AU2017415527B2

AU2017415527B2 - Safety readiness monitoring device and method for auxiliary shaft cage of shaft winder

Info

Publication number: AU2017415527B2
Application number: AU2017415527A
Authority: AU
Inventors: Qiang NIU; Zhongqiu WANG; Shi Xiong XIA
Original assignee: China University of Mining and Technology CUMT
Current assignee: China University of Mining and Technology CUMT
Priority date: 2017-05-26
Filing date: 2017-06-20
Publication date: 2019-07-11
Anticipated expiration: 2037-06-20
Also published as: WO2018214196A1; CN107010522B; AU2017415527A1; CN107010522A

Abstract

A safety readiness monitoring device and method for an auxiliary shaft cage of a shaft winder. The monitoring device comprises an infrared camera (6), a support (5), a processor (3), and an acousto-optic alarm (4). The support (5) is fixed to a middle portion of a headframe beam (2). The support (5) and the headframe beam (2) intersect perpendicularly on a horizontal plane. The infrared camera (6) is fixed at an outer end of the support (5), and a lens thereof faces a safety curtain (7). The processor (3) is fixed at a side of an upper portion of the support (5) near the headframe beam (2). The acousto-optic alarm (4) is disposed at a side of the upper portion of the support (5) near the infrared camera (6). The processor (3) acquires, by using the infrared camera (6), an infrared image of a cage (1) at a side of the safety curtain (7), and determines, according to a contour range of occupants (8), a contour range of the safety curtain (7), and a contour overlapping relationship between the occupants (8) and the safety curtain (7), whether the safety curtain (7) has completely lowered and whether all of the occupants (8) have entered the cage (1). The monitoring device has an ingenious design, reliable performance, a simple structure, and low operating costs, and improves efficiency of monitoring of safety readiness of the cage (1).

Description

SAFETY READINESS MONITORING DEVICE AND METHOD FOR AUXILIARY SHAFT CAGE OF SHAFT WINDER

Technical Field

The present invention relates to a safe in-position monitoring device and a monitoring method for auxiliary shaft cage of a vertical shaft hoister, which are applicable to production operations in coal mines.

Background Art

At present, coal is a main fossil energy resource in China, and vertical shaft hoisting is the dominant form of coal production in China. An auxiliary shaft is the key channel of a vertical shaft for personnel up and down as well as an important hub for communication and connection between the ground surface and the downhole in a coal mine. In the daily production, cage positioning is judged mainly by a signalman through direct observation with naked eyes. Owing to the limited illumination condition, numerous components and complex structure of the mine shaft, it is difficult for the signalman in the control room to observe whether the cage is in position safely or not, i.e., it is difficult to judge whether all the passengers have entered into the cage and whether the safety curtain has been fully put down in the current hoisting process. Especially, when the miners going up and down gather near the cage during the peak time of duty shifting, it is difficult for the signalman to judge in-position situation quickly and accurately. Consequently, the efficiency of cage hoisting is severely limited. If the hoister starts to drive the cage before the passengers are in good position or the safety curtain is fully put down, a severe potential safety hazard may occur, resulting in injury or even falling of the passengers. For example, in a coal mine on Feb. 14 in a year, the operator hoisted the cage without closing the cage gate. Consequently, as the cage swung due to imbalance, seven persons in the cage were thrown out, resulting in three deaths and one injury. In a coal mine on Feb. 8 in a year, the operator started the cage before two miners had fully entered into the cage. Consequently, the two miners fell into the vertical shaft and died. Therefore, it is of great importance to make research on monitoring devices and methods for safe in-position of auxiliary shaft cage, in order to ensure miners safety and improve efficiency of auxiliary shaft.

At present, the research on safe in-position monitoring of cages mainly focuses on cage safety gate (curtain), and there is few or no research on passenger in-place monitoring. For example, the Patent No. ZE 201110437026.9 has disclosed a cage safety gate device, which realizes safety gate opening/closing on the basis of a mechanical structure. The Patent No. ZE 201220515664.8 has disclosed a pneumatic cage safety curtain, which realizes safety gate opening/closing by changing the driving method. The Patent No. ZE 201110281051.2 has disclosed a magnetic lock for cage safety gate, which prevents the safety gate from opening automatically under the influence of external factors by utilizing a strong magnetic key to absorb an iron lock cylinder. With regard to the extended research on monitoring persons in a specific space, the Patent No. CN 201610430945.6 has disclosed an infrared passenger detection method, which detects whether any passenger exists in an infrared image on the basis • i ·

2017415527 24 Jun 2019 of depth learning features of image blocks; the Patent No. ZL201220521452.0 has disclosed a detection device for people counting, which utilizes human body infrared sensors to detect the number of persons in a classroom; the Patent Application No. CN201410662745.4 has disclosed a personnel safety monitoring system, in which a network transmission device, several tags, and a positioning base station are installed in a specific monitoring area to track the positions of the personnel and accomplish monitoring of hoister maintainers.

The following problems still exist in the research of safe in-position monitoring of auxiliary shaft cage of vertical shaft hoister: firstly, in a mine shaft that has limited illumination conditions, various components and a complex structure, the signalman may easily misjudge the cage in-position state through direction observation with naked eyes, the working efficiency is very low, and especially during duty shifting; secondly, infrared monitoring for a specific space can be used to roughly identify whether there is any person in a specific area, but can't be used to judge whether all passengers have entered into the cage and whether the safety curtain has been put down fully; thirdly, to monitor the positions of the passengers with a tag sensing network, network transmission devices and tags have to be installed on the cage and the passengers, causing high installation cost and operational overhead; besides, usually external power supply is not permitted since the cage operates in a high-temperature and high-humidity environment.

There is a need to provide a safe in-position monitoring device for auxiliary shaft cage of vertical shaft hoister, which has a simple structure, and is highly reliable and convenient; in addition, the present invention further provides a monitoring method based on the safe inposition monitoring device.

Summary of the Invention

In an embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a safe in-position monitoring device for auxiliary shaft cage of vertical shaft hoister, comprising an infrared camera, a bracket, a processor, and an audible and visual alarm; wherein, the bracket is fixed to the middle of a derrick panel, and vertically intersects with the derrick panel in a horizontal plane, forming a T-shaped structure; the infrared camera is fixed to the outer end of the bracket, and the lens of the infrared camera is oriented to a safety curtain; the processor is fixed to a side of the upper part of the bracket close to the derrick panel, and the audible and visual alarm is arranged at a side of the upper part of the bracket close to the infrared camera; both the infrared camera and the audible and visual alarm are connected to the processor, and the processor collects infrared images of the cage at the side of the safety curtain via the infrared camera, and identifies whether the safety curtain has been fully put down and whether all passengers have entered into the cage according to the contour ranges of the passengers and the safety curtain as well as the contour occlusion relationship between the passengers and the safety curtain, and controls on/off of the audible and visual alarm.

In an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a monitoring method utilizing a safe inposition monitoring device for an auxiliary shaft cage of a vertical shaft hoister, the safe inposition monitoring device comprising an infrared camera with a lens and a lens base, a bracket, • 2 ·

2017415527 24 Jun 2019 a processor, and an audible and visual alarm, the monitoring method comprising the following steps:

(a) mounting the bracket vertically in the middle of a derrick panel so that the bracket vertically intersects with the derrick panel in a horizontal plane to form a T-shaped structure, mounting the infrared camera to the outer end of the bracket so that the lens of the infrared camera is oriented to a safety curtain, mounting the processor on a side of an upper part of the bracket close to the derrick panel, mounting the audible and visual alarm on a side of the upper part of the bracket close to the infrared camera, and connecting the audible and visual alarm and the infrared camera to the processor through a communication connection;

(b) when the cage is to be started, activating the infrared camera by the processor, so that the infrared camera takes an infrared image and transmits the infrared image to the processor, and decoding the infrared image by the processor and utilizing a canny operator to detect edges of the image, so as to obtain an edge image at the side of the safety curtain: based on a fact that the safety curtain is of a structure composed of a plurality of parallel rods, judging whether the safety curtain is in a put-down state or in a put-up state according to a plurality of parallel straight line segments detected in the edge image; based on a fact that the contour of a human body is an irregular curve, judging each irregular contour detected in the edge image as a passenger, and judging the standing position of each passenger;

(c) utilizing contour ranges of the passengers and the safety curtain as well as a contour occlusion relationship between passengers and safety curtain to identify whether the safety curtain has been fully put down and whether all passengers have entered into the cage according to the edge image at the side of the safety curtain, and controlling on/off the audible and visual alarm.

Identification and controlling in step (c) may be judged as follows:

(1) judging that the safety curtain has been fully put down if the parallel line segments representing the safety curtain extend all the way to the bottom of the cage and are distributed uniformly; judging that the safety curtain has not been fully put down if the parallel line segments representing the safety curtain does not extend all the way to the bottom of the cage, and in that case, the processor triggering the audible and visual alarm to light up a red lamp, to prompt that the safety curtain has not been fully put down;

(2) on a premise that the safety curtain is judged as having been fully put down, if the parallel line segments representing the safety curtain are occluded by the contour of any passenger, where the contour of any passenger covers the parallel line segments representing the safety curtain, judging that not all the passengers have entered into the cage or there is a passenger near the cage and in danger, and in that case, the processor triggering the audible and visual alarm to light up a yellow lamp, to prompt that the passengers are not in position safely;

(3) on the premise that the safety curtain is judged as having been fully put down, if the parallel line segments representing the safety curtain are not occluded by the contour of any passenger, where the parallel line segments representing the safety curtain cover the contours of all passengers, judging that all passengers have entered into the cage and there is no • 3 ·

2017415527 24 Jun 2019 passenger near the cage, and in that case, the processor triggering the audible and visual alarm, to light up a green lamp to indicate the cage can be started safely.

The lens of the infrared camera and the horizontal plane may define an angle of 45°- 60°, and the lens base of the infrared camera and the derrick panel may define a horizontal distance of 500mm - 1,000mm therebetween to ensure the infrared camera takes a complete picture of the cage at the side of the safety curtain.

Beneficial effects: the safe in-position monitoring device and monitoring method for auxiliary shaft cage of vertical shaft hoister provided in the present invention employ an infrared camera to take pictures for the safety curtain of the cage, and thereby solve the problem of inadequate illumination in the cage of the vertical shaft hoister; based on the penetrability of infrared photography, the contours of the passengers and the safety curtain in an image of the cage are identified by edge detection, a canny operator is employed to enhance the detection of weak edges in the image, and thereby an excellent signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and high detection accuracy are attained; then, the contour range of the safety curtain and a contour occlusion relation between the passengers and the safety curtain are utilized to identify whether the safety curtain has been fully put down and whether all passengers have entered into the cage; finally, whether the cage is in position safely is ascertained. The safe in-position monitoring device provided in the present invention employs an ingenious principle, has reliable performance and simple structure, can operate safely at a low cost, and can greatly improve the work efficiency of monitoring safe in-position in cage, greatly improve personnel safety during entry into/exist from the auxiliary shaft cage, and achieve obvious economic benefits.

Brief Description of Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of the device in the present invention;

Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of imaging in a state that the safety curtain is not fully put down in the present invention;

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of imaging in a state that the passengers are not in position safely in the present invention; and

Fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of imaging in a state that the cage is in position safely in the present invention.

In the figures: 1 - cage; 2 - derrick panel; 3 - processor; 4 - audible and visual alarm; 5 - bracket; 6 - infrared camera; 7 - safety curtain; 8 - passenger.

Embodiments

Hereunder the present invention will be further detailed, with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Fig. 1 shows a safe in-position monitoring device for auxiliary shaft cage of vertical shaft hoister, comprising an infrared camera 6, a bracket 5, a processor 3, and an audible and visual alarm 4; wherein, the bracket 5 is fixed to the middle of a derrick panel 2, and vertically intersects with the derrick panel 2 in a horizontal plane, forming a T-shaped structure; the infrared camera 6 is • 4 · fixed to the outer end of the bracket 5, and the lens of the infrared camera 6 is oriented to a safety curtain 7; the processor 3 is fixed to a side of the upper part of the bracket 5 close to the derrick panel 2, and the audible and visual alarm 4 is arranged at a side of the upper part of the bracket 5 close to the infrared camera 6; both the infrared camera 6 and the audible and visual alarm 4 are connected to the processor 3, and the processor 3 collects infrared images of the cage 1 at the side of the safety curtain 7 via the infrared camera 6, and identifies whether the safety curtain 7 has been fully put down and whether all passengers 8 have entered into the cage 1 according to the contour ranges of the passengers 8 and the safety curtain 7 as well as the contour occlusion relationship between the passengers 8 and the safety curtain 7, and controls on/ofif of the audible and visual alarm 4.

In the above device, the lens of the infrared camera 6 is oriented to the safety curtain 7, the included angle between the lens and the horizontal plane is 45°~60°, and the horizontal distance between a lens base of the infrared camera 6 and the derrick panel 2 is 500mm~l,000mm to ensure the infrared camera 6 takes a complete picture of the cage 1 at the side of the safety curtain 7.

A monitoring method based on the safe in-position monitoring device for auxiliary shaft cage of vertical shaft hoister described above, comprising the following steps:

(a) mounting the bracket 5 vertically in the middle of the derrick panel 2, mounting the infrared camera 6 to the outer end of the bracket 5 so that the lens of the infrared camera 6 is oriented to the safety curtain 7, mounting the processor 3 on a side of the upper part of the bracket 5 close to the derrick panel 2, mounting the audible and visual alarm 4 on a side of the upper part of the bracket 5 close to the infrared camera 6, and connecting the audible and visual alarm 4 and the infrared camera 6 to the processor 3 through a communication connection;

(b) when the cage 1 is to be started, activating the infrared camera 6 by the processor 3, so that the infrared camera 6 takes an infrared image and transmits the infrared image to the processor 3, and decoding the infrared image by the processor 3 and utilizing a canny operator to detect edges of the image, so as to obtain an edge image at the side of the safety curtain 7: based on a fact that the safety curtain 7 is of a structure composed of a plurality of parallel rods, judging whether the safety curtain 7 is in a put-down state or in a put-up state according to a plurality of parallel straight line segments detected in the edge image; based on a fact that the contour of a human body is an irregular curve, judging each irregular contour detected in the edge image as a passenger 8, and judging the standing position 8 of each passenger;

(c) utilizing the contour ranges of the passengers 8 and the safety curtain 7 as well as the contour occlusion relationship between passengers 8 and safety curtain 7 to identify whether the safety curtain 7 has been fully put down and whether all passengers 8 have entered into the cage 1 according to the edge image at the side of the safety curtain 7, and controlling on/off the audible and visual alarm 4, wherein the judgement is as follows:

(1) judging that the safety curtain 7 has been fully put down if the parallel line segments representing the safety curtain 7 extend all the way to the bottom of the cage 1 and are distributed uniformly; judging that the safety curtain 7 has not been fully put down if the parallel • 5 · line segments representing the safety curtain 7 don't extend all the way to the bottom of the cage 1, and in that case, the processor 3 triggering the audible and visual alarm 4 to light up a red lamp, to prompt that the safety curtain 7 has not been fully put down;

(2) on a premise that the safety curtain 7 is judged as having been fully put down, if the parallel line segments representing the safety curtain 7 are occluded by the contour of any passenger 8,

i.e., the contour of any passenger 8 covers the parallel line segments representing the safety curtain 7, judging that not all the passengers 8 have entered into the cage or there is a passenger near the cage and in danger, and in that case, the processor 3 triggering the audible and visual alarm 4 to light up a yellow lamp, to prompt that the passengers 8 are not in position safely;

(3) on the premise that the safety curtain 7 is judged as having been fully put down, if the parallel line segments representing the safety curtain 7 are not occluded by the contour of any passenger 8, i.e., the parallel line segments representing the safety curtain 7 cover the contours of all passengers 8, judging that all passengers 8 have entered into the cage 1 and there is no passenger 8 near the cage 1, and in that case, the processor 3 triggering the audible and visual alarm 4, to light up a green lamp to indicate the cage 1 can be started safely.

While the present invention is described above in some preferred embodiments, it should be noted that those skilled in the art can make various improvements and modifications without departing from the principle of the present invention, and those improvements and modifications should be deemed as falling into the scope of protection of the present invention.

Claims

Claims

1. A monitoring method utilizing a safe in-position monitoring device for an auxiliary shaft cage of a vertical shaft hoister, the safe in-position monitoring device comprising an infrared camera with a lens and a lens base, a bracket, a processor, and an audible and visual alarm, the monitoring method comprising the following steps:

(a) mounting the bracket vertically in the middle of a derrick panel so that the bracket vertically intersects with the derrick panel in a horizontal plane to form a T-shaped structure, mounting the infrared camera to the outer end of the bracket so that the lens of the infrared camera is oriented to a safety curtain, mounting the processor on a side of an upper part of the bracket close to the derrick panel, mounting the audible and visual alarm on a side of the upper part of the bracket close to the infrared camera, and connecting the audible and visual alarm and the infrared camera to the processor through a communication connection;

(b) when the cage is to be started, activating the infrared camera by the processor so that the infrared camera takes an infrared image and transmits the infrared image to the processor, and decoding the infrared image by the processor and utilizing a canny operator to detect edges of the image so as to obtain an edge image at the side of the safety curtain: based on a fact that the safety curtain is of a structure composed of a plurality of parallel rods, judging whether the safety curtain is in a put-down state or in a put-up state according to a plurality of parallel straight line segments detected in the edge image; based on a fact that the contour of a human body is an irregular curve, judging each irregular contour detected in the edge image as a passenger, and judging the standing position of each passenger;

(c) utilizing contour ranges of the passengers and the safety curtain as well as a contour occlusion relationship between the passengers and the safety curtain to identify whether the safety curtain has been fully put down and whether all passengers have entered into the cage according to the edge image at the side of the safety curtain, and controlling on/off the audible and visual alarm.

2. The monitoring method according to claim 1, wherein identification and controlling in step (c) is judged as follows:

(1) judging that the safety curtain has been fully put down if the parallel line segments representing the safety curtain extend all the way to the bottom of the cage and are distributed uniformly; judging that the safety curtain has not been fully put down if the parallel line segments representing the safety curtain does not extend all the way to the bottom of the cage, and in that case, the processor triggering the audible and visual alarm to light up a red lamp, to prompt that the safety curtain has not been fully put down;
(2) on a premise that the safety curtain is judged as having been fully put down, if the parallel line segments representing the safety curtain are occluded by the contour of any passenger, where the contour of any passenger covers the parallel line segments representing the safety curtain, judging that not all the passengers have entered into the cage or there is a passenger near the cage and in danger, and in that case, the processor • 7 ·

2017415527 24 Jun 2019 triggering the audible and visual alarm to light up a yellow lamp, to prompt that the passengers are not in position safely;
(3) on the premise that the safety curtain is judged as having been fully put down, if the parallel line segments representing the safety curtain are not occluded by the contour of any passenger, where the parallel line segments representing the safety curtain cover the contours of all passengers, judging that all passengers have entered into the cage and there is no passenger near the cage, and in that case, the processor triggering the audible and visual alarm, to light up a green lamp to indicate the cage can be started safely.

3. The monitoring method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the lens of the infrared camera and the horizontal plane define an angle of 45°- 60°, and wherein the lens base of the infrared camera and the derrick panel define a horizontal distance of 500mm - 1,000mm therebetween to ensure the infrared camera takes a complete picture of the cage at the side of the safety curtain.