Elevator communications system
AssigneeOtis Elevator Company
InventorDerk Oscar Pahlke
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An elevator system includes a hoistway; an elevator car configured to travel in the hoistway; a local gateway device configured to communicate with a remote system over a communications network; a communications apparatus installed at the elevator car, the communications apparatus including a codec configured to encode audio data from the elevator car prior to transmission to the local gateway device.
Claims15
An elevator system comprising:
- a hoistway;
- an elevator car configured to travel in the hoistway;
- a local gateway device configured to communicate with a remote system over a communications network;
- a communications apparatus installed at the elevator car, the communications apparatus including a codec configured to encode audio data from the elevator car prior to transmission to the local gateway device.
A communications apparatus for an elevator system, the communications apparatus comprising:
- a microphone;
- a speaker;
- a processor coupled to the microphone and speaker;
- a codec configured to (i) encode audio data received from the microphone for transmission to a local gateway device and (ii) decode encoded audio data received from the local gateway device for transmission to the speaker;
- a communications module configured to send encoded audio data to the local gateway device and receive encoded audio data from the local gateway device.
A communications system comprising:
- a hoistway;
- an elevator car configured to travel in the hoistway;
- a local gateway device configured to communicate with a remote system over a communications network;
- a communications apparatus installed at the elevator car, the communications apparatus including a codec configured to encode audio data from the elevator car prior to transmission to the local gateway device;
- a remote system;
- a communications network configured to communicate encoded audio data from the local gateway device to the remote system and to communicate encoded audio data from the remote system to the local gateway device.
A method of communicating between an elevator car and a remote system, the method comprising:
- receiving audio from a passenger at a communications apparatus in the elevator car;
- encoding the audio using a codec to produce encoded audio data;
- transmitting the encoded audio data to a local gateway device;
- transmitting the encoded audio data from the local gateway device to the remote system over a communications network;
- decoding the encoded audio data at the remote system using a codec;
- and
- producing the audio at the remote system.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.