US 4,070,560 A · Transit zone monitor circuit

Abstract

A zone monitor circuit for a transit zone having plural entry-exit ports each equipped with a sensor that generates an arrival pulse signal when a vehicle or other movable object passes through the port into the zone and that generates a departure pulse signal whenever an object passes through the port out of the zone, comprising a synchronization circuit which develops time-segregated arrival and departure signals, an occupancy counter that maintains a continuous count of the total number of arrival signals minus departure signals to afford an occupancy count representative of the number of objects within the zone and a vacancy signal indicative of an empty zone, a departure anticipation counter for developing an impending vacancy signal upon occurrence of a predetermined number of departure signals with no intervening arrival signals, and a path indicator circuit which generates binary coded path indication signals identifying traffic ports of entry and exit.

Claims18

Dependent claims

A zone monitor circuit for monitoring the occupancy of a transit zone having plural ports, each port including sensor means for generating an arrival signal indicative of movement of a vehicle or other movable object into the transit zone through that port and for generating a departure signal indicative of movement of an object out of the zone through that port, comprising:

synchronization means, coupled to the sensor means, for developing synchronized arrival signals and departure signals segregated from each other on a time basis;
occupancy counter means, coupled to the synchronization means, for maintaining a continuous count of the number of arrival signals minus the number of departure signals to afford an occupancy count representative of the number of objects within the zone;
and departure anticipation means, coupled to the synchronization means, for developing an impending vacancy signal indicative of occurrence of a predetermined number of departure signals with no more than a much smaller given number of intervening arrival signals.

A zone monitor, for monitoring the occupancy of a transit zone having plural ports, each port including sensor means for generating an arrival signal indicative of movement of a vehicle or other movable object into the transit zone through that port and for generating a departure signal indicative of movement of an object out of the zone through that port, comprising:

synchronization means, coupled to all of the sensor means, for developing synchronized arrival signals and departure signals segregated from each other on a time basis;
occupancy counter means, coupled to the the synchronization means, for maintaining a continuous count of the number of arrival signals minus the number of departure signals to afford an occupancy count representative of the number of objects within the zone;
the occupancy counter means including vacancy indicator means for developing a vacancy signal whenever the occupancy count is approximately zero;
and path indicator means, coupled to the vacancy indicator means and to the sensor means, for generating path indication signals indicative of the last active ports of origin of arrival and departure signals occurring just prior to occurrence of a vacancy signal.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Transit zone monitor circuit

Life of this patent

Transit zone monitor circuit

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims18