Otis Elevator Company

Lear Corporation

David J Sirag, Jr

Bruce A Powell

Bertram F Kupersmith

Jeremy B Kezer

Joseph Bittar

Jannah A Stanley

George Scott Copeland

Robert G Morgan

Mary Ann T Valk

Bradley L Whitehall

Paul T Weisser, Jr

Robert LaBarre

John K Mizon

Mary Ann Valk

Siddiq A Sattar

Jean-Pierre Van Rooy

An elevator traffic flow control strategy utilizes the advantages of sector assignment channeling and destination entry systems. A controller () monitors a handling capacity () of the system to determine when it is advisable to override the sector assignments () to provide improved passenger service.

Elevator traffic control

An elevator system includes a plurality of cars (-) that are capable of serving a plurality of floors (-). A controller () groups the floors into a plurality of sectors (S-S). The controller () assigns a particular car to a particular sector. The sectors include at least one sector that has at least one floor that is not contiguous with the other floors in that sector.

The registration of each hall call () is recorded () and the remaining response time of all available cars to each up hall call and each down hall call is determined. The response time for each car to answer is compared against a limit and a table indicates whether that car can answer that call in less than the wait time limit or not. The time limit may be adjusted upwardly or downwardly.

Elevator dispatching with guaranteed time performance using real-time service allocation

A vehicle interior component for use with a vehicle having a vehicle system includes a substrate and a flexible cover covering a portion of the substrate. The cover includes a cover material and electronic circuitry integrated with the cover material and adapted to communicate with the vehicle system. Moreover, the cover material and the electronic circuitry cooperate to define at least one control switch for controlling operation of the vehicle system.

Vehicle interior component having a flexible cover with integrated circuitry

Elevator cars ( ) have floors ( ) including a matrix of elements ( ) including a weight sensing cell ( ) to determine weight distribution in the car for controlling the position of a moveable hitch ( ) on the car and for allocating calls to the cars depending upon the weight distribution. Transmitters ( ) borne by passengers ( ) transmit identification portions, and may also transmit personal preferences of the passenger with respect to the elevator ride. The system may store personal preferences in a data base indexed by personal identification numbers, limiting the required transmission to only the identification number. Correlation (FIG. ) of identification numbers with the cell indicating by weight where a passenger is located may be achieved in each element of the floor or in a controller. A group controller ( ) may allocate calls based upon weight distribution and/or preferences of passengers.

Elevator ride improvements utilizing smart floor

The position and direction (0-27, FIG.,) of each elevator car (A-D) in a group of cars is recorded along with time and traffic rate of the elevator group to provide a data stream. The canonic representation of the position and direction data is reduced, to eliminate symmetry (FIGS.,and,) resulting from the relative positions and directions of the cars being the same except for the identification of which car is at which position and direction. An entropy estimation algorithm is used to provide a plot of entropy as a function of time, which is then translated from the other data in the stream to entropy as a function of traffic rate (FIG.,). A maximum traffic rate is chosen, and thereafter, during normal operation, if the current rate is higher than the maximum, an elevator group parameter is altered to increase the traffic-handling capability of the group, but if the current traffic rate is lower than the maximum, an elevator parameter is altered in a manner to decrease the traffic-handling capability of the group.

Modifying elevator group behavior utilizing complexity theory

A remaining response time for an elevator car under consideration for assignment to a newly registered hall call is estimated by using a neural network. The neural network or any other downstream module may be standardized for use in any building by use of an upstream fixed length stop description that summarizes the state of the building at the time of the registration of the new hall call for one or more postulated paths of each and every car under consideration for answering the new hall call.

Elevator control neural network

Each car in a group of elevator cars in a building is determined to be available or not depending on whether it is assigned in the group, whether it is the only delayed car, whether it is fully loaded without intervening car calls which comprise all the car calls, whether it has intervening hall calls, and whether other cars in the group are fully loaded with or without some chance of offloading passengers before reaching a call to be assigned. Among available cars, assignment is made based on each car's membership in fuzzy sets relating to low, medium or high delay in that car responding to the call and each car's membership in fuzzy sets indicative of the extent to which assignment of that car will have no adverse effect or a very high adverse effect on the response to already-assigned hall calls. The call is assigned to the car with the highest summation of weighted memberships in the fuzzy sets.

Elevator dispatching employing hall call assignments based on fuzzy

In one embodiment, fuzzy sets indicative of the degree to which the time since the last passenger boarded an escalator can be deemed to be zero, a very long time, or something in between, are combined with fuzzy sets indicative of the extent to which the maximum number of passengers in a recent temporal or cyclic period can be deemed to be a zero passenger, a very large group, or something in between. In another embodiment, fuzzy sets indicative of the degree to which the time since the last passenger exited an empty escalator can be deemed to be nearly zero, a very long time, or something in between, are combined with fuzzy sets indicative of the degree to which the maximum group of passengers on the escalator at any time since the last time it was empty can be deemed to be a single passenger, a very large group, or something in between. T-norms (functions for combining the pair of fuzzy sets) are used to select recommended target speeds; weighted averaging of more than one recommended target speed is used to defuzzify the result to achieve an ultimate target speed, except in the second embodiment, which tailors the speed of the escalator to the current traffic level where the target speed is always maximum if the escalator is occupied and which judiciously slows an empty escalator.

Adapting escalator speed to traffic using fuzzy logic

Fuzzy sets indicative of likelihood of additional weight elevator passengers may have in a given country compared with a standard international low passenger weight, indicative of packages which may be carried up at certain times of day or carried down at certain times of day by passengers in the elevator, and indicative of the weight of additional clothing which may be worn due to different seasons in temperate climates are all added to a basic single passenger fuzzy set so as to more accurately reflect the likely weight of a single passenger. From this are derived fuzzy sets for any number of passengers which may possibly occupy an elevator, which in turn are utilized to provide a passenger fuzzy set indicative of a given weight of the elevator having been caused by various numbers of passengers. Processing details are also disclosed.

Fuzzy tailoring of elevator passenger fuzzy sets

In response to a registered hall call, a car announcement is made when and only when an assigned car, of a plurality, has its RRT a calculated number of seconds lower than the car with the next lowest RRT to minimize actual waiting time wherein the calculation is performed as a function of the remaining response time of the assigned car, the waiting time of the passenger, and an RRT inflation factor which is an amount of deviation from the minimum expected remaining response time of the assigned car.

Early car announcement

An uncertainty filter is provided with input data which is indicative of a fuzzy logic set having basis elements corresponding to elevator cars of an elevator system having degrees of membership associated therewith corresponding to the utility (suitability) of assigning the associated car to service a hall call. The uncertainty filter chooses a car corresponding to the term from the set having the highest degree of membership. The choice can be delayed until; a predetermined amount of time has passed; the degree of membership exceeds a predetermined amount; or the degree of certainty (the degree of membership of the chosen car over the sum of degrees of membership of the other cars) is more than a predetermined amount; or until either the degree of membership or the degree of certainty meets a value which varies as a function of time from when a hall call was registered.

Elevator car assignment conditioned on minimum criteria

Elevator control software uses a signal from a passenger weight sensor and observed weight fuzzy logic sets to provide a fuzzy logic set indicative of the number of passengers in an elevator car. Optionally, the fuzzy set is defuzzified to produce a single crisp value indicative of the number of car passengers. Also, a table having indices corresponding to passenger weights and entries corresponding to the number of passengers in an elevator can be constructed using the plurality of observed weight fuzzy sets.

Using fuzzy logic to determine the number of passengers in an elevator

For any given sensed load weight in an elevator car, the union (30-36) of a fuzzy set (FIG. 2) indicative of the likelihood of possible number of male passengers causing the sensed weight, taking into account the relative mix of males in the total population of the building (12-22) with a fuzzy set (FIG. 4) indicative of the likelihood of possible number of female passengers causing the sensed weight, taking into account the relative mix of females in the total population of the building (14-24), forms a passenger count fuzzy set (FIG. 5) indicative of the likelihood of a given number of passengers corresponding to each sensed or discernible elevator load weight for use in dispatching of elevator cars. A lookup table may be established (FIG. 7) for all possible weights.

Estimating elevator passengers from gender ratioed weight

The traffic mode of an elevator system is set according to the number and frequency of passengers departing and arriving at a building lobby. The traffic mode is expressed as a fuzzy logic set having a term indicative of up peak mode, a term indicative of down peak mode, and a term indicative of off peak mode. The degrees of membership of each term are indicative of the degrees to which the elevator system exhibits characteristics of the respective modes.

Growing community of inventors

South Windsor, CT, United States of America

David J Sirag, Jr