WO1996028925A1

WO1996028925A1 - Telesupervising system

Info

Publication number: WO1996028925A1
Application number: PCT/FI1996/000153
Authority: WO
Inventors: Toni Seppo Kuusisto; Keijo Kalevi Kantoluoto
Original assignee: Toni Seppo Kuusisto; Keijo Kalevi Kantoluoto
Priority date: 1995-03-13
Filing date: 1996-03-13
Publication date: 1996-09-19
Also published as: SE9703319D0; AU4945996A; FI951167A0; SE518689C2; FI951167A; FI103928B1; FI103928B; SE9703319L

Abstract

The present invention concerns a telesupervising system comprising a number of terminal supervising units (1; 11, 12, ...), one or more centralizers (3; 31, 32, ...; 21) and a supervising station (25). The terminal supervising units (1; 11, 12, ...) are arranged to the objects to be supervised. Supervising devices (7, 8, 9) are connected thereto. Each terminal supervising unit (1; 11, 12, ...) is connected to a subscriber line (2; 21, 22, ...) and further to the supervising station (25). According to the invention, each terminal supervising unit (1; 11, 12, ...) is connected by the subscriber line (2; 21, 22, ...) to the supervising centralizer (3; 31, 32, ...); and each supervising centralizer (3; 31, 32, ...) comprises a connection unit and a supervising transmit and receive unit, one or more terminal supervising units being connected to said connection unit, and one or more connection units being connected to the supervising transmit and receive unit. The terminal supervising unit (1; 11, 12, ...) comprises: means for regularly transmitting standard messages to the supervising centralizer, when the status of the object to be supervised remains unchanged; and means for transmitting supervising messages, such as alarm messages, information collecting messages or similar to the supervising centralizer (3; 31, 32, ...) in accordance with the reactions of the supervising devices. The supervising centralizer (3; 31, 32, ...) comprises means for receiving and identifying the messages transmitted from the terminal supervising unit; means for noticing missing of a standard message from any of the terminal supervising units; and means for transmitting messages to the supervising station (25).

Description

Telesupervising system

The present invention concerns a telesupervising system in accordance with the preamble of claim 1.

From the Finnish patent application 935568 it is already known an alarm equipment including a central alarm station and a number of alarm units. The alarm units are connected to the central alarm station through a public telephone network. The alarm units can be located in private premises, offices or in general in localities where a telephone line can be installed. The alarm unit comprises in this case a controller, such as e.g. a microprocessor, a memory unit and a connection circuit and connectors for different emergency indicators like burglar alarms and/or a fire alarms. In addition, an alarm siren can be attached to the alarm unit. Further, the alarm unit comprises a telephone circuit for transmitting alarm messages to the central alarm station. Thus, the alarm unit comprises at least one emergency indi- cator, the activation of which results in that a message is immediately transmitted from the alarm unit to the central alarm station that receives the message and transmits the message further e.g. to the person on duty, to the police etc.

One drawback of the alarm equipment described above is, that the alarm equipment with its numerous alarm units and its central alarm stations is a strongly centralized system, the operation costs of which are high.

The alarm unit described above is connected to the subscri¬ ber line of the telephone. The alarm unit contacts the central alarm station by dialling the telephone number of it and in this way by reserving the subscriber line to its own use. A disadvantage is in that case that the telephone connected to the same subscriber line cannot be used.

A further.drawback of the alarm equipment described above is that it operates only in alarm situations; no supervising for monitoring the operation of the alarm unit is provided.

A still further drawback is that a lot of functions are integrated to the alarm unit, whereby it is a rather compli¬ cated device and, accordingly, also suspectable to defects.

An object of the present invention is to eliminate for their essential parts the drawbacks of the alarm equipment descri- bed above. A further object of the invention is to disclose a new telesupervising system that is versatile and provides different, easily variable supervising possibilities for monitoring and/or control, to be used both by the subscriber and the teleoperator.

The telesupervising system in accordance with the present invention is characterized in what has been stated in the preamble of claim 1.

The telesupervising system in accordance with the present invention comprises a number of terminal supervising units, one or more centralizers and a supervising station, the terminal supervising units being provided into the objects to be supervised and supervising devices being connected thereto, and each terminal supervising unit being connected to a subscriber line and further to the supervising station. According to the invention, each terminal supervising unit is connected over the subscriber line to the supervising centralizer; and - each supervising centralizer comprises a connection unit and a supervising transmit and receive unit, one or more terminal supervising units being connected to said connecti¬ on unit and one or more connection units being connected to said supervising transmit and receive unit; and - the terminal supervising unit comprises

— means for regularly transmitting standard messages to the supervising centralizer, when the status of the object to be supervised remains unchanged, and — means for transmitting supervising messages, such as alarm messages, information collecting messages or similar to the supervising centralizer in accordance with the reac¬ tions of the supervising devices; and - the supervising centralizer further comprises means for receiving and identifying messages transmitted from the terminal supervising unit; means for noticing missing of a standard message from any of the terminal supervising units; and means for transmitting messages to the supervising station.

The telesupervising system in accordance with the present invention comprises a decentralized system formed of ter¬ minal supervising units, of a supervising centralizer and of one or more centralizers, the already existing telephone networks and/or data communication networks being utilized in the system.

An advantage of the system in accordance with the invention is that it provides means for monitoring very many kinds of operations in connection with the subscriptions and for giving alarms e.g in case of operation disturbances. By means of the invention it is possible to implement a super¬ vising network that is well secured as a whole, without any significant investments e.g in transmission paths.

A further advantage of the system in accordance with the invention is that a different receiver can be adapted to each alarm/alarm group respectively.

A still further advantage is that bidirectional data trans¬ mission can be performed in the system, whereby also remote control is applicable to many kinds of operations, e.g. warming of summer cottages or sauna ovens, lightning, etc.

One advantage of the system in accordance with the present invention is that all localities that are reachable through telephone network can be supervised with it. The system causes no limitations to the alarm devices and/or systems to be used in the object.

A still further advantage is that the terminal supervising units can be connected to a local centralizer (located in a block of flats) or to public centralizers (located in pre¬ mises of the telephone company) . The alarms can be transmit¬ ted through a suitable data communication network and/or telephone network e.g. to a maintenance, measuring and/or guarding person or centre.

A still further advantage is that the alarms received from a terminal supervising unit can be transmitted from the supervising station also to subscriptions of an alternative telephone network, whereby the subscriber can determine the receiver of the alarm him/herself.

A still further advantage of the invention is that due to the decentralization and the efficient control of the data transfer, the operating costs per subscriber of the terminal supervising unit are reasonable.

A still further advantage of the invention is that each terminal supervising unit is continuously supervised, the correctness of its operation being thus monitored.

A still further advantage of the invention is that transfer of the alarm messages and that of the supervising and cont¬ rol messages transmitted by the alarm receiver, in general, is effected in the subscriber line on the frequency bands outside the speech channel, preferably on the frequency band of 20 to 40 kHz. Thus, a normal telephone device in connec¬ tion with the terminal supervising unit can be used in a usual way irrespective of the operation of the terminal supervising unit.

In the following the present invention will be described in more detail with reference to accompanying drawings, wherein Figure 1 shows as a block diagram a telesuper¬ vising unit in accordance with the pre¬ sent invention;

Figure 2 shows a general view of the terminal su¬ pervising unit with its connection alter¬ natives;

Figure 3 shows a general view of the supervising centralizer;

Figure 4 shows a general view of another super¬ vising centralizer;

Figure 5 shows a block diagram of one terminal supervising unit;

Figure 6 shows a block diagram of one supervising centralizer;

Figure 7a shows a preferred data transfer mode bet¬ ween a terminal supervising unit and a supervising centralizer, and

Figures 7b, 7c and 7d show different messages.

Referring to figure 1, one telesupervising system in accor¬ dance with the present invention is described. This system comprises one or more terminal supervising units 1; l¹; l², •••, each of which being connected to a subscriber line 2; 2¹; 2², ..., and through this to a supervising centralizer 3; 3¹; 3², .... A number of supervising centralizers 3; 3¹; 3² are connected to a centralizer 21 and further over a telephone network and/or a data communication network 22 to a supervising station 25.

The terminal supervising unit 1 is located in the object to be supervised or preferably in the vicinity thereof. One terminal supervising unit 1 is described as a block diagram in figure 2. The terminal supervising system 1 comprises connecting means 6; 6a, for connecting at least one super¬ vising device such as an alarm device 7 (e.g. fire alarm or burglar alarm), a measuring device 8 (e.g. thermometer) or an information collecting device 9 in general in order to collect alarm, measuring etc. information from the object to be supervised. In addition to the connecting means 6; 6a described above, the terminal supervising unit 1 can include connecting means 6; 6b for connecting at least one control device 10, such as control switch of heating, lightning and/or locking in order to give control information.

The terminal supervising unit 1 further comprises connecting means 6; 6c for connecting a telephone device 11 or a cor¬ responding terminal device of the telenetwork further to the subscriber line 2. The terminal supervising unit 1 is prefe¬ rably connected via a separate power supply unit 12 to an external current source 13, such as an electrical network or a battery. In some cases, where a low power is required, the electric power for the terminal supervising unit 1 can be supplied also from the telephone network (compare figure 5).

The terminal supervising unit 1 further comprises means for transmitting standard messages regularly further to the supervising centralizer 3 irrespective of the status of the object to be supervised, and means for transmitting super¬ vising messages, such as alarm messages and/or information collecting messages or similar in accordance with the reac- tions of the supervising devices 7, 8, 9.

In this embodiment the terminal supervising unit 1 also comprises means for receiving control messages from the supervising centralizer 3 and for transmitting the same to one or more control devices 10 connected to the terminal supervising unit 1. In case there are no devices to be controlled in connection with the terminal supervising unit 1, these devices can be left out from the terminal super- vising unit 1.

Means for transmitting standard messages regularly, means for transmitting supervising messages and means for re- ceiving control messages included in the terminal super¬ vising unit 1 are preferably implemented by means of a data processing unit 14, such as a microcontroller, one or more memory units 15 and a data transfer unit 16. By means of the data processing unit 14, the above mentioned operations are preferably controlled through a program by using a suitable memory unit 15 and a data transfer unit 16. The data trans¬ fer unit 16 comprises data transfer means, such as a trans¬ mit and receive unit 16a, 16b and a connection unit 16c for bidirectional data transfer.

The supervising centralizer 3 comprises at least one connec¬ tion unit 4; 4¹, 4² and a supervising transmit and receive unit 5, as it can be seen from figures 3 and 4. The super¬ vising transmit and receive unit 5 comprises a data proces- sing unit 17, a first data transfer unit 18 and a memory unit 19. The data processing unit 17, such as a microcompu¬ ter and the first data transfer unit 18 form in this embodi¬ ment means for receiving messages transmitted from the terminal supervising unit 1; l¹, l² through the subscriber line 2; 2¹, 2², such as standard messages and supervising messages, means for examining these messages and for saving them to the memory unit 19. Also the eventual control messa¬ ges coming from the supervising station 25 are saved to the memory unit 19, further to be transmitted to the terminal supervising unit 1; l¹, l². The data transfer unit 18 comp¬ rises data transfer means, such as a transmit and receive unit 5 to which a connection unit 4 is connected for trans¬ ferring data bidirectionally with the terminal supervising unit 1.

The data transfer units 16, 18 included in the terminal supervising unit 1; l¹, l² and in the supervising transmit and receive unit of the supervising centralizer 3; 3¹, 3² are implemented so that the data is transferred between each terminal supervising unit 1; l¹, l² and the supervising transmit and receive unit 5 on a frequency band higher than the frequency band of the normal speech communications, preferably on the band from 20 to 40 kHz, such as e.g. a carrier frequency of 35,7 kHz. No filtering is in that case required in the transmit and receive end, unlike when opera¬ ting on the audio frequencies from 20 Hz to 16 kHz.

In the embodiment of figure 5, the terminal supervising unit 1 comprises a data transfer unit 16, where a carrier fre¬ quency of 35,7 kHz is used for message transfer. The trans¬ mit unit 16a of the data transfer unit 16 comprises a modu¬ lator 161 and an amplifier 162. Pulse series representing messages and having a predefined format and a carrier fre¬ quency, are fed from the data processing unit 14 to the input of the modulator 161 of the transmit unit 16a, which modulates the square wave signal fed from the data proces¬ sing unit 14 into a sinusoidal signal with the corresponding frequency. By means of the amplifier 162 the bursts are transmitted through the connection unit 16c to the subscri¬ ber line 2 and further to the supervising centralizer 3.

The receive unit 16b of the data transfer unit 16 comprises an amplifier 163 and a modulator 164. By means of the ampli¬ fier 163 the messages consisting of carrier frequency bursts are amplified and preferably also filtered. The modulator 164 includes a phase-locked loop, by means of which the carrier frequency bursts are modulated to electric pulses having the corresponding duration, to be fed to the input of the data processing unit 14. By means of the data processing unit 14 the messages transmitted from the supervising cent¬ ralizer 3 to the terminal supervising unit 1 are interpre¬ ted.

In the embodiment of figure 5, the power supply unit 12a of the terminal supervising unit 1 is connected to the subscri¬ ber line_. 2. Thus, the terminal supervising unit needs no separate battery or current source, but its power supply is effected from the telephone central office. The connection unit 16c includes a separating transformer 164 for separa¬ ting the terminal supervising unit 1 from the subscriber line 2.

In the embodiment of figure 6, the supervising centralizer 3 comprises a data processing unit 17 and a number of con¬ nection units 4; 4¹, 4² and a data transfer unit 5. Each connection unit 4; 4¹, 4²,...,4* is respectively connected to such a subscriber line 2; 2¹, 2²,...,2" where also a terminal supervising unit 1 according to figure 5 is connected to. The data transfer unit 5 comprises a supervising transmitter 50 and receiver 51. The supervising transmitter 50 comprises a modulator 501, an amplifier 502 and a multiplexer 503. Pulse series representing messages (compare figure 7a) and having a predefined format and a baseband frequency, are fed from the data processing unit 17 to the input of the modula¬ tor 501 of the supervising transmitter 50. The modulator 501 modulates the square wave signal with carrier frequency 35,7 kHz to a sinusoidal signal with the corresponding frequency. These bursts are amplified and fed to the multiplexer 503. The data processing unit 17 is connected by address conduc¬ tors to the multiplexer 503, and over them the output chan- nel 505; 505¹, 505², ...505" of the multiplexer 503, to which the message will be transmitted, is stated and selected. Each output channel 505 is respectively connected to the connection unit 4; 4¹, 4², ... , and through this to the subsc¬ riber line 2; 2¹, 2²,... and to the desired terminal super- vising unit 1; l¹, l²,...

The receiver 51 comprises a number of modulator units 511; 511¹, 511², ... ,511* and a multiplexer 512. For each connecti¬ on unit 4; 4¹, 4²,... there is respectively one modulator unit 511; 511¹, 511², ...511", correspondingly connected thereto. Each modulator unit 511 comprises an amplifier 511a and the actual modulator 511b. By means of the amplifier 511a the messages coming from the subscriber line 2; 2¹, 2 over the connection unit 4; 4^X, 4² are amplified and prefera¬ bly also filtered. The messages comprise bursts with a baseband frequency. By means of each modulator 511b the bursts with a carrier frequency are modulated to electric pulses with a corresponding length, to be fed to the respec¬ tive inputs 512; 512¹, 512²,... of the multiplexer 512. The data processing unit 17 is connected by address conductors 171 and by means of a data conductor 172 to the multiplexer 512. With help of the data processing unit 17, by giving through the address conductors 171 an address to the multi¬ plexer 512, messages are read over the data conductor 172 from each subscriber line 2; 2¹, 2²,... and the terminal device 1; l¹, l², ... connected respectively thereto, by time division but continuously.

In the embodiment of figure 3, the supervising centralizer 3; 3a is provided in connection with a telephone central office 26. The supervising centralizer 3 is connected by a fixed connecting wire 24a to the centralizer 21 in connecti- on with the telephone central office 26. The expression telephone central office 26 must be understood in a broad sense; it can be e.g. a telephone exchange, a house exchan¬ ge, a normal local or long distance central office. Subs¬ tantial for the telephone central office is that a number of subscriber lines are connected thereto, which can be inter¬ connected trough the central office and/or connected further to other exchanges over centre lines and further to the subscriber lines.

The connection line 24; 24b coming from the first centrali¬ zer 21 located immediately in the vicinity of the super¬ vising centralizer 3 is connected to the next second centra¬ lizer (not shown in figures), that is e.g. located in a local telephone exchange. This second centralizer is connec- ted by a connection line to a centralizer in connection to a telephone central office of the next level, e.g. a long distance central office, in connection or in the vicinity of which the. supervising station 25 of the telesupervising system is located (compare figure 1).

The supervising station 25 comprises a data processing unit 28, such as a microcomputer, and a memory unit 29. Connec- ting means 27 also include the output connecting means 27b of the supervising station e.g. to the voice mail, guard company etc.

The supervising station 25 comprises a data transfer unit 36 and, correspondingly, the supervising centralizer 3, prefe¬ rably the supervising transmit and receive unit 5 includes a second corresponding data transfer unit 20 for transfer¬ ring data between them. The both of the data transfer units 36, 20 include data transfer means, such as the transmit/re- ceive unit and adapters for bidirectional data transfer.

The supervising station 25 includes a user interface 37, such as a display and a keyboard, through which the super¬ vising station 25 can be controlled, data can bee fed into it and/or its operation can be supervised.

The data transfer units 36, 20 of the supervising station 25 and the supervising centralizer 3 are preferably digital transmitting devices, whereby the data is transferred bet- ween each supervising centralizer 3 and supervising station 25 in a digital form.

Alternatively the both data transfer units 36, 20 include a modem, over which the data transfer between each supervising centralizer 3 and supervising station 25 is arranged e.g. through a public telephone network. In that case, separate centralizers 21 are most preferably not used in the system. This is, however, an uneconomic solution, e.g. compared to direct digital data transfer in a suitably fast data trans- fer network.

Referring to figure 4, the supervising centralizer 3 comp¬ rises two connection units 4; 4¹, 4² and a supervising trans- mit and receive unit 5. Through each connection unit 4; 4¹, 4², two terminal supervising units 1; l¹, l², l³, 1* are connected to the supervising transmit and receive unit 5. A separate supervising unit 33 is in this embodiment connected by a suitable data transfer path to the supervising transmit and receive unit 5. The supervising unit 33 comprises a user interface 35, such as a display and a keyboard, over which the supervising transmit and receive unit 5 can be control¬ led, data can be fed into it and/or its operation can be controlled. Thus, the supervising of the terminal super¬ vising units 1; l¹, l² l³ can be at least partly moved from the supervising station 25 to a lower level. The supervising centralizer 3 is connected e.g. by its own subscriber line 34 to a local telephone central office or the like, from where it is, e.g. by centralizers of the next telephone central offices, connected to the supervising station 25.

Alternatively, the first centralizer 21 is connected to the data transfer network by a suitable network server. The supervising station 25 is correspondingly connected to the data transfer network. In this way the centralizers 21 have a direct, fast contact through the network to the super¬ vising station 25. E.g own networks of teleoperators or other suitable separate networks are preferably used as a data transfer network.

With reference to the operation of the telesupervising systems in accordance with the present invention, the follo¬ wing can be noted. Between an individual subscriber, in connection of the subscriber line 2 of which a terminal supervising unit 1 is connected to, and the supervising station 25, the data is transferred over a suitable transfer path, such as a connection wire channel 24 provided for this purpose by a teleoperator, said channel being formed over connection wire lines (24b) of sequential centralizers (among others 21) or through a suitable data network. In this way hundreds of terminal supervising units 1 connected to the subscriber lines 2 can be supervised. So, the te- lesupervising system does not jam the public telephone network or the corresponding. The data transfer of the telesupervising system between each terminal supervising unit 1 and the supervising station 25 is preferably as well unidirectional transfer of standard messages and supervising messages, as bidirectional transfer of both standard and supervising messages and control messages. Data transfer from the terminal supervising unit 1 is implemented on a frequency band outside the audible range of human ear, like e.g. on the carrier frequency of 35,7 kHz, preferably as frequency bursts of acceptable level. Data transfer from the supervising centralizer 3 further to the supervising station 25 and vice versa is preferably based on fast digital data transfer.

Messages composed of carrier frequency signal bursts between the terminal supervising unit 1 and the supervising centra¬ lizer 3 are formed e.g. according to figure 7a. Each message includes several parts, preferably three parts: first part A, message type part B and channel part C. The first part A of the message comprises bursts Al and A2 of the length of two (or more) basic blocks t, and an empty burst space A3 of the length of one basic block t. The message type B of the message comprises four (or in general a number of) burst spaces Bl, B2, B3, B4 of the length of one basic block t. The channel part C comprises a number of burst spaces Cl, C2, ..., CN of the length of one basic block 1. In said burst spaces of the message type and channel part, either a carrier frequency, preferably of 35,7 kHz, burst is placed, or no burst is placed at all. Placing of bursts depends on the agreed contents of the message. The bursts are marked with diagonal lines in burst spaces in the message examples of figures 7b, 7c and 7d.

The continuous supervision of the terminal supervising unit 1, and especially that of its connections, is based on the fact, that the terminal supervising unit 1 transmits at predefined intervals standard messages like "OK" formed of agreed frequency bursts, such as the burst pattern of figure 7b, that e.g. a supervising transmit and receive unit 5 of the supervising centralizer 3 located in a telephone central office 26 of a public teleoperator is expecting at certain intervals. The supervising transmit and receive units 5 register the standard messages in the memory unit 19. The received standard messages "OK" are no more forwarded as separate message when the nearest centralizer 21 interroga¬ tes them from the supervising centralizer 3. In case the supervising centralizer 3 receives the standard messages in a normal way from all terminal supervising units 1 connected thereto, the nearest centralizer 21, when interrogating the situation, gets an answer that is a common standard message "OK" relating to all the terminal supervising units 1 con- cerned. In this way it can be forwarded up to the super¬ vising station 25.

The data transfer in a supervising situation is as follows. When the terminal supervising unit 1 receives a supervising message, such as a fire alarm or a measuring message, from a supervising device connected thereto, the message is transmitted further, e.g. as messages according to figures 7b or 7c, from the terminal supervising unit 1 to the super¬ vising centralizer 3. In that case the supervising message includes, in addition to the actual alarm message or the corresponding measuring message, the address of the in¬ put/output connection 6 of the terminal supervising unit 1 (e.g. in channel C3). The supervising message is saved e.g. into the memory unit 19 of the supervising transmit and receive unit 5, from where it is, however, transmitted immediately, together with the address information of the respective supervising centralizer 3 and the input/output address information of the respective terminal supervising unit 1 and the actual contents of the supervising message, further to the centralizer 21 and along a suitable data transfer path further to the supervising station 25, from where a required alarm as agreed upon in advance, is given. It is in general not necessary to send the measuring infor¬ mation immediately, but they can be forwarded e.g. from the centralizer 21 based of inquiries of the supervising station 25. Measuring information is presented e.g. as a message according to figure 7c. In this case the message type B indicates an existing measuring message and the following additional message type C with four (or more) burst spaces Cl, C2, C3, C4, the address of the channel (that is, of the connection 6) in a binary form. After that follows a binary measuring message D with e.g. 16 bits, that is burst spaces.

If the supervising transmit and receive unit 5 of the super¬ vising centralizer 3 does not receive any standard message from the terminal supervising unit 1 within the predefined time limit, (f.ex. the subscriber line 2 is broken or the terminal supervising unit 1 is defected so that it is out of order), this will be noticed as missing of the supervising message "OK". The information will be immediately forwarded to the supervising stations 25.

Transfer of the control messages from the supervising stati¬ on 25 to a certain terminal supervising unit 1 is implemen¬ ted in principle in the same way as described above with respect of transfer of the supervising messages, but in the opposite direction. Also the structure of the control messa¬ ge is similar; in addition to the actual control information it also includes the necessary routing and/or address infor¬ mation.

The terminal supervising unit 1 is able to receive orders from the supervising station 25 and to control the eventual remote controllable devices connected to the terminal super¬ vising unit 1 accordingly. The control messages are trans¬ mitted to the centralizer 21 and further downstream over the data transfer unit 5 of the supervising centralizer 3, and finally transferred to the terminal supervising unit 1 in question, in order to control the operation of the respecti¬ ve control, device 10 connected thereto. When a standard, supervising and/or control message is received by the first centralizer 21, this receiving is preferably acknowledged by sending an acknowledgement messa¬ ge, such as the message in accordance with figure 7d, to the terminal supervising units 1; l¹, l² in the opposite directi¬ on to the transfer direction of the message.

The operation alternatives of the supervising station 25 are identified based on different supervising messages transmit- ted by the supervising transmit and receive unit 5. The memory unit 29 in connection with the supervising station 25 includes a customer register, where in addition to the basic information of the customer (name/company, address etc.) also among others a further customer specific alarm address is saved to. This further alarm address refers e.g. to the address of a guard company, voice mail etc., like a telepho¬ ne number, to which the supervising message or the modified supervising message is further transmitted from the super¬ vising station. In case the received messages include e.g. a supervising message, such as a fire alarm message from a certain terminal supervising unit 1, an alarm address is read by means of a programm saved to the data processing unit 28; it is compared with the customer information and the further alarm address is selected based on the basic information included in the customer register, and, if necessary, the alarm address is indicated on a digital map.

The present invention and some of its solutions have been described above with reference to some of its preferred embodiments. It is, however, clear, that the invention is in many different ways applicable, within the scope of the inventive idea determined by the enclosed claims.

Claims

Claima

1. A telesupervising system comprising a number of terminal supervising units (1; l¹, l², ...), one or more centralizers (3; 3¹, 3², ...; 21) and a supervising station (25), said terminal supervising units (1; l¹, l², ...) being provided into the objects to be supervised and supervising devices (7, 8, 9) being connected thereto and each terminal supervising unit (1; l¹, l², — ) being connected to a subsc¬ riber line (2; 2¹, 2², — ) and further to the supervising station (25), characterized in that

— each terminal supervising unit (1; l¹, l², ...) is connec¬ ted over the subscriber line (2; 2¹, 2², ...) to the super¬ vising centralizer (3; 3¹, 3², — ); and

— each supervising centralizer (3; 3¹, 3², ...) comprises a connection unit (4; 4¹, 4², ...) and a supervising transmit and receive unit (5;), one or more terminal supervising units (1; l¹, l², ...) being connected to said connection unit (4; 4¹, 4², ...) and one or more connection units (4; 4¹, 4², ...) being connected to said supervising transmit and receive unit (5; ) ; and that

— the terminal supervising unit (1; l¹, l², ...) comprises

— means (14, 15, 16) for regularly transmitting standard messages to the supervising centralizer (3; 3¹, 3², ...), when the status of the object to be supervised remains unchanged, and

— means (14, 15, 16) for transmitting supervising messages, such as alarm messages, information collecting messages or similar to the supervising centralizer (3; 3¹, 3², ...) in accordance with the reactions of the supervising devices (7, 8, 9); and

— the supervising centralizer (3; 3¹, 3², ...) comprises

— means for receiving and identifying messages transmitted from the terminal supervising unit (1; l¹, l², ...);

— means (17) for noticing missing of a standard message from any of the terminal supervising units (1; l¹, l², ...); and

— means for transmitting messages to the supervising stati¬ on (25).

2. A telesupervising system in accordance with claim 1, characterized in that the terminal supervising unit (1) comprises means (14, 15, 16) for receiving control messages from the supervising centralizer (3) and for transmitting them to one or more control devices (10) connected to the terminal supervising unit (1).

3. A telesupervising system in accordance with claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the terminal supervising unit (1) and the supervising centralizer (3), particularly the supervising transmit and receive unit (5), comprises data transfer means (16, 18) for transferring data between each terminal supervising unit (1) and supervising centralizer (3), particularly supervising transmit and receive unit (5), on a frequency band that is higher than the frequency band of the normal speech communication, preferably on a frequen¬ cy band from 20 to 40 kHz, most preferably on a frequency of 35,7 kHz.

4. A telesupervising system in accordance with claim

3, characterized in that data transfer between the terminal supervising unit (1) and the supervising centralizer (3) is implemented as messages that include burst patterns with a carrier frequency.

5. A telesupervising system in accordance with claim

4, characterized in that each message comprises a first part (A), a message type part (B) that determines the type of the message, and a channel part (C), in which at least the connection of the terminal supervising unit (1) is informed, that the message concerns (Figure 7a).

6. A telesupervising system in accordance with any of the foregoing claims, characterized in that a number of supervising centralizers (3; 3¹, 3², ...) are connected to a centralizer (21) and further over a suitable telephone or data network to the supervising station (25).

7. A telesupervising system in accordance with any of the foregoing claims, characterized in that the supervising centralizer (3) comprises a supervising unit (33) at least for partly supervising the terminal supervising units (1; l¹, l², ...), said supervising unit (33) being preferably connected to the supervising transmit and receive unit (5).

8. A telesupervising system in accordance with any of the foregoing claims, characterized in that the data trans- fer means (36, 37) of the supervising centralizer (3) and the supervising station (25) include a modem, over which the data between each supervising centralizer (3) and super¬ vising station (25) is arranged to be transferred.