Otis Elevator Company

Juan A Lence Barreiro

Chouhwan Moon

Harry Z Huang

Robert H Mashiak

Gary L Freeland

Jun Liu

Ronald R Pepin

Information including normal and abnormal operating conditions and events, resulting from operation of elevator car and landing doors, is monitored and recorded (FIGS. ), compared and combined with other information and with thresholds to detect notable events and conditions and generate corresponding messages including a reason for the message, severity of the related event or condition, and optionally, a general maintenance recommendation. The maintenance messages include adjusting or cleaning: car door vane (A-D), landing door lock at a given floor (E-L), car door closed switch (M-R), car door track or sill (S-Y), landing door track or sill (Z-EE), door drive belt (FF, GG), elevator car door motor or door controller mechanism (HH-MM), and car guide rails (FFF); and include adjusting or replacing: door position encoder (NN, OO), between-door safety device (PP-SS), door open/close buttons (TT-XX), landing and car call buttons (YY-AAA) and lights (BBB, CCC), and car rail guides (DDD, EEE).

Elevator auditing with recommended action, reason and severity in maintenance messages

Information including normal and abnormal operating conditions and events, occurring during the operation of an elevator car door and landing doors, is monitored and recorded (FIGS. ), compared and combined with other information and with thresholds to detect notable events and conditions and generate corresponding maintenance recommendation messages, in response to which maintenance operations are performed. The maintenance messages include adjusting or cleaning: the car door vane (C), the landing door lock at a given floor (D, E), the car door closed switch (F), the car door track or the car door sill (M), a landing door track or landing door sill (N), the car door drive belt (O), the elevator car door motor or the related door controller mechanism (R), and car guide rails (YY); adjusting or replacing the door position encoder (DD), the between-door safety device (GG), door open and close buttons, landing call and car call buttons (LL) and lights (SS), and the car rail guides (WW).

Elevator auditing and maintenance

The mean number of elevator door reversals, &mgr;, in groups of related door reversals, and the standard deviation, &sgr;, from the mean, are used to determine the likelihood that door reversals are caused by passenger interference; the likelihood is low if a recent number of reversals exceeds &mgr;&plus;3&sgr;, , is medium if two out of three recent reversals exceed &mgr;&plus;2&sgr;, and otherwise is high. The floors at which related notable elevator features occur are compared to determine a floor factor, F, depending on whether the notable feature occurs only at one floor or at more than one floor. Estimated probabilities, P&prime;(S/C), that any component, C, will result in a symptom, S, (where S&equals;first and second notable features in a related group and the accompanying floor factor, F) are provided by experts; the probability of P&prime;(C) of any failure being of any given component is determined from failure history; and an estimated probability, P&prime;(C/S), that symptom S is caused by component C is given by:

Service information derived from elevator operational parameters

Signal processing and diagnostic routines ( ) of elevator controllers ( ) count the total number of runs to landings (O-F) of elevators ( ) along with the number of runs to landings at which a value of a parameter of an elevator door condition or event is notable, (e.g., too high or too low). If any particular parameter is notable at more than one landing, and the ratio of (a) number of runs to landing at which said particular parameter is notable to (b) the total number of runs to landings exceeds a predetermined threshold, the problem is registered as a car door problem; otherwise, the problem is registered as a landing door problem at each landing where the value of the particular parameter is notable.

Differentiating elevator car door and landing door operating problems

Elevator events and conditions are monitored so as to determine features which are notable with respect to service including repair and maintenance, a name label is stored chronologically in a log upon each occurrence of a notable feature. Attributes of the feature stored chronologically with the feature, may include the date and time, the duration of the feature or a preceding condition, the point of time in a run when the notable feature occurred, the direction of elevator car travel and the floor location of the elevator related to the notable feature. Separation markers are generated to separate notable features which relate to each other from those that do not, each marker having floor number, time and date stamps and the duration between the first feature related thereto and the last feature related thereto stored chronologically therewith. Features include door reversals, loss of non-door safeties, failure making door lock switches, door rebound, doors open too long, and doors open in flight.

Elevator behavior reported in occurrence-related groups

Braking distance (S,) and traction slippage distance (S,) are measured with an empty elevator car (,) traveling upwardly (S,, S,) and downwardly (S,, S,). From these measured distances, the following are calculated and/or determined: maximum and minimum deceleration, a,, a,, braking force, F,, available to stop the car when traveling downwardly with a full load; braking force available when traveling upwardly, F,, and downwardly, F,, while empty; difference in braking force provided by two sides of the brake; whether the relationship of traction slippage to tension ratio ((FIG. 5) is within the safe, linear portion or within the unsafe, non-linear portion; and whether leveling errors are caused by faulty brakes, excess traction slippage, or neither.

Growing community of inventors

Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Juan A Lence Barreiro