Elevator – industrial lift truck – or stationary lift for vehicle – With monitoring – signalling – and indicating means – Monitors passengers
Reexamination Certificate
1999-06-04
2001-04-03
Salata, Jonathan (Department: 2837)
Elevator, industrial lift truck, or stationary lift for vehicle
With monitoring, signalling, and indicating means
Monitors passengers
C187S381000, C187S388000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06209685
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to selective automatic registering of elevator calls in dependence upon the knowledge of the passengers' travel habits and sensing movement of passengers into and out of the elevator corridor.
BACKGROUND ART
To improve elevator performance in delivering passengers to destination floors, recent focus has been on automatic call placement systems, typically utilizing some sort of electromagnetic transmitter to place the call. Some of the systems are passive, requiring no activity on behalf of the potential passenger to place the call. In such a case, an elevator call is placed by a transponder, such as a transmitter worn by the passenger responding to a beacon. In order to move passengers quickly out of the lobby, the calls are placed as early as possible. However, this results in placement of numerous false calls, since not all persons passing through the lobby or other elevator corridor, intend to use the elevator.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,662,479, a measurement means tracks the position of a passenger, and places a destination call if the passenger enters the elevator, but cancels the call if the passenger wanders away from the elevator. This is extremely difficult to implement whenever there are numerous passengers.
In commonly owned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/189,161 filed on Nov. 9, 1998, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,109,396, a passenger proceeding toward the elevators will automatically cause a “far call” to be registered, to cause an elevator to approach the floor of the passenger, but the car does not stop unless the passenger reaches the proximity of an elevator, where a “near call” is placed for him.
DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION
Objects of the present invention include minimizing the number of false elevator calls made automatically, while allowing entry of elevator calls as early as possible.
According to the present invention, an elevator corridor having at least one route of access has a transponder beacon located near each access, to detect when potential passengers wearing coded responder units enter and leave the corridor, and a dispatching controller which either does not enter a call, or enters a call after different delays from the transponder response, due to the travel history established for the passenger, or lack thereof, and cancels calls for passengers whose responders indicate that they have left the lobby. According further to the invention, passengers are categorized as new, when there is insufficient history to determine their travel habits, and as visitors, users, and non-users. The users are those who normally enter the elevator corridor through an entrance, and expect to take an elevator right away. The non-users are those who enter the elevator corridor, but pass therethrough to some other facility, such as a cafeteria, then eventually return to the elevator corridor where their presence at a different transponder will indicate they are now ready to board an elevator. For a new passenger with no history, the call is not placed immediately, allowing time for the passenger to pass through the elevator corridor if the passenger so desires, utilizing a time delay which may be on the order of five seconds. For users, who are known to take the elevator in essentially every case, an elevator call is placed immediately, having a time delay of one-tenth of a second or less. Non-users who pass through the elevator corridor and then excite a different transponder may then be treated as users. In still further accord with the invention, the travel patterns are recognized by whether or not a call entered for a user is cancelled several times in a row, then the user will become a non-user. New passengers will be determined to be users if they do not leave the elevator corridor within five seconds after several usages of the elevator. Non-users who change their habits and do not pass through the elevator corridor for several days, but rather wait for an elevator, are converted to users. The invention relies on the electromagnetic transmissions which identify each passenger as each passenger passes by any one of the transponder beacons.
Other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent in the light of the following detailed description of exemplary embodiments thereof, as illustrated in the accompanying drawing.
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patent: 5554832 (1996-09-01), Lumme et al.
patent: 5749443 (1998-05-01), Romao
patent: 5949037 (1999-09-01), Oya
patent: 5952626 (1999-09-01), Zaharia
patent: 5984051 (1999-11-01), Morgan et al.
patent: 6109396 (2000-08-01), Sirag et al.
patent: 196 08 382 A1 (1997-11-01), None
patent: 0 879 782 A1 (1998-05-01), None
Stranieri Paul A.
Zaharia Vlad
Otis Elevator Company
Salata Jonathan
LandOfFree
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