Hitachi, Ltd.

Takeo Yuminaka

Masao Nakazato

Kenji Yoneda

Soshiro Kuzunuki

Takashi Kaneko

Kazuhiro Sakata

Hiroshi Kinoshita

Tatsuo Iwasaka

Kanji Yoneda

Kotaro Hirasawa

Yasunori Katayama

Ikuro Masuda

Shigeo Shiono

Masumi Imai

Hisayoshi Shiraishi

Minoru Tanaka

Tomiaki Kurihara

Masao Takizawa

Seiichiro Ogawa

Jinichi Sakurai

Shoichi Mitani

Rokuro Sasaki

Hatuya Nakamura

Tatsuo Iwaska

Kennzi Yoneda

In an elevator system in which an elevator car serves a plurality of floors in response to hall calls and cage calls, the number of, for example, up hall calls originated from, for example, the 2nd floor is counted, and the number of cage calls, classified by destination floors, registered in the elevator car after the elevator car has served each of the up hall calls is also counted. The count of the hall calls and the count of the cage calls classified by destination floors are compared with each other, and, on the basis of the result of comparison, the probabilities of origination of cage calls, classified by destination floors, which will be registered in the elevator car after the elevator car has subsequently served a new up hall call which would be originated from the 2nd floor, are calculated for forecasting future cage calls.

Apparatus for calculating elevator cage call forecast

In an elevator control system, in which the elevator car is controlled on the basis of elevator car positions obtained through the counting of distance pulses provided in proportion to the distance travelled by the car and floor height data indicative of the heights of individual floors, the distance pulses are counted by moving the car at a low speed from the lowest floor to the highest floor, and the count at the time of the actuation of a floor position detector, which is actuated when the car passes by each floor, is stored as the floor height value of that floor in a RAM (Random Access Memory). With this arrangement, the measurement of the floor heights is facilitated, and also the preparation of a ROM (Read-Only Memory) for storing the floor height data for each elevator car is made needless to promote the standardization.

Elevator control system

Disclosed is a signal transmitting and receiving apparatus for transmitting and receiving parallel-by-word data signals, converting the parallel-by-word data signal to serial-by-word data signal, and transmitting the serial-by-word data signal to control units connected in a multi-drop connection configuration or receiving the signals transmitted from the control units. An external control mode and an internal control mode in receiving the parallel-by-word data signal, a simulation mode, and the prevention of competing status between a write timing of the parallel-by-word data to a buffer memory and a read timing of the data for converting it to serial-by-word data are described.

Signal transmitting and receiving apparatus

A control logic for an elevator servicing a plurality of floors of a building comprises two microcomputers. The two microcomputers are provided with abnormal state detectors of their own. When the abnormal state detector of one microcomputer is actuated, the elevator is operated for recovery to the nearest floor by the other microcomputer on the condition that the abnormal state detector of the other microcomputer is not actuated, and thereafter retrial for the abnormal microcomputer is effected by an instruction from the other microcomputer. When the abnormal microcomputer recovers to normal state by the retrial, the elevator keeps operating, thereby preventing such a problem that the elevator cannot continue service by erroneous operation due to noise.

An elevator control apparatus in which a three-phase AC output from a three-phase AC generator rotating with running movement of an elevator car is converted into a train of pulses, and the number of such pulses is counted by a counter which provides a count indicative of the position of the elevator car. When the elevator car is actuated to start from its standstill condition, the running direction of the elevator car is detected on the basis of the direction of phase rotation of the three-phase AC output from the generator, and a predetermined correction data is added to or subtracted from the count depending on the detected running direction of the elevator car so as to correct the count error appearing in the starting stage of the elevator car.

Elevator control apparatus

An elevator test operation apparatus for a multi-floor service elevator comprises a digital computer for processing an elevator control signal. The digital computer is provided with means for storing an elevator operation control program, and interface means for transferring a signal from an elevator control system to the digital computer or transferring a signal from the digital computer to the elevator control system, thereby to process the signal from the elevator control system in accordance with said elevator operation control program. The elevator test operation system further comprises means operated by maintenance personnel in a test operation and generating test signals such as a command for establishing an elevator car weight and a command for shortening a period of time when an elevator door is opened, and interface means for supplying those test signals to the digital computer, wherein the digital computer further comprises means for storing various programs for shortening the opening time of the elevator door during test operation and for establishing the elevator car weight, and a test operation program thereby to execute the test operation program in accordance with the test operation signal.

Elevator test operation apparatus

An elevator system has a system control device for controlling a plurality of elevator cars and elevator car operation control devices for operatively controlling each of said elevator cars in accordance with signals issued in the system control device. At least one of the elevator car operation control devices includes an interface unit to receive hall-call signals issued in said hall-call registration device and a signal processor to supply the signals delivered from the interface unit to said system control device, to be supplied the signals treated in said system control device and to supply treated signals to an elevator car operation control section constituting a part of said elevator car operation control device.

Elevator system

A plurality of floors served by elevator cars are scanned by direction to detect car positions and hall calls. For each of the cars, a predetermined number is counted up for each scan slot after detection of a car position to determine the service load of each car to be borne before arrival at each floor. When a hall call is detected by scanning, a car with minimum service load in the related slot is selected and the hall call is allotted to that car. When the failure of a car to run to an end floor is predicted in counting the service load of the car, switch is made to count down in response to directional reversal when the scanning has reached the end floor. At the time of subsequent detection of an allotted hall call by scanning, switching is again made to count up, thus determining a proper service load of the cars.

An elevator control system for controlling a plurality of elevator cars servicing a plurality of floors of a building by allotting a hall call originated from one of the floors to a suitable one of the elevator cars so that the hall call can be serviced by the selected elevator car. In the elevator control system, a scan signal generator is provided to generate a scan signal which is used to sequentially scan the floors in successive scan slots for detecting hall calls and elevator car service positions and converting the detected information into pulse signals. The elevator control system comprises counters for counting up the service loads of the individual elevator cars in the successive scan slots after the detection of the elevator car service positions, so that, when a hall call is detected in one of the scan slots, an elevator car providing a minimum service load at the specific scan slot can be selected, and the detected hall call can be allotted to the selected elevator car. The elevator control system of such construction may be divided into a plurality of blocks classified by their control functions. These blocks are electrically isolated from one another by isolating means which permits transmission of signals among them. In a modification, the scan signal generator may be provided in each of the blocks.

A control circuit for allotting hall calls to elevator cars in an elevator car system, having a generator for generating a scanning signal consisting of scanning pulses. A hall call detector receives the scanning signal and generates a signal indicating the floor at which a hall call occurs. Elevator car detectors are provided, each of which receives the scanning signal and generates a signal indicating the position of the corresponding elevator cars. A memory circuit determines the serving areas of the respective elevator cars according to the signals from the elevator car detectors. An allotting circuit allots the signals from the hall call detector to the elevator car according to the area determined by the memory circuit.

Elevator control apparatus having a novel hall call allotting device

An elevator car call selection apparatus is disclosed in which in order for at least a car covering a plurality of floors to serve at least a hall call or cage call, an advance position where said car in travel is capable of stopping by deceleration and the presence or absence of the call at an advance floor corresponding to the advance position are detected, so that the floor to be next served by the car is decided in response to a call generated at the advance floor. In order to calculate the advance floor with an electronic circuit and detect a call to be next served according to the result of the calculation, the apparatus comprises means preset to produce step signals at time points when the advance floor is advanced progressively after the starting of the car. The signal representing the car-starting floor and the step signal are used to calculate the advance floor progressively advanced after the starting of the car, so that when a call is generated for a floor corresponding to the advance floor, that particular floor is determined as a floor to be next served by the car.

Elevator car call selection apparatus

In an elevator system comprising a plurality of elevator cars serving a plurality of floors in response to hall calls and cage calls, an elevator control apparatus is provided which comprises a device for forecasting cage calls as a new type of traffic information expected to be registered as hall waiting passengers take a given car. The device includes means arranged on each hall for detecting the number of prospective passengers waiting on the particular hall and means for setting the ratios of the hall waiting passengers destined for respective floors. The detected number of hall waiting passengers is multiplied by the ratios of destination floors (hereinafter referred to as 'destination ratios') to figure out floors to which the hall waiting passengers joining the car are most likely to proceed, thus forecasting a corresponding cage call or calls. This cage call forecasting device is used in an elevator control system assigning hall calls, so that a cage call expected to be registered by the serving of a hall call is forecast at an early time. The waiting time required until each car reaches each floor, for example, is thus forecast with high accuracy taking into consideration cage calls expected to be registered in the future.

An elevator control system for controlling a plurality of elevator cars arranged for parallel operation for servicing a plurality of service floor landings of a building, in which means are provided so that, in response to origination of a new hall call in addition to hall calls originated and allotted already, a suitable car for servicing this new hall call can be selected and the new hall call can be allotted to the selected car to be serviced by the selected car. In the system, the change in the service condition of all the cars for the already allotted hall calls due to allotment of this new hall call thereto is taken into account in selecting the suitable car. For example, means are provided for computing for each car the forecast waiting time at each of the already allotted floors to be serviced thereby to detect the change in the forecast waiting time when this new hall call originating floor is serviced. The new hall call is allotted to the car which provides a forecast waiting time less than a predetermined limit, and this car services this specific floor.

A compact and low-cost apparatus for detecting the proximity of a human body and generating a corresponding electrical signal is disclosed which apparatus includes an oscillator and an operational amplifier. Under normal conditions, equal input voltages are applied to the input terminals of the operational amplifier, whereas the equilibrium of the input voltages is lost by the approach of a human body to the apparatus.

Proximity detecting apparatus

An elevator control apparatus is provided with means for detecting a new type of elevator car traffic information consisting of the information indicating, by allotting the passengers in the car to resistered cage calls, how many passengers classified for each of destination floors are in the car, namely, the information indicating the number of in-cage passengers classified for each of destination floors. In an apparatus comprising means for allotting a hall call generated to an optimum one of a plurality of cars and means for detecting the number of prospective passengers waiting on the floors, the number of prospective passengers waiting at the floor the hall call from which is allotted to the car and the number of passengers classified for each of destination floors are added to or subtracted from the number of passengers in the car for each floor involved thereby to forecast the number of in-cage passengers in the leading floors. It is decided whether there is room available or not in the car for accomodating additional passengers at the leading floors, by comparing the forecast number of passengers in the car with a predetermined number limit of the passengers for the car. By the use of the result of this decision, the hall call is prevented from being allotted to a car having no room for accomodating additional passengers.

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Katsuta, Japan

Takeo Yuminaka