JP2011101226A - Flashing signal communication system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To output a detailed state of a substrate for control with a simplified configuration. <P>SOLUTION: A transmitter 10 includes: a modulator 11 for modulating a state signal representing an operating state of the substrate for control with a carrier of a prescribed frequency; a synthesizing means 13 for synthesizing a modulation signal modulated by the modulator with a control signal for controlling light emission of light by using an exclusive OR to be a flashing control signal; and a light emitting means 14 for emitting light according to the flashing control signal synthesized by the synthesizing means, and a receiver 20 includes: a light receiving means 21 for receiving light emitted from the transmitter and converting the light into an electric signal; a band pass filter 23 for making a signal of a prescribed frequency pass through when receiving the electric signal converted by the light receiving means; and a detector 24 for detecting the signal passing through the band pass filter, decoding a state signal of a substrate, and output of decoding results. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2011,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a blinking signal communication system that synthesizes data that cannot be perceived by human vision with light emitted from a status LED.

  Currently, semiconductor control substrates are used in many fields. These control boards are not arranged alone, but are generally used by being incorporated in a device to be controlled. The control board is connected to output means such as a status lamp (status LED) that emits light toward the outside of the device in which the control board is incorporated and notifies the operation state of the control board to the outside. There are many.

  Such a status lamp notifies the operation state of the control board by turning on, turning off, or blinking. For example, the status lamp is turned on when the control board is in operation, is turned off when the control board is stopped, and blinks while a specific operation is being performed, thereby notifying the operation state of the board.

  In addition, various types of data transmission using light are performed (see, for example, Patent Document 1 or 2).

JP 2007-104722 A JP 2009-117892 A

  In the above-described conventional status lamp, only a simple operation such as lighting, extinguishing, or blinking is performed, and thus information that can be notified by the status lamp is limited. Therefore, when the status lamp is used, only a limited operation state can be expressed, and complicated contents cannot be expressed. In addition, even if the color and brightness of the emitted light are adjusted, the way of feeling the color and brightness of the light varies depending on the viewing user, which is not preferable for notification of operation contents.

  Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a blinking signal communication system that can output the state of a control board in detail with an easy configuration.

  A blinking signal communication system according to the present invention is a transmitter that is installed on a control board and transmits a signal representing an operation state of the control board in combination with light emission as a blinking speed that cannot be sensed by human vision; A blinking signal communication system having a receiver for receiving a signal transmitted by the transmitter and decoding an operation state of the control board from the signal, wherein the transmitter indicates an operation state of the control board. Control of blinking by combining a modulator that modulates a state signal to be expressed with a carrier wave of a predetermined frequency, a modulation signal modulated by the modulator, and a control signal that controls light emission using an exclusive OR. And a light emitting means for emitting light in accordance with a blinking control signal synthesized by the synthesizing means. The receiver receives light emitted from the transmitter and converts it into an electrical signal. Light receiving means When the electric signal converted by the light receiving means is input, a band-pass filter that passes the signal of the predetermined frequency, and a signal that passes the band-pass filter is detected and the state signal of the substrate is decoded, and the decoding result Is provided.

  According to the present invention, the state of the control board can be output in detail with an easy configuration.

It is a figure explaining the structure of the blinking signal communication system which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is a figure explaining the outline of the blink signal communication system concerning the embodiment of the present invention. It is an example of the waveform of the data utilized with the blink signal communication system of FIG. It is a figure explaining the frequency distribution of the data utilized with the blink signal communication system of FIG.

  A blinking signal communication system 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2. A blinking signal communication system 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention is installed on a substrate (control substrate) 100, and transmits a transmitter 10 that transmits (emits) an optical signal modulated in accordance with the operation state of the substrate 100, and a transmission. And a receiver 20 that receives (receives light) the optical signal transmitted by the device 10 via the optical fiber L1 and decodes the received optical signal. The information processing device 30 is connected to the receiver 20, and the receiver 20 outputs the decoding result of the optical signal to the information processing device 30. At this time, the optical signal output from the transmitter 10 is modulated to a high blinking speed that cannot be detected by human vision, in a pattern corresponding to the operating state of the substrate 100. The receiver 20 can specify the state of the substrate 100 by decoding the blinking pattern of the received optical signal.

  Here, the substrate 100 may be, for example, a substrate incorporated in an information processing device for a personal computer or a server, or may be a substrate incorporated in a control device such as a plant, but the state is notified by light. It is necessary to have a light emitting element such as the LED 14 as a status lamp.

  The information processing apparatus 30 is a general information processing apparatus having a display device 31 such as a personal computer, a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), or a mobile phone. The information processing apparatus 30 can display the operation state of the substrate 100 on the display device 31 according to the signal input from the receiver 20 and notify the user.

  First, in the transmitter 10 installed on the substrate 100, the modulator 11 outputs from the transmitter 12 together with digital data (FIG. 1 (a) and FIG. 3 (a)) of an electrical signal representing the operation state of the substrate 100. A carrier wave having a predetermined frequency is input. At this time, the frequency of the carrier wave output from the transmitter 12 is a frequency that cannot be recognized by human vision. In the example shown in FIG. 1, the digital data input by the modulator 11 is 1 kbps, and the carrier wave is 30 kHz. The modulator 11 modulates the digital data with the carrier wave input from the transmitter 12 and outputs the modulated digital data (FIG. 1B and FIG. 3B) to the exclusive OR calculator 13. .

  When the exclusive OR calculator 13 receives the digital data modulated by the modulator 11 and the LED control signal (FIG. 1 (c), FIG. 3 (c)) for controlling the light emission of the LED 14 as a light emitting element, The digital data and the LED control signal are combined using exclusive OR, and the combined result is output as a control signal (FIGS. 1D and 3D) for causing the LED 14 to emit light. The LED 14 emits light according to a control signal output from the exclusive OR calculator 13 to convert an electrical signal into an optical signal.

  The digital data (a) is serial data, and the digital data (b) modulated by the carrier wave is synthesized with the control signal (c) of the LED 14, but is synthesized by exclusive OR, and thus obtained by synthesis. Data (d) stores a carrier wave regardless of whether it is turned on or off. Therefore, the LED 14 drives the LED 14 with the data (d) obtained by the synthesis to emit light. Note that the human visual recognition of whether the LED 14 that emits light with the combined data (d) is turned on or off may be difficult to recognize depending on the amount of multiplexed data. When the lighting state becomes difficult to visually recognize, the data transmission time is reduced by increasing the data rate or reducing the data amount.

  In the receiver 20, when the light receiving element 21 receives the optical signal emitted from the LED 14 while being guided to the optical fiber L1, the optical signal is converted into an electrical signal (FIG. 1 (e), FIG. 3 (e)) by photoelectric conversion. The data is converted and output to an amplifier (AMP) 22. The amplifier 22 amplifies the electric signal input at a level corresponding to the characteristics of the light receiving element 21, and outputs the amplified electric signal (FIG. 1 (f) and FIG. 3 (f)) to the band pass filter (BPF) 23. .

  The bandpass filter 23 outputs an electrical signal (FIG. 1 (g) and FIG. 3 (g)) corresponding to the carrier wave used in the transmitter 10 to the detector 24. In the example shown in FIG. 1, since the frequency of the carrier wave is 30 kHz, the band-pass filter 23 also passes an electrical signal of 30 kHz. That is, the modulator 11 of the transmitter 10 modulates the digital data (a) input at the selected data rate and carrier wave so that it can be reliably separated by the band pass filter 23.

  FIG. 4 shows an example of the frequency distribution of data transmitted when the data rate is 1 Kbps and the carrier frequency is 30 KHz. Since the normal blinking signal of the LED 14 is distributed from a direct current to a low frequency, the data has a distribution having a frequency component width of 1 Kbps around a carrier frequency of 30 KHz. If the data rate is increased to 2 Kbps, the occupied spectrum of data spreads and may interfere with the blinking signal of the LED 14, so it is necessary to increase the frequency of the carrier wave or change the characteristics of the bandpass filter 23. . That is, in the blinking signal communication system 1, it is necessary to appropriately select and use the data rate and the carrier frequency in consideration of interference and separation performance.

  The detector 24 detects (demodulates) the electric signal input from the bandpass filter 23 and converts it into a serial data string (FIG. 1 (h), FIG. 3 (h)) that is analog data, and passes through the data line L2. To the information processing apparatus 30.

  The information processing apparatus 30 notifies the user of the detailed operation state of the substrate 100 by displaying the operation state of the substrate 100 specified by the serial data string (h) input from the receiver 20 on the display device 31. Can do. In order to make it easy to handle data in the information processing device 30, the digital data (a) input to the modulator 11 of the transmitter 10 is asynchronous in synchronization with RS232C or the like in consideration of portability after demodulation (detection). The serial data is preferably.

  As described above, in the blinking signal communication system 1 according to the present invention, detailed information is included in the light emitted from the LED 14 that is the status lamp, so that only the blinking pattern including lighting and extinguishing of light is expressed. The information that could not be expanded can be extended to notify more information.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Flashing signal communication system 10 ... Transmitter 11 ... Modulator 12 ... Transmitter 13 ... Exclusive OR calculator 14 ... LED (light emission means)
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 100 ... Board | substrate 20 ... Receiver 21 ... Light receiving element 22 ... Amplifier 23 ... Band pass filter 24 ... Detector 30 ... Information processing apparatus 31 ... Display apparatus L1 ... Optical fiber L2 ... Data line

Claims (1)

A transmitter installed on the control board and transmitting a signal indicating the operation state of the control board combined with light emission as a blinking speed that cannot be sensed by human vision, and a signal transmitted by the transmitter A flashing signal communication system having a receiver for decoding the operation state of the control board from the signal,
The transmitter is
A modulator that modulates a state signal representing an operating state of the control board with a carrier wave of a predetermined frequency;
A synthesizing unit that synthesizes a modulation signal modulated by the modulator and a control signal for controlling light emission by using an exclusive OR, and sets the blinking control signal;
In accordance with the blinking control signal synthesized by the synthesizing means, the light emitting means for emitting light,
The receiver is
A light receiving means for receiving light emitted from the transmitter and converting it into an electrical signal;
When an electric signal converted by the light receiving means is input, a bandpass filter that passes the signal of the predetermined frequency;
A blinking signal communication system comprising: a detector that detects a signal that has passed through the bandpass filter, decodes a state signal of the substrate, and outputs a decoding result.

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