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US 4,815,568 AGranted
Weighted relative system response elevator car assignment system with variable bonuses and penalties
AssigneeOtis Elevator Company
InventorJoseph Bittar
Life of this patent
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AssigneeOtis Elevator Company
InventorJoseph Bittar
Estimating the term…
An elevator control system employing a micro-processor-based group controller (FIG. 2) which communicates with the cars (3, 4) of the elevator system to determine conditions of the cars and responds to hall calls registered at a plurality of landings in the building serviced by the cars under control of the group controller, to provide assignments of the hall calls to the cars based on the summation for each car, with respect to each call, a weighted summation of a plurality of system response factors, some indicative, and some not, of conditions of the car irrespective of the call to be assigned, assigning "bonuses" and "penalties" to them in the weighted summation. In the invention, rather than a set of unvarying bonuses and penalties being assigned based on the relative system response factors, the assigned bonuses and penalties are varied based on the perceived intensity of traffic, as measured by, for example, a past average waiting time and the elapsed time since registration of the hall call, a selected past five minute average waiting time being exemplary. Exemplary apparatus (FIGS. 1 and 2) and a logic flow diagram (FIG. 3) illustrate a specific manner of assigning calls to cars. Tables set forth exemplary varying bonus and penalty values to be assigned, depending on the ratio of the hall call registration time to the selected average hall call waiting time (Tables 1 and 2) or on their differences (Table 3).
An elevator system, having a group of elevators for servicing a plurality of floor landings in a building, including group controller means, said group controller means further including signal processing means responsive to said signals indicative of conditions of each of said cars for providing, for each car, with respect to each hall call registered, a signal representing the summation of relative system response factors, indicative of the relative degree to which the assigning of any hall call to said car is in accordance with a scheme of overall system response applicable to all of said cars, wherein the response factors identify different routines to dispatch a car to answer the hall call, each of said relative system response factors being weighted with respect to other response factors to represent an increase in time expected for said group to answer the hall call by following one dispatching routine as opposed to another routine and for assigning each registered hall call to the car provided with the lowest summation of relative system response factors with respect to such hall call for service to such hall call, so that the call assignment is made to the car under a dispatching routine that provides the best overall system response as opposed to the routine achieving the quickest response to the registered hall call;
A group controller means for an elevator system, which system has a group of elevator cars for servicing a plurality of floor landings in a building at which hall calls can be placed, the group controller means including signal processing means responsive to signals indicative of conditions of each of the cars for providing, for each car, with respect to each hall call registered, a signal representing the summation of relative system response factors, indicative of the relative degree to which the assigning of any hall call to said car is in accordance with a scheme of overall system response applicable to the cars, wherein the response factors identify different routines to dispatch a car to answer the hall call, each of the relative system response factors being weighted with respect to other response factors to represent an increase in time expected for the group of cars to answer the hall call by following one dispatching routine as opposed to another routine and for assigning each registered hall call to the car provided with the lowest summation of relative system response factors with respect to such hall call for service to such hall call, so that the call assignment is made to the car under a dispatching routine that provides the best overall system response as opposed to the routine achieving the quickest response to the registered hall call;
In a method of operation for a group controller means for an elevator system, which system has a group of elevator cars for servicing a plurality of floor landings in a building at which hall calls can be placed, the group controller means including signal processing means responsive to signals indicative of conditions of each of the cars for providing, for each car, with respect to each hall call registered, a signal representing the summation of relative system response factors, indicative of the relative degree to which the assigning of any hall call to said car is in accordance with a scheme of overall system response applicable to the cars, wherein the response factors identify different routines to dispatch a car to answer the hall call, each of the relative system response factors being weighted with respect to other response factors to represent an increase in time expected for the group of cars to answer the hall call by following one dispatching routine as opposed to another routine and for assigning each registered hall call to the car provided with the lowest summation of relative system response factors with respect to such hall call for service to such hall call, so that the call assignment is made to the car under a dispatching routine that provides the best overall system response as opposed to the routine achieving the quickest response to the registered hall call;
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.