Electronic cassette management system, method of operating electronic cassette management system, and electronic cassette management device

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9412257-B2
Application number	US-201514642912-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 10, 2015
Priority date	Mar 26, 2014
Publication date	Aug 9, 2016
Grant date	Aug 9, 2016

Abstract

A first data taking section takes first detection results from a first wireless tag reader which detects the come and go of an electronic cassette into and out of a first service zone, and also takes second detection results from a second wireless tag reader which detects the come and go of an electronic cassette into and out of a second service zone. A first alert controller drives a first speaker to start an alert when the first alert controller determines on the basis of the first detection results that the electronic cassette has gone out the first service zone. After the start of alerting, the first alert controller stops driving the first speaker to interrupt the alert when first alert controller determines that the electronic cassette has come in either the first service zone or the second service zone.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An electronic cassette management system comprising:
first and second detectors for detecting the come and go of an electronic cassette with respect to at least first and second predetermined service zones;
a data taking section for taking detection results from the first and second detectors; and
an alert controller which starts an alert when the alert controller determines, on the basis of detection results taken by the data taking section, that the electronic cassette has gone out either of the first and second service zones, and stops the alert when the alert controller determines, on the basis of detection results taken by the data taking section after the start of alerting, that the electronic cassette has come in either of the first and second service zones.

2. The electronic cassette management system of claim 1 , further comprising a recording controller for recording a current position of the electronic cassette, which is determined by the detection results, in a recording section.

3. The electronic cassette management system of claim 2 , wherein the recording controller records tracking records in the recording section in addition to the current position, tracking records indicating former positions of the electronic cassette, which have been determined by former detection results taken by the data taking section.

4. The electronic cassette management system of claim 3 , further comprising a display controller for displaying at least the current position on a display among the current position and the tracking records.

5. The electronic cassette management system of claim 3 , further comprising a home position setting section for setting up a home position of the electronic cassette.

6. The electronic cassette management system of claim 5 , wherein the recording controller deletes at least part of the tracking records when the electronic cassette comes back to the home position that is set up by the home position setting section.

7. The electronic cassette management system of claim 5 , wherein the home position setting section refers to the tracking records to set up a place as the home position where the electronic cassette is frequently located.

8. The electronic cassette management system of claim 2 , wherein the data taking section, the alert controller and the recording controller are provided in a console that is provided for operating the electronic cassette.

9. The electronic cassette management system of claim 8 , wherein one of the service zones is supervised by a plurality of consoles, and the electronic cassette management system further comprises an enable/disable setting section for enabling the alert controller and the recording controller in at least one of the plurality of consoles.

10. The electronic cassette management system of claim 9 , wherein the plurality of consoles include a portable console that a user of the electronic cassette is carried about, and
the enable/disable setting section enables the alert controller and the recording controller of the portable console.

11. The electronic cassette management system of claim 1 , further comprising a range setting section for setting up the range of the service zone according to operational conditions of the electronic cassette.

12. The electronic cassette management system of claim 11 , wherein the operational conditions include a non-selected condition in which the electronic cassette is not selected to use for radiography and a selected condition selected to use for radiography, and
the range setting section sets the range of the service zone narrower in the selected condition than in the non-selected condition.

13. The electronic cassette management system of claim 1 , wherein a plurality of electronic cassettes can be registered as ones to be detected by the detectors.

14. The electronic cassette management system of claim 1 , wherein the detectors are wireless receivers that a receive radio frequency signal from a wireless communicator section provided in the electronic cassette.

15. A method for operating an electronic cassette management system comprising the steps of:
detecting the come and go of an electronic cassette by first and second detectors with respect to at least first and second predetermined service zones;
taking detection results from the first and second detectors;
starting an alert when it is determined on the basis of the detection results that the electronic cassette has gone out either of the first and second service zones; and
stopping the alert when it is determined that the electronic cassette has come in either of the first and second service zones on the basis of detection results taken from the first and second detectors after the start of alerting.

16. An electronic cassette management device comprising:
a first detector for detecting the come and go of an electronic cassette with respect to a predetermined first service zone;
a data taking section for taking first detection results from the first detector and second detection results from a second detector for detecting the come and go of the electronic cassette with respect to a second service zone that is assigned to at least another electronic cassette management device; and
an alert controller that starts an alert when the alert controller determines, on the basis of the first detection results taken by the data taking section, that the electronic cassette has gone out the first service zone, and stops the alert when the alert controller determines, on the basis of the first detection results or the second detection results taken by the data taking section, that the electronic cassette has come in the first service zone or the second service zone.

Assignees

• Fujifilm Corp

Inventors

• Tajima Takashi
• Enomoto Jun
• Kuwabara Takeshi
• Oda Yasufumi
• Shimizukawa Syo
• Nariyuki Fumito
• Yasuda Hiroaki
• Nakatsugawa Haruyasu

Classifications

• G08B13/24

  by interference with electromagnetic field distribution · CPC title

• G08B13/22

  Electrical actuation · CPC title

• G08B21/24 Primary

  Reminder alarms, e.g. anti-loss alarms · CPC title