Elevator – industrial lift truck – or stationary lift for vehicle – With call registration means – Shared by plural load supports
Reexamination Certificate
2002-09-30
2004-09-21
Salata, Jonathan (Department: 2837)
Elevator, industrial lift truck, or stationary lift for vehicle
With call registration means
Shared by plural load supports
C187S247000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06793044
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a targeted or destination call control for lifts or elevators according to the definitions of the patent claims.
In known manner an elevator control serves the purpose of serving car calls to the various floors of the building. The drive of the elevator knows as commands merely the instructions “travel upwardly”, “travel downwardly”, “door open” and “door close”.
In larger buildings usually a group of two to eight elevators is installed, from which it is now necessary to select that elevator which appears the most suitable for a newly input car call from a floor, a so-termed floor or hall call. As a rule this is the elevator which has the shortest travel path to this floor. If, however, each elevator of the group has to serve, on this travel path, other hall calls beforehand, then passengers will board at the floors, the destination of whom is known only when they have pressed the corresponding car buttons. The allocation of a hall call to an elevator thus becomes problematic, since permanent uncertainty about the destinations to be traveled to exists.
Accordingly, in the elevator industry numerous experiments can be observed to skillfully “guess” the possible destination floors of the passengers by means of use of learning methods on the basis of neuronal networks or genetic algorithms. The effect of such a method is, however, very limited, because merely coarse traffic patterns, such as, for example, the morning upward peak, are identifiable with any certainty. However, it remains unclear what a passenger wants when, for example, he or she calls a elevator on a Monday morning about 10:37 o'clock at the 10th floor of a high-rise office.
Another starting point for the solution of the control problem consists of so-called destination call controls. With a destination call control the passengers, before boarding an elevator or an elevator car, input their desired destination floor, for example by way of a keyboard similar to a telephone, i.e. a so-termed terminal. The boarding floor is known to the destination call control from the position of the terminal. After input of the destination floor, an allocation algorithm of the control ascertains that elevator of the elevator group which enables the quickest and most comfortable transport for the passenger to his or her destination. The terminal indicates to the passenger this elevator of the group of elevators and the passenger can step into the correspondingly marked elevator at his or her own pace. If the elevator stops for boarding, then the destination of the passenger is confirmed, for example, by way of a display device in the door frame. In the car itself, there are no longer present any buttons for the input of destinations. In this manner, through use of a destination call control, passengers with an identical transport destination can be grouped and thereby the transport performance of the elevator system increased.
An example, which is known from the European patent document EP 0 699 617 A1, of such a destination call control is, in addition, in the position of identifying individual passengers. For each identified passenger additional data with respect to boarding position and disembarking position, the passenger space requirement and possible additional service requirements are taken into consideration, by access to a data memory, in the determination of the optimal transport possibility.
This and other conventional destination call controls are based on an intuitive approximation algorithm on the basis of allocation rules. This allocation algorithm is designed and programmed in each instance specifically to requirement. In the case of a travel request, i.e. the destination call, the data related to persons and the installation and detected by way of an appropriate sensor system are passed on to the allocation algorithm and run through the algorithm for determination of the travel sequence.
If new additional travel requests arise during execution of a travel sequence, then the already computed travel sequence is modified to that effect. In that case, however, only simple modifications can be undertaken, which can have the consequence that only a modified travel sequence which is related to a destination call and which is no longer the optimal travel sequence with respect to the changed preconditions is executed. Long waiting times and/or transport times for the passengers can result therefrom. Moreover, interrelationships of individual control options, so-termed service requirements, are not always expressed logically and in unbroken manner in such a fixedly programmed allocation algorithm. Moreover the control software created in requirement-specific form for computation of the travel sequence is regarded as detailed and complicated. It is disadvantageous, in particular, that a once-created allocation algorithm can be subsequently adapted to different customer-specific control requirements only with substantial cost. In practice, for adaptation to changed service requirements a new elevator specific allocation algorithm has to be prepared in each case and implemented in entirety.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The targeted call control for elevator installations according to the present invention concerns an apparatus, which apart from an increase in transport performance is also constructed to be flexible and robust and takes into consideration, in particular, individual and/or collective transport needs of passengers.
For the fulfillment of this object the invention is given by a method for travel sequence planning which is characterized in particular by the fact that a situation-based search process for determining the optimal travel sequence is provided. A solution in terms of device is given by a targeted call control that proposes an organization of the traffic volume with use of a so-termed planning system.
According to the invention there is thus provided in place of a previously employed, use specific fixedly programmed control algorithm, a planning system which is known per se. The planning system operates according to a situation-based search process and determines, related to destination call and proceeding from the instantaneous operational state of the elevator installation and the objective state to be produced of the elevator installation, the situation-specific optimal travel sequence.
The use in accordance with the invention of a situation-based search process essentially offers the advantage that in the case of any relevant change in the instantaneous situation, for example on registration of a new travel request, disruptions in the execution of a travel sequence, or the like, a completely new actual travel sequence is determined—in the extreme case after each executed travel sequence step—and the elevator drive then executes this new sequence.
With each registration of a relevant change, for example, in the case of each destination call, the instantaneous operational state and the desired objective operational state of the elevator installation are declaratively combined on the basis of facts in a state description. This state change, which is illustrated in the state description and which is to be achieved, of the elevator installation is passed on to the planning system in translated form as a part of a situation representation, which is described further below. The situation-based search process thus has, with each registered destination call, complete information with respect to the traffic state of the elevator installation. It can accordingly compute the optimal serving of the destination call for a fixed, predefined optimization criterion. This computation process is so designed that in fact the optimum can be found on the basis of the given criterion under real-time requirements.
The determined travel sequence plan is constructed by the planning system in such a manner that the desired state change can be achieved in execution of the travel sequence plan.
An elevator installation with travel sequence planning in accordance with t
Koehler Jana
Schuster Kilian
Inventio AG
MacMillan Sobanski & Todd LLC
Salata Jonathan
LandOfFree
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