HK1210756B - Elevator system - Google Patents

Description

Elevator system

Technical Field

The present invention relates to elevator systems. More specifically, the invention relates to a method and a system for automatically generating destination calls for an elevator system on the basis of the identification of a person.

Background

In destination floor elevator systems the passenger gives the elevator system a call, a so-called destination floor call, which differs from two calls in conventional elevator systems in which a first call is given in the elevator lobby by using up/down buttons to specify the desired direction of travel and in which a second call is given in the elevator car by using car buttons to specify the passenger's destination floor, i.e. the target floor.

The destination floor can be given e.g. from a destination operating panel permanently installed in the elevator lobby. When a passenger enters his/her destination floor into the destination operating panel, the destination floor data and information about which floor the call was given from are passed to the control system of the elevator system to the so-called group control. On the basis of the given criteria, the group control allocates the elevators in the elevator system for the passengers to use and informs the passengers about the allocated elevators, for example on a display in the destination operating panel, and also about the location of the allocated elevators.

With respect to elevator systems, a method of giving calls is also known in the art, in which a passenger is identified, e.g. on the basis of an RFID identity (RFID identifier), and his/her destination floor is determined on the basis of the identification. In this method of giving calls, the passenger takes the identification he/she owns, for example manually, to a reader device, which reads the information contained in the identification, for example a personal ID number, and sends it to the group control of the elevator system. Based on this ID, the group control determines the passenger's destination floor, the so-called parking floor (home floor), and allocates an elevator for the passenger to use to travel to the parking floor. In this case, if there are a plurality of elevators in the elevator system, the passenger must also be informed of the allocated elevator. Solutions are also known in the art in which the identity is a so-called remote identity, the identification data contained in which can be read when the identity is in, for example, a passenger pocket.

Elevator systems are united to an ever increasing extent as part of the access control of buildings. Patent publication EP1924519 proposes a prior art solution in which the passenger holds an identification that is read, for example, outside the building. On the basis of the ID data contained in the identity it is checked by identifying the ID whether the person trying to enter the building has the right to access the building. If the access right is valid, the system opens the automatic door connected to the reader device and orders the elevator to reach the entrance lobby floor.

The prior art solutions have a number of problems. Reading the identification from the near field distance requires the passenger to hold his/her identification and manually send it to a reader device connected to the device giving the call. In peak hours, the device giving the call is easily congested, since the passenger has to use his/her identity in the reader device. One problem with using remotely readable identities is that the indicator boards displaying all calls and the elevators allocated to the calls must be arranged in connection with the elevator system. In this case, the information of the indicator panel becomes very confusing, and it is difficult for each passenger to find the information suitable for him/her. Since the indicator panel is visible to everyone, personal messages intended to be visible only to a specific passenger cannot be displayed on it either. Remotely readable identification associated with access control is also problematic because it is not possible to reliably know who of the identified passengers is passing through an automatic door or an entry-and-exit door at any given time, thereby making possible so-called "follow-up entry" in which persons without access follow persons with access to a particular part of a building.

Objects of the invention

The object of the present invention is to eliminate or at least alleviate the above-mentioned drawbacks in prior art solutions. The object of the invention is also to achieve one or more of the following objectives:

-improving the access control of the building,

-relieving congestion at the passenger flow nodes in the building,

-facilitating the giving of private messages to passengers.

Disclosure of Invention

Some inventive embodiments are also presented in the drawings of the descriptive section of the present application. The inventive content of the application can also be defined differently than in the claims presented below. The inventive content may also consist of several separate inventions, especially when the invention is considered in the light of expressions or implicit sub-tasks or from the point of view of advantages or categories of advantages achieved. In this case, some of the attributes contained in the claims below may be superfluous from the point of view of separate inventive concepts. The features of the various embodiments can be applied within the framework of the basic inventive concept in connection with other embodiments.

The invention discloses a method for giving destination calls to an elevator system. The elevator system comprises a plurality of elevators with which a revolving door comprising at least one door leaf is associated, with which at least one door leaf an information member is connected. According to the invention, a passenger approaching the revolving door and/or a passenger in a door leaf of the revolving door is identified, the parking floor of the passenger is determined on the basis of the identification, a destination call to the aforementioned parking floor is automatically generated, and an elevator serving the passenger is allocated to take the passenger to the aforementioned parking floor. The door leaf that the identified passenger entered or was located at is identified. When the passenger is inside the door leaf, the use information means informs the passenger of the elevator and/or other personal information allocated to him/her.

The invention also discloses a system for giving destination calls to an elevator system, which comprises a plurality of elevators and a control system for controlling the elevators. According to the invention, the system further comprises: a revolving door comprising at least one door leaf connected to an information part; a back-end system connected with an identification means for identifying passengers approaching the revolving door and/or within a door leaf of the revolving door. The system is arranged to identify a passenger close to and/or in a door leaf of the revolving door, to determine the parking floor of the passenger on the basis of the identification, to automatically generate a destination call to the determined parking floor, and to allocate an elevator to take the passenger to the aforementioned parking floor. The system is further arranged to: identifying a door leaf that the identified passenger enters or is located on; when the passenger is inside the door leaf, the usage information means informs the passenger of the elevator and/or other personal information that he/she is served.

A parking floor refers to any floor in the building to which a passenger may be going, e.g. the floor on which his/her workplace is located or the floor on which he/she lives. The parking floor may have been manually entered into the system. The system may also collect statistics about elevator trips made by passengers and may derive a parking floor based on the statistics.

The passenger may be identified based on an RFID identification (radio frequency identification) owned by the passenger, based on a code issued by a mobile device, based on a magnetic card, or based on some other comparable electronic identification. Optical face recognition or some other comparable biometric recognition may also be used in identifying the passenger. If a passenger approaching the revolving door is identified using remote identification technology, the system may be provided with a monitoring means by means of which the system receives information about which door leaf the passenger enters, so that the passenger in this door leaf may be given a message specific to him/her. Alternatively, the identification means may be arranged in connection with the revolving door in such a way that an arriving passenger can be identified when the passenger is inside the door leaf of the revolving door, in which case the above-mentioned monitoring means are not needed.

In one embodiment of the invention, the system checks the passenger's access rights based on the above identification. If the passenger does not have valid access rights, the system prevents automatic generation of the destination call and/or at least temporarily prevents use of the turnstiles (i.e. locks the turnstiles). As a result of this embodiment, the access control of the building can be improved by preventing passengers who do not have access to the building and/or preventing the passengers from using elevators.

In one embodiment of the invention, passenger-specific messages are recorded in the system. When an identified passenger is in an identified door leaf, he/she is informed of a message intended for said passenger using an information means connected to the door leaf. As a result of this embodiment, personal messages can be delivered to the passenger at the appropriate time, for example when the passenger arrives at a building.

A number of advantages are obtained with the solution according to the invention compared to prior art solutions. The solution according to the invention facilitates and speeds up the giving of automatic calls by using remote identification and by giving passengers call-related messages and/or other personal messages by using information means in the door leaf of the revolving door. Since in the solution according to the invention it is possible to identify the door leaf that an arriving passenger enters, it is possible to present to the passenger a personal message intended only for him/her. The amount of information to be presented is also reduced, since there is no need to present information intended for other passengers to the passenger, as the solutions known in the prior art have to do. The solution according to the invention also improves the access control because in the system it is possible to identify the person trying to enter the building and which sector of the revolving door he/she uses to enter the building, in such a way that the above-mentioned "following in and out" is prevented, among other things.

Drawings

FIG. 1 illustrates one embodiment of a system according to the present invention;

fig. 2 shows a more detailed view of the revolving door of fig. 1.

Detailed Description

Fig. 1 shows a system according to the invention. The system includes an elevator system in a building 100 that includes elevators A, B and C, and a control system 110 that controls the elevator system. The system also comprises a back-end system 120 for access control, and a revolving door 130 via which people arriving inside the building can access the entrance lobby 101 of the building. As can be seen from fig. 2, connected to the revolving door 130 is an actuator 131, which can be controlled to rotate the revolving door counterclockwise in the following manner: traffic entering the building may use the side marked with the arrow "enter" while traffic leaving the building may use the side marked with the arrow "exit". The actuator 131 also includes an angle sensor from which the back-end system receives information about which door leaves are at the entrance sensor 135 at any given time. Designated by reference numeral 160 in fig. 1 is an equipment bus to which the equipment belonging to the system, for example the identification component 140, 142, the monitoring component 141, and then the actuator 131 of the revolving door, the information component 134, 134A, can be connected.

The revolving door 130 includes four door leaves 132 separated from each other by a door panel 133 of the revolving door. In each door leaf there is an information means 134 by means of which messages can be transmitted to the person in each door leaf 132, e.g. which elevator is serving passengers, the location of the elevator and/or other personal messages. When the actuator 131 rotates the door panel 133, the door leaves 132 rotate synchronously with respect to each other. In fig. 1, the so-called entrance sector with reference number 135 is marked with a dashed line, which does not rotate with the door leaf rotation, but rather rotates the area inside the door, which the passenger has to pass when he/she tries to enter the entrance lobby of the building. Correspondingly, a so-called exit sector 136 is marked with dashed lines in fig. 1, which is the area inside the revolving door through which passengers leaving the building must pass.

Marked with reference numeral 140 in fig. 2 is an identification means by means of which a person/passenger 170 entering the building can be identified by reading his/her electronic identity, e.g. a remotely readable RFID identity 171. The Identification Data (ID) contained in the identity is passed from the identification component 140 to the backend system 120. The backend system checks whether the person identified by the ID has access to the building. If the access right is valid, the back-end system searches the memory 121 of the back-end system for the destination floor (the parking floor of the person) corresponding to the ID and sends a destination call to the control system 110 on the basis of it. The control system assigns an elevator to a passenger 170 arriving at the building and transmits information about the elevator A, B or C being served to the back-end system 120. The back-end system sends an activation command to the actuator 131, in which case the door panel/leaf of the revolving door starts to rotate. When a passenger enters a certain door leaf 132 of the revolving door, the backend system uses the information means 134 of said door leaf to inform the passenger which elevator should be used to reach his/her parking floor. For example, if the message is "floor 9, elevator a", the passenger knows that he/she will use elevator a to reach floor 9 from the entrance lobby.

Personal messages intended for arriving passengers can also be recorded in the memory 121 of the back-end system via the interface 122, these messages being notified to each passenger using the information means 132 in the door leaf used by the passenger. For example, the message "meeting room 9R, elevator a" may be used to ask the passenger to go to the meeting room 9R. The message may also be of a type that it changes the destination floor of the automatic destination call or blocks the automatic destination call completely. For example, if the person's colleague is waiting at the cafe on floor 10, the colleague may record a message indicating this in the memory 121 of the back-end system. When the person arrives at the building, the system plans the elevator to the floor 10 for the person and uses the information means in the door leaves, e.g. using the message "NN is waiting at the cafe on the floor 10 and elevator a" informs him/her about this. The backend system may also block the giving of the destination call based on the messages recorded in the memory 121 of the backend system. If someone does not have access to the building, for example, the backend system does not generate an automatic destination call, but directs the arriving person to the front desk of the entrance lobby by using a message component announcement, e.g. "contact reception".

Thus, someone arriving at the building may be given a message in the door leaf that is intended only for him/her, and the backend system 120 must know who is in which door leaf 132. If the identification of the passenger takes place remotely outside the revolving door 130, as shown in fig. 2, connected to the system may be a monitoring means 141, for example a camera system, by means of which the backend system can "monitor" which door leaf the identified person enters based on the ID. Alternatively, the identification of the passenger can be carried out in the revolving door by providing the revolving door with an identification component 142 which reads an RFID identification owned by a person in the entrance sector 135 (e.g. in a pocket). In this latter embodiment the back-end system 120 immediately knows which door leaf the person is in based on the identification moment, in which case the system does not need the above mentioned monitoring means 141.

In fig. 2, the actuators 131 are connected with the backend system via a device bus 160. When the back-end system has identified a person approaching the revolving door and verified that his/her access rights are valid, the back-end system sends a start command to the actuator 131 causing the revolving door to rotate. If the person does not have valid access rights, the backend system can stop/lock the revolving door by controlling the actuator 131. Alternatively, the revolving door may be provided with a proximity sensor 143, which, based on the signal it gives, always controls the actuator 131 to open when someone approaches the revolving door 130. Thus, all people can access the entrance lobby of the building, but the back-end system only reserves elevators for the identified people.

The identification of the passenger can be based on any identification technology suitable for the purpose, such as the above-mentioned RFID technology, NFC technology, bluetooth technology or identification technology occurring from video images. Preferably, in the present invention, the identification may take place not only as remote identification without manual operation, but also an identification technique in which the passenger manually sends his/her identification to the identification device. In a manual identification process, for example, a reader device can be arranged in front of the revolving door, to which an arriving passenger sends his/her identification, so that the ID contained therein can be read and transmitted to the backend system.

The information means connected to the revolving door can be any visual and/or audio information means. In fig. 2, the display device 134 is integrated in the door panel (in the door leaf) of the revolving door, and the sound reproduction device 134A is integrated in the top of the revolving door at the entrance sector. Since the sound reproduction apparatus is arranged on top of the revolving door, only one set of sound reproduction apparatus is required in the revolving door. For example, a conventional flat panel display or a transparent display element integrated in a door panel may be used as the display device.

As described above, the parking floor of each passenger, i.e. the floor to which he/she may go, is recorded in the back-end system 120 and an automatic destination call is generated on the basis thereof. The parking floor may be recorded in the memory 121, for example manually, or the system collects statistical data relating to the elevator trips made by each passenger and derives the parking floor based on the collected statistical data. For collecting the statistical data the elevator system may be provided with identification means for identifying passengers in e.g. the elevator car and/or the elevator lobby (not shown in the figure). Furthermore, access control can be improved by providing identification means in the elevator car and by observing to which floors passengers go.

The invention is not limited to the embodiments described above but many variations are possible within the scope of the inventive concept defined in the appended claims. Thus, for example, the revolving door does not necessarily have to be an entrance door of a building, but it can be anywhere inside a building that separates two spaces from each other. The system may also have more than one revolving door that can be used by passengers. The invention can be applied to incoming traffic as well as outgoing traffic. It is obvious to the person skilled in the art that the control system of the elevator system may comprise a plurality of control units and/or that the access-monitoring back-end system is integrated in the control system of the elevator system.

Claims (15)

1. A method for generating automatic destination calls for an elevator system, which elevator system comprises: a plurality of elevators, a control system of the elevator system, identification means for identifying passengers, a revolving door comprising at least one door leaf, information means for informing passengers in the door leaf are connected to said door leaf,

characterized in that in the method:

identifying passengers approaching the revolving door and/or passengers in the door leaf;

determining a passenger's parking floor based on the identification;

automatically generating a destination call to said parking floor;

allocating an elevator to the passenger to take the passenger to the parking floor;

identifying a door leaf where a passenger is located;

the passenger is informed of the elevator and/or other personal information that serves him/her using an information part connected to the above-mentioned door leaf.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the passenger is identified from an electronic identification owned by the passenger.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the passenger is identified from a video image.

4. A method according to any of claims 1-3, characterized in that the method comprises the following phases: checking access rights of passengers based on the identification; if the passenger does not have valid access rights, the generation of the destination call is prevented and/or the use of the turnstile is prevented at least temporarily.

5. A method according to any of claims 1-3, characterized in that the method comprises the following phases: identifying a passenger approaching the revolving door using remote identification; the door leaves to which the identified passengers are traveling are monitored to identify the door leaves.

6. A method according to any of claims 1-3, characterized in that the method comprises the following phases: the passenger is identified when the passenger is in the entrance sector of the revolving door.

7. A method according to any of claims 1-3, characterized in that the method comprises the following phases:

collecting statistical data related to the passenger's destination call; and

the passenger's parking floor is determined based on the collected statistical data.

8. A system for giving destination calls to an elevator system, comprising: a plurality of elevators (A, B, C); control system (110) of an elevator system, which control system is arranged to allocate an elevator from the elevator system for each passenger, characterized in that the system for giving destination calls to the elevator system further comprises:

a revolving door (130) comprising at least one door leaf (132) connected to an information part (134, 134A); and

a backend system (120) connected to an identification component (140, 142) for identifying passengers approaching and/or in an entrance sector (135) of the revolving door;

means for identifying (141, 131) a door leaf into which the identified passenger enters and/or on which the passenger is located;

the system for giving destination calls to an elevator system determines the passenger's parking floor on the basis of the identification, and automatically generates a destination call to the above-mentioned parking floor; allocating an elevator to the passenger to take the passenger to the parking floor; the elevator and/or other personal information assigned to the passenger in the door leaf is informed to the identified door leaf using an information means (134, 134A) connected to him/her.

9. System for giving destination calls to an elevator system according to claim 8, charac teri z ed in that the identification means (141, 142) are arranged to read identification data contained in an identification (171) owned by the passenger.

10. System for giving destination calls to an elevator system according to claim 8, characterized in that the identification means (141, 142) use biometrics for identifying the passenger.

11. System for giving destination calls to an elevator system according to any of claims 8-10, characterized in that the back-end system is arranged to check the passenger's access right and to prevent the generation of destination calls and/or at least temporarily the use of turnstiles when the passenger does not have valid access right.

12. System for giving destination calls to an elevator system according to any of claims 8-10, charac teri z ed in that the identification means (140) are arranged to identify passengers approaching the revolving door.

13. System for giving destination calls to an elevator system according to any of claims 8-10, charac teri z ed in that the identification means (142) are arranged to identify passengers in the entrance sector (135) of the revolving door.

14. System for giving destination calls to an elevator system according to any of claims 8-10, charac teri z ed in that the back-end system comprises a memory (121), wherein the back-end system is arranged to collect statistical data about elevator trips made by identified passengers and to deduce the parking floor of each passenger on the basis of the above-mentioned statistical data.

15. System for giving destination calls to an elevator system according to any of claims 8-10, characterized in that it comprises an interface (122) via which passenger-specific messages can be recorded in the back-end system for presentation by the information means (134, 134A).