US-12618578-B2 - Air-conditioning management apparatus and air-conditioning management system

Abstract

The plurality of edge devices are distributed in a plurality of time zones. The network server includes a storage unit to store operation data, and a data collection control unit connected to a plurality of edge devices via a public communication line and configured to collect the operation data and store the collected operation data in the storage unit. The data collection control unit determines a time to collect the operation data from each of the plurality of edge devices based on a standard time of a time zone where each of the plurality of edge devices is disposed.

Inventors

• Shuichi TATEI

Assignees

• MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC CORPORATION

Dates

Publication Date

20260505

Application Date

20210428

Claims (3)

1. 1 . An air-conditioning management apparatus configured to collect operation data of an air conditioner via a public communication line and a plurality of edge devices, the plurality of edge devices being distributed in a plurality of time zones, the air-conditioning management apparatus including: a storage unit to store the operation data; and a data collection control unit connected to the plurality of edge devices via the public communication line, and configured to collect the operation data and store the collected operation data in the storage unit, the data collection control unit determining a time to collect the operation data from each of the plurality of edge devices based on a standard time of a time zone where each of the plurality of edge devices is disposed, wherein the storage unit is configured to store first information indicating a relationship between a standard time of a time zone corresponding to each of the plurality of edge devices and an edge device corresponding to the time zone, and the data collection control unit, based on a time difference between a standard time of a time zone corresponding to each of the plurality of edge devices indicated by the first information and a standard time of a time zone where the data collection control unit is disposed, determines a second time to collect the operation data from each of the plurality of edge devices from a first time that serves as a reference time to collect the operation data.
2. 2 . The air-conditioning management apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the storage unit is configured to store an identification ID which is assigned to each of the plurality of edge devices so as to identify each of the plurality of edge devices, the data collection control unit classifies as a group the edge devices which belong to the plurality of edge devices and are disposed in the same time zone, shifts the second time according to the identification ID, and determines a third time to collect the operation data from each of the edge devices in the group.
3. 3 . The air-conditioning management apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein each of the plurality of edge devices is configured to retain the operation data for two or more transmissions, the data collection control unit stores in the storage unit second information indicating an identification ID and a corresponding time zone of an edge device that failed to collect the operation data, and recollects the operation data that failed to be collected based on the second information at the next data collection.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION This application is a U.S. national stage application of International Application No. PCT/JP2021/016997 filed on Apr. 28, 2021, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. TECHNICAL FIELD The present disclosure relates to an air-conditioning management apparatus and an air-conditioning management system. BACKGROUND An air conditioner including at least one outdoor unit and an indoor unit can be operated by a control device such as a system controller to control an operation condition of the indoor unit. Such a control device can also collect data related to the usage status of the air conditioner in order to maintain the performance of the air conditioner and prevent the failure of the air conditioner. Although the control device described above is disposed in a building or the like where the air conditioner is installed, there has been proposed a method of constructing an air-conditioning management system on a server (such as a cloud-based system) running on a network so as to control air conditioners installed at a remote location. For example, there has been proposed an air-conditioning management system equipped with a cloud-based system to control air conditioners installed in homes, buildings, factories, or other properties. When an air-conditioning management system is running on a network, a communication load of the network or a processing load of the air-conditioning management system may become too large, which causes communication delays and transmission/reception failures that result in data loss, making it impossible to obtain useful management data. As a technology to solve this problem, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2005-180813 (PTL 1) discloses a data collection system that can accurately determine an average value of data even when the time interval for collecting data from an air conditioner changes. PATENT LITERATURE PTL 1: Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2005-180813 A cloud-based system has an upper limit on resources (such as the number of simultaneous executions) at the time of collecting data. On the other hand, an air-conditioning management system may be used to collect data from a large number of air conditioners disposed in multiple regions. Therefore, when a large number of data collections are performed simultaneously in the air-conditioning management system, the data collection may not be successfully performed due to the upper limit of resources. For example, in the air-conditioning management system, the number of simultaneous launches of data collection programs may be limited. In the case of collecting data from a large number of targets, since the data collection process is centralized on the air-conditioning management system, it is necessary to prevent the processing load from exceeding the resources available in the air-conditioning management system. However, the data collection system disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laying-Open No. 2005-180813 (PTL 1) cannot manage the processing load because the data collection system is configured to use an arithmetic method to improve the accuracy of data collection. Further, the arithmetic method used by the data collection system cannot be applied to the collection of data other than numerical data such as operation start/stop information of the air conditioner, and the data collection cannot be successfully performed when data is missing due to communication errors or the like. SUMMARY The present disclosure has been made to solve the aforementioned problems, and it is therefore an object of the present disclosure to provide an air-conditioning management apparatus and an air-conditioning management system capable of successfully performing data collection while avoiding restrictions due to an upper limit of cloud resources by controlling a timing to collect data from an edge device when collecting data from a large number of targets. The present disclosure relates to an air-conditioning management apparatus configured to collect operation data of an air conditioner via a public communication line and a plurality of edge devices. The plurality of edge devices are distributed in a plurality of time zones. The air-conditioning management apparatus includes a storage unit to store the operation data, and a data collection control unit connected to the plurality of edge devices via the public communication line and configured to collect the operation data and store the collected operation data in the storage unit. The data collection control unit determines a time to collect the operation data from each of the plurality of edge devices based on a standard time of a time zone where each of the plurality of edge devices is disposed. According to the air-conditioning management apparatus and the air-conditioning management system of the present disclosure, by determining a time to collect the operation data based on a time zone where an edge device is installed, it i