EP3670413B1

EP3670413B1 - Method for electronic elevator communication with mobile devices

Info

Publication number: EP3670413B1
Application number: EP18214604.3A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Grzegorz Karol Dr. Spyra
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2018-12-20
Filing date: 2018-12-20
Publication date: 2023-08-16
Anticipated expiration: 2038-12-20
Also published as: EP3670413A1

Description

The present invention relates to a method for electronic communication between a mobile device and an elevator, an elevator and an elevator system.
Many elevators are connected via internet of things (IoT) technologies. When using floating and dynamic IP-addresses, the current IP-address of an elevator or a component is primarily unknown to other devices. In this case establishing an internet communication between a mobile device and an elevator is a complicated and time-consuming process that often requires downloading dedicated applications. This reduces the user-friendliness.
US 2012/253658 describes an elevator system providing guidance (e.g. movement directions) to a user by means of a portable device.
It is an object of the present invention to facilitate a fast and reliable establishment of a communication between a mobile device and an elevator.
This object is solved by subject-matter according to the independent claims. Technically beneficial embodiments are subject to the dependent claims, the description and the drawings.
According to a first aspect this object is solved by a method for electronic communication between a mobile device and an elevator, comprising the steps of optically scanning a visual code comprising a fixed hardware address of the elevator by the mobile device; transmitting the fixed hardware address from the mobile device to a network node; determining an internet address of the elevator based on the fixed hardware address by the network node; and communicating with the elevator based on the internet address. This yields the technical advantage that a communication channel between the elevator and the mobile device can be easily created, even when internet addresses are dynamically assigned to the elevators. Communication between the elevator and the mobile device can be either directly by using the determined internet address of the elevator within the mobile device or indirectly by means of the network node acting as a proxy node between the mobile device and the elevator.
This method simplifies the integration of elevators within an elevator environment and brings them closer to the end-users without the need to enforce customer to install any mobile application. The elevator can be controlled via a regular browser application.
In a technically advantageous embodiment of the method the internet address is transmitted to the mobile device for sending requests from the mobile device to the internet address of the elevator. This yields the technical advantage that a direct communication between the elevator and the mobile device can be established.
In a further technically advantageous embodiment of the method requests from the mobile device are received by the network node and the requests from the mobile device are forwarded to the internet address of the elevator by the network node. This yields the technical advantage that an indirect communication between the elevator and the mobile device is established by which security is increased.
In a further technically advantageous embodiment of the method the network node acts as a proxy node between the mobile device and the elevator. This also yields the technical advantage that security is increased.
In a further technically advantageous embodiment of the method the fixed hardware address is a MAC-address of the network interface of the elevator. This yields the technical advantage that existing hardware addresses are used.
In a further technically advantageous embodiment of the method the visual code is a QR-Code or a barcode. This yields the technical advantage that the code can be easily read by existing applications.
In a further technically advantageous embodiment of the method the visual code is located at the elevator. This yields the technical advantage that the corresponding elevator can be accessed locally on the spot by scanning the visual code with the mobile device without the need of installing additional communication interfaces, i.e. Bluetooth/GUI. In addition, the technical advantage is achieved that the corresponding QR code could be either displayed on existing elevator control GUI or simply physically attached.
In a further technically advantageous embodiment of the method the visual code comprises an internet address of the network node. This yields the technical advantage that various and distinct network nodes can be used.
In a further technically advantageous embodiment of the method the network node or the elevator provides a user interface for controlling the elevator. This yields the technical advantage that the elevator can be controlled in a user-friendly manner.
According to a second aspect this object is solved by an elevator system with an elevator comprising a visual code comprising a fixed hardware address of the elevator and/or a web-address of the network node. The elevator system further comprises a network node for receiving a fixed hardware address from a mobile device; and a determining means for determining an internet address of the elevator based on the fixed hardware address. This yields the same technical advantages as the method according to the first aspect.
In a technically advantageous embodiment of the elevator system the elevator system comprises a communication means for communicating with the elevator based on the internet address. This also yields the technical advantage that communication between the mobile device and the elevator can be either directly or indirectly performed.
In a further technically advantageous embodiment of the elevator system the elevator system comprises network node acting as a proxy node between the mobile device and the elevator. This also yields the technical advantage that data security of the elevator system is increased.
In a further technically advantageous embodiment of the elevator system the elevator system comprises a user interface for controlling the elevator on the network node or the elevator. This also yields the technical advantage that the elevator can be controlled in a user-friendly manner.
In a further technically advantageous embodiment of the elevator system the visual code is located at the elevator. This also yields the technical advantage that the corresponding elevator can be accessed locally on the spot by scanning the visual code with the mobile device.
Specific embodiments are shown in the figures and are explained in the following.

Fig. 1: shows schematic diagram of an elevator system;
Fig. 2: shows schematic diagram of a further elevator system; and
Fig. 3: shows a block diagram of a method for electronic communication between a mobile device and an elevator.

Fig. 1 shows a schematic diagram of an elevator system 200 in a trusted network. The elevator system 200 serves for controlling and operating an elevator 101 that vertically moves people or goods between floors, levels or decks. Floors to move the elevator 101 to can be manually selected by pressing a corresponding button of the elevator system 200. The elevator 101 has an electronic network interface for electronic two-way data communication that has a fixed hardware address. In addition, the elevator can have a web-based user interface for controlling, monitoring or maintaining the elevator 101. This user interface can be accessed via the network interface.
In a first step a visual code 103, e.g. a quick response code (QR-code), is optically scanned by the camera of a mobile device 100. The mobile device 100 can be a mobile phone or a tablet PC with a camera and a barcode or QR-code scanner application.
In the visual code 103 a fixed hardware address MAC1 of the elevator 101, e.g. a media access control address (MAC-address) of a network interface, is integrated and encoded that does not change over time. In addition, a web-address URL of a network node 105, e.g. a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), is integrated within the visual code 103.
The mobile device 100 extracts the fixed hardware address MAC1 of the elevator 101 and the web-address URL of from network node 105 from the scanned visual code 103. Because the visual code 103 encodes the entire URL of the network node 105 together with GET parameters, i.e. MAC Address of the elevator 101, the scanner could leverage default internet browser to open the link. A scanner application allows the link to be opened with a default mobile internet browser. Depending on the scanner application, the web-address URL can be opened within the internet browser either immediately after scanning or allows the interacting user to decide on how to access the elevator 101. A dedicated elevator application can be also integrated with the scanner application to automatically takeover GET requests that consider a specific DNS domain.
In a second step the mobile device 100 sends a request for retrieving an internet address (IP address) of the elevator 101 to the network node 105 that comprises the fixed hardware address MAC1 of the elevator 101 obtained from optically scanning. The network node 105 acts as a proxy node. The network node 105 is for example an internet server running corresponding services. As an addition to the first step it is possible to use the multicast Domain Name System (mDNS) in order to find the network node 105 (IoT Proxy), if no public IoT Proxy DNS exists.
In a third step the network node 105 localizes the elevator 101 to be addressed based on the received fixed hardware address MAC1. The network node 105 checks an IP-address mapping with all elevator MAC-addresses, i.e. leveraging a local Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) cache from within the same network and redirects the mobile device 100 (IoT Proxy client) to the elevator 101 (IoT device). The ARP cache is created by the network node 105 using a short interval schedule that broadcasts short ICMP requests to entire network (IoTProxy.IP-Address and loTProxy.IP-Mask). The corresponding mapping table serves as a determining means 111 for mapping various fixed hardware addresses MAC1, ..., MAC4 to the respective internet addresses of the elevator 101.
As an alternative to the ICMP-based discovery, the internet address IP1 could be retrieved for given MAC address via multicast Domain Name System (mDNS). This approach requires elevators being introduced by their logical names equal to hardware MAC address.
In this scenario the network node 105 sends a mDNS message to several connected devices 101 within the network that comprises of the received fixed hardware address MAC1 of the elevator 101. Only the single elevator 101 that has the requested fixed hardware address MAC 1 of the visual code 103 responds to the mDNS message and transmits in response its internet address IP1 to the network node 105.
In a fifth step the network node 105 redirects and transmits the received internet address IP1 of the elevator 101 to the mobile device 100.
In a sixth step the mobile device 100 uses the received internet address IP1 to directly connect and communicate with the elevator 101. The elevator 101 having the QR-code with this fixed hardware address MAC1 responds to upcoming requests based on the determined internet address IP1. Thus, a user can employ the web-based user interface of the elevator 101 for controlling, monitoring or maintaining the elevator 101 via a regular browser. Consequently, any mobile device 100 is able to get the associated internet address IP1 of the elevator 101 and establish a communication to this elevator 101.
The user does not have to have TCP/IP knowledge, since the devices or elevators 101 can use a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) within the Broadcast Domain. Further, there is no need of programming a dedicated mobile device application for controlling the elevator 101. The user does not have to know where the elevator 101 is located, since he interacts with the visual code 103 only.
There is no need of complicated determining internet addresses IP1 of different elevators 101 on the network. Determining internet addresses IP1 of different elevators 101 can simply be performed by scanning the QR codes from the elevators to access their web-based applications.
Fig. 2 shows a schematic diagram of a further elevator system 200 using a trusted network 107 and an untrusted network 109. In this embodiment communication between the mobile device 100 and the elevator 101 is performed solely via the network node 105 acting as a proxy. A direct communication between the mobile device 100 and the elevator is not possible.
The user interface of the elevator 101 can be provided by the network node 105 that can also translate provided information into an elevator specific format. Therefore, the network node 105 can handle the end-to-end communication between the mobile device 100 and a legacy elevator 101 by providing an abstract user Web-frontend with a limited functionality.
Thereby, the network node 105 can for example handle management of legacy devices that communicate via outdated Modbus-TCP. For example, the network node 105 contacts an old elevator controller that does not provide a dedicated web interface but exposes a set of registers via Modbus-TCP. Based on the fixed hardware address MAC1 it also can recognize hardware type and supported control registers. A web-frontend provided by the network node 105 shows the configuration read from the elevator controller and writes the preferred client settings back to the elevator controller.
The first to fourth step correspond to the steps discussed with respect to Fig. 1. However, in the fifth step information from the elevator 101 is forwarded to the mobile device 100 by the network node 105. The internet address IP1 of the elevator 101, however, is not transmitted to the mobile device 100. In this way a direct communication between the mobile device 100 and the elevator 101 is prevented. Instead, the mobile device 100 and the elevator 101 communicate indirectly via the network node 105 acting as a proxy node. The proxy node is an intermediary for requests from the mobile device 100 seeking resources from the elevator 101 and vice versa.
The network node 105 acting as a proxy and a mediator between the mobile device 100 and the elevator 101 reduces attack possibilities. The network node 105 can handle such scenarios as a secure technician access to an elevator controller or to allow an elevator request at a specific floor to go to a specific floor only using QR-code-encoded GET requests. The network node 105 adds an additional security layer, where elevators 101 fail in implementing the relevant protection.
Fig. 3 shows a block diagram of a method for electronic communication between a mobile device 100 and an elevator 101.
The method comprises the step S101 of optically scanning the visual code 103 by the mobile device 100 that comprises and encodes the fixed hardware address MAC1 of the elevator 101. The fixed hardware address MAC 1 of the elevator 101 is decoded and extracted by the mobile device 100 from the visual code 103.
In step S102 the extracted hardware address MAC1 from the mobile device 100 is transmitted to the network node 105. This can be done via cellular phone network, a wireless local area network WLAN or Bluetooth. In step S103 the internet address IP1 of the elevator 101 is determined based on the fixed hardware address MAC1 by the network node 105.
This can be done by a mapping table that maps various fixed hardware addresses MAC1, ..., MAC4 to the respective internet addresses. In step S104 a direct or indirect communication with the elevator 101 based on the internet address IP1. Thereby, it is possible to use the same identification by the visual code 103 to initiate privileged connection of the mobile device 100 with the elevator 101 for the elevator technician. The method can be applied to all electronic devices other than elevators 101.
All features discussed in the description or shown in the figures with respect to particular embodiments of the invention can be provided in various combinations in order to simultaneously realize the beneficial technical effects.
All method steps can be implemented by means that are adapted for carrying out the corresponding method step. All functions carried out by a specific structural feature can be a method step of a method.
The legal scope of protection of the present invention is defined by the claims and is not reduced by features discussed in the description or shown in the figures.

REFERENCE SIGNS

100: mobile device
101: elevator
103: visual code
105: network node
107: trusted network
109: untrusted network
111: determining means
200: elevator system

Claims

Method for electronic communication between a mobile device (100) and an elevator (101), comprising the steps:
- optically (S101) scanning a visual code (103) comprising a fixed hardware address (MAC1) of the elevator (101) by the mobile device (100);

- transmitting (S102) the fixed hardware address (MAC1) from the mobile device (100) to a network node (105);

- determining (S1 03) an internet address (IP1) of the elevator (101) based on the fixed hardware address (MAC1) by the network node (105); and

- communicating (S104) with the elevator (101) based on the internet address (IP1).
Method according to claim 1, wherein the internet address (IP1) is transmitted to the mobile device (100) for sending requests from the mobile device (100) to the internet address of the elevator (101).
Method according to claim 1, wherein requests from the mobile device (100) are received by the network node (105) and the requests from the mobile device are forwarded to the internet address of the elevator (101) by the network node (105).
Method according to claim 3, wherein the network node (105) acts as a proxy node between the mobile device (100) and the elevator (101).
Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the fixed hardware address is a MAC-address of the network interface of the elevator (101).
Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the visual code (103) is a QR-Code or a barcode.
Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the visual code (103) is located at the elevator (101).
Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the visual code (103) comprises an internet address of the network node (105).
Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the network node (105) or the elevator (101) provides a user interface for controlling the elevator.
Elevator system (200) comprising:
- a network node (105) for receiving a fixed hardware address (MAC1) from a mobile device (100);

- an elevator (101) comprising a visual code (103) comprising the fixed hardware address (MAC1) of the elevator (101) and, optionally, a web-address of the network node, and

- a determining means (111) for determining an internet address (IP1) of the elevator (101) based on the fixed hardware address (MAC1).
Elevator system (200) according to claim 10, wherein the elevator system (200) comprises a communication means for communicating with the elevator (101) based on the internet address (IP1).
Elevator system (200) according to claim 10 or 11, wherein the elevator system (200) comprises network node (105) acting as a proxy node between the mobile device (100) and the elevator (101).
Elevator system (200) according to one of the claims 10 to 12, wherein the elevator system (200) comprises a user interface for controlling the elevator (101) on the network node (105) or the elevator (101).
Elevator system (200) according to one of the claims 10 to 13, wherein the visual code (103) is located at the elevator (101).