, if the operation test is performed more frequently than necessary, there is a problem in that battery consumption is accelerated particularly when the battery is used as a power source. Therefore, in the first to third embodiments, if the control unit 1 detects a trigger sound before a predetermined time (for example, 1 hour) has elapsed since the previous operation test, the operation test is not performed. Thus, it is possible to prevent the operation test from being performed more than necessary. In particular, when the battery is used as a power source, it is possible to suppress wasteful consumption of the battery. For example, when the control unit 1 executes an operation test, the built-in timer starts a countdown for a predetermined time, and the operation test is not performed even if a trigger sound is detected until the countdown for the predetermined time ends. That's fine.

It is a block diagram which shows Embodiment 1 of this invention. It is a block diagram of the principal part which shows Embodiment 2 of this invention. It is a block diagram of the principal part which shows the other structure in Embodiment 1-3 of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

1 Control unit (control means, trigger sound detection means)
2 Fire detection section (fire detection means)
3. Sound source circuit (acoustic ringing means)
4 Amplification part (acoustic ringing means)
5 Speaker (acoustic sounding means)
6 Microphone (sound collecting means)
7 Amplification part (sound collecting means)

Claims (6)

Fire detection means for detecting a fire, acoustic sounding means for sounding, control means for causing the sound sounding means to sound an alarm when the fire detection means detects a fire, and sound collecting for collecting surrounding sounds Means, and trigger sound detection means for detecting a predetermined trigger sound from the sound collected by the sound collection means,
The fire alarm device, wherein the control means performs an operation test when the trigger sound detecting means detects the trigger sound.   The fire alarm device according to claim 1, wherein the trigger sound detecting means detects a sound exceeding a predetermined sound pressure level as a trigger sound.   The fire alarm device according to claim 1, wherein the trigger sound detecting means detects a specific voice message as a trigger sound.   The fire alarm device according to claim 1, wherein the trigger sound detecting means detects a sound outside the audible frequency range as a trigger sound.   The sounding means has a converter that reversibly converts an electric signal and a sound wave, and the sound collecting means collects sound by the converter. Fire alarm as described in   6. The control unit according to claim 1, wherein the control unit does not perform the operation test when the trigger sound detection unit detects the trigger sound before a predetermined time has elapsed from the time when the previous operation test was performed. Fire alarm device according to item.

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