HK1237408B - Allocation of facilities on a route - Google Patents

Description

On-route facility distribution

Technical Field

The present invention relates to determining a route and guiding a person along the route. In particular, the invention relates to controlling and distributing different facilities within a route.

Background

Many conventional solutions have been applied in order to increase the efficiency of personal transportation means, such as elevators. For example, the elevator may be controlled by a destination control system, wherein a person places an order for one or more persons to a desired floor before entering the elevator car. The system then assigns an elevator ride and indicates the caller and possible group to the elevator. This ensures the best possible throughput of the elevator system and reduces the time required for a trip from one place to another.

Mobile devices are used for a variety of purposes. One commonly used is to navigate by using a mapping application in the mobile device. Conventional navigation is performed in an outdoor environment and is based on positioning using satellites, however, indoor navigation has also been recently implemented. Indoor navigation requires maps specifically for indoor use. Guidance may be estimated or based on an indoor positioning system. Thus, in advanced solutions involving indoor positioning systems, guidance is comparable to traditional outdoor navigation, and a person using such a system can easily find the correct elevator lobby, for example.

Since time is a valuable resource and moving elevators and using other resources consumes energy, there is always a need for systems that can further save time and energy.

Disclosure of Invention

Elevators and other equipment in buildings and other building environments can be remotely controlled. In an advanced control method, at least one person is guided through a building environment along a predetermined route. When the route is known, an installation such as an elevator may be called or activated in advance so that a person guided along the route does not need to do it when reaching the area of influence of the installation. When there is more than one person, the routes may be combined so that the central system controlling the distribution of the facility may call or activate resources for more than one person.

In one embodiment, the invention is implemented as a method for guiding at least one person to a destination. In the method, at least one destination from at least one person is received. A route to the at least one received destination is then calculated. Based on the calculated route, a need for a service request within the route is determined, and at least one service request for at least one facility located on the route is sent. In another embodiment, guiding the at least one person to the destination comprises guiding indoors. In another embodiment of the invention the request sent to the installation located on the route is a call to an elevator, preferably a group call involving calls of a plurality of persons having at least one destination. In another embodiment of the invention, the request sent to the facility located on the route is a request for one or more of: lighting, automatic doors, temporary access rights and electric locks. In another embodiment of the invention, a route for a plurality of persons includes a plurality of destinations. In an advanced embodiment, multiple routes with different starting points and destinations are received and facilities are requested based on all received or calculated routes. It must be understood that for routes with different starting and destination points, the allocation according to the invention works best when they have a common point during the journey. For example, two persons from different locations and destined for different destinations may arrive at the same elevator lobby at the same time and may call elevator calls for both persons.

In another embodiment of the invention, the above method is implemented as computer software executed in a device capable of receiving a destination, calculating a route, processing a request, and sending the processed request to a facility. In an alternative embodiment, the device receives the calculated route and generates a request to send based on the route.

In another embodiment, the invention is implemented as an apparatus comprising at least one data communication connection for receiving and sending requests, a processor for processing the requests, a memory for storing the requests and computer program code. The apparatus is configured to receive at least one destination from at least one person, calculate at least one route to the received destination; at least one service request is sent to at least one facility located on the route and at least one person is guided to the destination.

An advantage of the present invention is that people can reach their destination faster and more conveniently when all necessary facilities are automatically requested without further interaction. Another advantage of the present invention is that when devices are centrally controlled, they can be used more efficiently and save energy. For example, in the case of elevators, multiple persons may be combined to form a group for an elevator ride. This may reduce the need for a ride, which means energy is saved, as the elevator moves less.

Drawings

The accompanying drawings, which are included to provide a further understanding of the invention and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and together with the description help to explain the principles of the invention. In the drawings:

figure 1 is a block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of the present invention,

fig. 2 is a flow chart of a method according to the invention.

Detailed Description

Reference will now be made in detail to embodiments of the present invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings.

In fig. 1, a block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of the present invention is shown. This block diagram is shown with a map of a building using the present invention. Fig. 1 shows a situation where two persons a and B are heading towards the same destination, e.g. a common meeting in a conference room. They both have mobile devices that are wirelessly connected to base stations 10 and 11. The wireless connection may be any suitable wireless connection, such as WiFi, bluetooth, other local area wireless connections, a micro or ordinary cell in a public mobile phone network, or the like. The purpose of the base station is to provide the possibility to send information to the central system 12 and possibly to locate persons a and B and to provide information to the central system 12 about their movements. In an alternative embodiment, the base stations 10 and 11 are beacons of an indoor positioning system, and this information is sent by the mobile devices of persons a and B.

The central system 12 is configured to receive service requests from persons a and B. The service request may comprise a call to an elevator 17, e.g. at an elevator lobby 16. The location information described above may be received along with the location information described above in addition to the service request. In the example embodiment of fig. 1, both people wish to send similar elevator calls. The call is received at a central system 12, the central system 12 comprising at least one processor 13 for processing the requests and at least one memory 14 for storing the necessary data. When the central system 12 detects that people a and B are going to the same destination and arrive at the elevator lobby 16 at about the same time, the system will place the group call of both people on the same destination floor. The group call is placed at the destination control system 15. The central system 12 can then send messages to persons a and B instructing them to take the correct elevator. Information can also be conveyed by using other means, such as displaying a message at an information screen of the elevator lobby 16.

Fig. 2 is a flow chart disclosing a method according to the invention. The method is initiated by receiving a destination for the group at a central system responsible for performing the method (step 20). In addition to the actual destination, the message comprising the destination may comprise information such as a negotiation room, a number of participants and a desired time instant. Thus, an example of such a destination may be a calendar flag indicating a meeting for a small group of people. The calendar indicia naturally includes the meeting room, the identification of each participant, and the meeting time. The message may be sent by any participant, and it may be sent to the central system in advance. The system may calculate an estimated travel time and indicate that each person left on time.

When the destination is known, the people participating in the meeting are guided to the meeting room. To do so, the current location of the person to be guided needs to be known and received at the system (step 21). The current location of the person may be derived by a variety of means. In a high-level embodiment, the location is received from an indoor positioning system. Sometimes, a conventional outdoor positioning system, such as GPS, may be used, however, this requires that the satellites be visible to the device, for example through a window. If a positioning device is not available, one solution is for a person to provide a location, for example by checking a reminder message provided by a calendar program. If the check is made at a normal workstation, such as an office, the system knows where the person is.

When the location has been received, the route of each participant may be determined (step 22). It must be understood that the locations are not necessarily received at the same time, and the system and method according to the present embodiment may begin operation using a partial set of data before all destinations have been received. The location may be received from a number of different systems, such as from a user device, an access control system, or even a garage door or the like. Thus, even though the embodiments primarily discuss indoor positioning in a building, other systems in the open air or in another building may be involved. If the location of each participant is not available, it may be decided to not consider the unknown location before receiving the location at a later stage in the route, or a location may be assumed, for example, work in an office or other place, such as a previous meeting with a location known to the system. Further, it should be understood that even though this example discusses groups having the same destination, the systems and methods according to the present embodiments may and typically do receive routes from different people having disparate destinations and attempt to integrate this information with all existing known routes having points in common in their routes. Furthermore, these common points in their routes should be more or less simultaneous in order not to cause unnecessary delays to the leading person. On the basis of the embodiment, time ranges that are considered to be the same time may be selected.

After determining the route for each participant, an intermediate point is detected for each route (step 23). The intermediate point may be any point at the route, e.g. an elevator or a door, where a key needs to be introduced. When all routes are known and people are moving towards the destination, they are monitored (step 24) by using an indoor positioning system, other means for detecting location, or estimating their location. When deviations from known routes are detected, the route of each participant is updated (step 25) to improve the accuracy of the model.

In a final step, the system sends a service request (26) according to the adjusted route and the persons along the route respectively provide corresponding instructions. For example, when the route involves using elevators with destination control systems, the system guiding people may detect that three people arrive at the same elevator lobby in one minute and give the three people a command for an elevator ride and provide instructions to the mobile device of the guided person, e.g. which elevator to ride and how much time they have. Another example of a service request is lighting, where the system may know that three people are moving through the hallway at night, separated by small intervals. Thus, the lights in the hallway may be turned on before the first person arrives in the hallway and turned off when the last person leaves the hallway. Since the system knows the estimated arrival time of the conference room, it can fine-tune the route and the functionality of the complete system based on this information. For example, the system may relate to the priority of different people, and if a person is detected earlier or earlier than other members of the team, the priority may be lowered for the earlier person and increased for the later person. This may mean, for example, that when an elevator is known to arrive at the lobby, the system can dispatch that elevator even though it may mean a slightly longer waiting time and let other elevators pass the floor without stopping. This will minimize the waiting time of the meeting room and will increase the throughput of personal vehicles and vehicles in the building.

In another embodiment of the invention, the routes known to the central system 12 are combined with other routes belonging to different people and having different destinations. For example, if the central system 12 shown in fig. 1 notices that three people arrive at the elevator lobby 16 at the same time, one elevator with two destinations for three people may be called if the central system and/or destination controller system decides that it would be efficient for the entire elevator system.

In another embodiment of the invention, the mobile device includes an application that calculates a route, and then sends the calculated route to a central system for further processing. Another optional feature is the possibility to calculate an estimated time of arrival that can be sent to others belonging to the same group. Thus, if one person is late, others will know how long they need to wait.

The above-described method may be implemented as computer software executing in a computing device, such as central system 12 of fig. 2, that is capable of communicating with a mobile device and a destination control system. When the software is executed in a computing device, it is configured to perform the method of the invention described above. The software is embodied on a computer readable medium such that it can be provided to a computing device.

As mentioned above, the components of the exemplary embodiments can include computer-readable media for holding instructions programmed according to the teachings of the inventions and for holding data structures, tables, records, and/or other data described herein. Computer-readable media may include any suitable media that participates in providing instructions to a processor for execution. Common forms of computer-readable media can include, for example, a floppy disk, a flexible disk, hard disk, magnetic tape, any other suitable magnetic medium, a CD-ROM, CD + -R, CD + -RW, DVD-RAM, DVD + -RW, DVD + -R, HD DVD-R, HD DVD-RW, HD DVD-RAM, Blu-ray disk, any other suitable optical medium, a RAM, a PROM, an EPROM, a FLASH-EPROM, any other suitable memory chip or cartridge, a carrier wave, or any other suitable medium from which a computer can read.

It is obvious to a person skilled in the art that with the advancement of technology, the basic idea of the invention may be implemented in various ways. The invention and its embodiments are thus not limited to the examples described above; but they may vary within the scope of the claims.

Claims (8)

1. A method for guiding a person to one or more destinations, the method comprising:

receiving a destination from a plurality of persons;

calculating a route to the received destination for each of the plurality of persons;

combining a plurality of routes having common points in the routes;

determining a need for at least one service request for at least one facility located on the combined route for the combined route;

sending at least one request to at least one facility located on the combined route based on the determined need for at least one service request; and

providing instructions to a person on the combined route indicating the at least one service request,

wherein sending the at least one request comprises sending a group call to an elevator, the group call involving calls to a plurality of people having a common entry point and different destinations, and the instructions provided to the people on the combined route comprise times at which they are to arrive at the elevator.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein directing at least one of the plurality of people to a received destination comprises directing indoors.

3. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein sending the request to at least one facility located on the combined route comprises sending a request for one or more of: lighting, automatic doors, temporary access rights and electric locks.

4. The method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the method further comprises sending instructions on the service request made to the person guided to the received destination.

5. An apparatus for guiding a person to one or more destinations, comprising:

at least one data communication connection for receiving and sending requests;

a processor (13) for processing the request; and

a memory (14) for storing the request and computer program code,

wherein the apparatus is configured to:

receiving a destination from a plurality of persons;

calculating a route to the received destination for each of the plurality of persons;

combining a plurality of routes having common points in the routes;

determining a need for at least one service request for at least one facility located on the combined route for the combined route;

sending at least one request to at least one facility located on the combined route based on the determined need for at least one service request; and

providing instructions indicative of the at least one service request to the people on the combined route, wherein the apparatus is configured to send a group call to an elevator, the group call involving calls to a plurality of people having a common entry point and different destinations, and the apparatus is configured to provide instructions including times at which they are to arrive at the elevator.

6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the apparatus is configured to direct at least one of the plurality of people to a received destination indoors.

7. The apparatus of claim 5 or 6, wherein the apparatus being configured to send the request to at least one facility located on the combined route comprises sending a request for one or more of: lighting, automatic doors, temporary access rights and electric locks.

8. An apparatus according to claim 5 or 6, wherein the apparatus is further configured to send instructions to a person directed to the received destination regarding the service request made.