JP6726145B2 - Elevator hall guidance system - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to an elevator system that detects the number of passengers in a car and provides an autonomous robot having a hall guidance function.

With recent advances in robot control technology, robots are now substituting tasks and services that were previously performed manually, and services such as guidance while the robot interacts with people using artificial intelligence. There are various initiatives and proposals such as implementing.

In the technical field of elevators, various methods have been proposed from among a large number of elevators to notify a user at the hall of the number of units providing a service. For example, in Patent Document 1, a user of the hall is at a standby position. When you hold the handle of the automated trolley, you will be guided to register the call on the destination floor, and when the passengers call and register according to the guidance, you will be guided to the vicinity of the service unit, and after the announcement of arrival, the customer will be notified of the automated trolley. There has been proposed a customer guidance device that returns to a standby position when the handle is released (see Patent Document 1).

JP, 2002-348055, A

In Patent Document 1, a user holds a handle of an automated guided vehicle at a landing to detect an elevator use request, and guides the user to the corresponding service number.

However, in Patent Document 1, the same guidance is executed regardless of the congestion situation of the car, and the guidance linked to the number of passengers allowed to board the car is not considered. In other words, there were cases where the service machine guided by the automated guided vehicle was full and could not be boarded.

Elevators are used by many people, and there are often multiple passengers in the hall and in the car. Especially in a building with a large number of elevators, there are many passengers, and when multiple passengers are guided to the service unit, there is a problem that all passengers can not ride As is insufficient.

Therefore, in the present invention, when a plurality of passengers are waiting at the landing, a guide robot is used to detect the number of people who can board the next service machine and guide the passengers to be distributed. It is to provide a guidance system that can improve service to users by creating calls for other units.

In order to solve the above problems, the elevator system of the present invention manages the operation of a plurality of elevator cars, an autonomous robot for identifying the number of people waiting at an elevator hall, and the elevators provided for each elevator car. A control device that calculates the number of passengers that can be boarded in addition to the current number of passengers, based on the loading ratio of the car of the car or the image information of the camera that captures the inside of the car; and a plurality of the control devices. The group management control device connected, the autonomous robot, which has received the number of people allowed to board from the control device, when the number of waiting people is less than the number of people allowed to board, performs guidance at the elevator hall. If there is not, or if all the passengers can board the elevator that will arrive next, and if the number of people waiting for the elevator is greater than the number of people that can board the elevator, then take action to suppress the passengers who cannot board the elevator that arrives next. Or, I decided to inform them that everyone could not board the elevator that will arrive next.

According to the present invention, when there are a plurality of waiting passengers at the hall, by notifying the autonomous robot of the number of people who can board the next service machine and distributing the waiting passengers to the boarding machine, the service to the passengers is provided. Can be improved.

It is the whole elevator system lineblock diagram of one example. It is a functional block diagram of an elevator system of one example. It is a flow chart which shows the whole processing procedure of one example. It is a flow chart which shows an autonomous robot guidance propriety judging processing procedure of one example. It is a flowchart which shows the boarding capacity calculation process procedure of one Example. It is a flowchart which shows the autonomous robot guidance processing procedure of one Example. It is a state diagram which shows the autonomous robot guidance process of one Example. It is a state diagram which shows the autonomous robot guidance process of one Example. It is a state diagram which shows the autonomous robot guidance process of one Example.

Hereinafter, an elevator system according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. 1 is an overall configuration diagram of an elevator system according to an embodiment, FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram of an elevator system according to an embodiment, FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an overall processing procedure of the embodiment, and FIG. 4 is an embodiment. 7 is a flowchart showing the autonomous robot guidance availability determination processing procedure of FIG. 5, FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the boarding capacity calculation processing procedure of one embodiment, FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the autonomous robot guidance processing procedure of one embodiment, and FIGS. [Fig. 6] is a state diagram showing an autonomous robot guidance process of one embodiment.

First, with reference to FIG. 1, an overview of the overall configuration of an elevator system according to an embodiment will be described.

FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram of an elevator system that manages three elevators having the same configuration as a group. In the figure, a, b, and c are added to the end of the reference numerals to distinguish which of the left, the center, and the right elevator machines corresponds to the configuration, but since each has the same configuration, Unless otherwise required, the description below omits the addition of the symbols a, b, and c.

Each elevator machine includes a car 101, a counterweight 103 connected via a main rope 102, a hoisting machine 104, and a control device 105 for driving the hoisting machine 104.

Each of the cars 101 has a load sensor 106 for detecting a load in the car, a camera 107 for photographing the inside of the car, and a destination floor button 108 for passengers in the car to register a destination floor. And the information is transmitted to the control device 105 through a communication line (not shown).

The group management control device 109 controls the operation of each elevator machine through the plurality of control devices 105, and issues a command to each of the control devices 105a to 105c so that the operation efficiency of the elevator in the entire building is optimized. ing. As a result, for example, a service is performed for a car that is waiting near the floor where the landing button is registered, and control is performed to move another car to wait on the appropriate floor in preparation for the next landing call. .. When the user presses the hall button 110 at the hall, the group management control device 109 determines the number of the machine that responds to the hall call. When the answering machine is decided, the corresponding guide lamp 111 is turned on.

Next, a functional block diagram of the elevator system according to the present embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. The elevator system shown here connects the autonomous robot 2 and the control device 105a of the first machine via the public line 3, and also connects the control devices 105a to 105c to each other via the group management control device 109. .. The autonomous robot 2 is arranged in the elevator hall, and announces necessary information to the passengers waiting at the hall or guides the waiting passengers to an appropriate machine. Although not shown, the control device 105b and the control device 105c may have a configuration capable of directly communicating with the autonomous robot 2 via the public line 3.

As shown here, a communication device 112a and an operation control unit 113a are provided inside the control device 105a of the first elevator. The operation control unit 113a drives the No. 1 elevator according to the hall call registration information input from the hall button 110a and the car call registration information input from the destination floor button 108a. The passenger number detection device 114a provided inside the operation control unit 113a detects the number of passengers in the car based on the loading ratio of the car transmitted from the load sensor 106a and the image information of the camera 107a. .. In addition, the communication device 112a transmits information from the passenger detection device 114a to the autonomous robot 2 via the public line 3.

On the other hand, the autonomous robot 2 includes a communication device 21 that communicates with the public line 3, a robot control unit 22 described later, and a self-propelled device 206 used for autonomous movement.

The robot control unit 22 uses an announcement unit 23 that gives a voice notification to the customer, a waiting person identification device 24 that detects the number of people waiting at the elevator hall using a camera and a sensor (not shown), and a camera and a sensor (not shown). The position detection device 25 for detecting the position of the autonomous robot 2 by the user, the hall call registration device 26 for generating hall call registration information different from the hall call registration information of the hall button 110, and the information received from the control device 105 are recorded. The recording device 27 is provided, and the user information and the position information of the autonomous robot 2 are transmitted to the group management control device 109 via the communication device 21.

Next, the processing procedure of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.

First, the control device 105 detects whether the hall call from the hall button 110 is registered (S31). When the hall call is not registered (No in S31), normal driving processing is continued. When the hall call is registered (Yes in S31), it is detected whether the elevator floor assigned by the group management control device 109 is registered as the destination floor (car call) from the destination floor button 108 (S32). .. If the destination floor is not registered (No in S32), normal operation processing is continued.

On the other hand, when the destination floor is registered (Yes in S32), the passengers are in the car 101, and therefore, when the car 101 is full, the waiting passengers may not be able to get through. Therefore, it is determined whether the autonomous robot 2 can provide guidance to the passengers at the landing (S33). Details of S33 will be described with reference to FIG.

As a result of the determination in S33, if the guidance by the autonomous robot 2 is impossible (No in S34), the normal operation is continued without performing the guidance by the autonomous robot 2. When the guidance by the autonomous robot 2 is possible (Yes in S34), the control device 105 calculates the number of people who can board (S35). Details of this S35 will be described with reference to FIG.

After that, the control device 105 transmits the number of people who can board the vehicle to the autonomous robot 2 (S36), and executes the guidance processing by the autonomous robot 2 according to the relationship between the number of people who can board the vehicle and the number of people waiting (S37). Details of S37 will be described with reference to FIGS. 6 and 7A to 7C.

Next, the autonomous robot guidance availability determination processing in S33 will be described in detail with reference to FIG.

First, in S41, the control device 105 compares the time required for the assigned car to arrive at the hall call floor with the time required by the autonomous robot 2 for guidance. If the time to arrive at the assigned car is less than the time required for the guidance (No in S41), the car 101 will arrive during the guidance, and the passenger 72 will be started to board. Therefore, the autonomous robot 2 Cannot be guided. Therefore, the control device 105 determines to prohibit autonomous robot guidance (S46). On the other hand, if the time to arrive at the assigned number is longer than the time required for guidance (Yes in S41), a request to confirm the position and status of the autonomous robot 2 is transmitted to the autonomous robot 2 (S42).

When the situation confirmation request is transmitted from the control device 105 to the autonomous robot 2 in S42, the autonomous robot 2 returns to the control device 105 the position and whether or not other guidance is being performed. Here, if there is no response from the autonomous robot 2 to the control device 105 (No in S43), the control device 105 waits until there is a response, and if it is a time when guidance is impossible (No in S41), the control device 105 is autonomous. Robot guidance is determined (S46).

On the other hand, when the control device 105 receives the answer from the autonomous robot 2 (Yes in S43), the control device 105 determines whether the autonomous robot 2 is at the hall call registration floor based on the transmitted information and provides guidance at the hall. It is confirmed whether or not is possible (S44). Then, when the autonomous robot 2 is on the hall call registration floor and is in a state where guidance is possible (Yes in S44), the control device 105 determines permission for autonomous robot guidance (S45).

On the other hand, when the autonomous robot 2 is not on the hall call registration floor, or when the autonomous robot 2 is on the hall call registration floor but cannot respond to new guidance while responding to other guidance (No in S44), the control device 105 causes the autonomous robot to operate. Information is prohibited (S46).

Next, with reference to FIG. 5, the boarding capacity calculation process of S35 will be described in detail.

First, the control device 105 acquires information on the load sensor 106 (S51). The load sensor 106 detects a loading rate in the car 101. For example, when an elevator having a rated load of 600 kg has a load of 300 kg in the car 101, the load sensor 106 outputs 50%.

Next, the passenger count detection device 114 of the control device 105 calculates how many passengers can be left in the rated load based on the load ratio acquired from the load sensor 106 (S52). For example, when the load sensor 106 outputs a loading rate of 70% in an elevator with a rated loading of 600 kg, and the weight per person is 60 kg, the passenger number detection device 114 determines that the rated loading is 600 kg×(100%−loading rate 70%). %) ÷ From the calculation of the weight per person of 60 kg, it is judged that three more passengers can be boarded.

However, since the weight of a person is not constant, it is not enough to judge by loading. Therefore, the camera 107 installed in the car 101 is also used to detect the number of people who can board the car (S53 to S55). First, the control device 105 acquires image information from the camera 107 installed in the car 101 (S53). Next, the passenger detection device 114 performs image analysis to detect how many passengers are in the car 101 (S54). Then, how many more passengers can be boarded with respect to the rated number of people is calculated (S55). For example, when the rated number of passengers is 11 and the number of passengers to be boarded by the image analysis is 7, it can be determined that 4 more passengers can be boarded. If a stereo camera is used as the camera 107, the passenger can be detected more accurately even if the monocular camera cannot detect the passenger due to the overlap.

When the number of boardable passengers based on the load sensor 106 (S52) and the number of boardable passengers based on the camera 107 (S55) are obtained, the boardable number of persons to be transmitted to the autonomous robot 2 is determined based on them (S56). If the number of passengers who can board is calculated as "3" in S52 and "4" in S55, as in the previous example, the smaller number of people who can ride "3" is compared. To be adopted as. As a result, for example, when the number of passengers is small but a heavy object is on board, it is possible to prevent the situation where the rated number of passengers gets on the vehicle and overloading occurs.

Next, the autonomous robot guidance process of S37 will be described in detail with reference to FIGS. 6 and 7A to 7C.

As shown in FIG. 7A, in general, in a building having a large number of elevators, when a hall call is registered from the hall button 110, the guide light 111 of the elevator number assigned by the group management control device 109 is turned on, Notify the customer of the service number (number 2 in Figure 7A). Therefore, a large number of passengers 72 are waiting near the hall door 71 of the service unit (the second unit).

Details of the guidance process (S37) of the autonomous robot 2 for the customer 72 of FIG. 7A will be described with reference to FIG. In FIG. 6, the left side processing shows the processing content of the autonomous robot 2, and the right side processing shows the processing content of the control device 105.

First, when the elevator control device 105 transmits information indicating the number of people who can board to the autonomous robot 2 (S36), the autonomous robot 2 receives it as the number of people who can board (S601). Here, it is assumed that the number of boardable passengers received by the autonomous robot 2 is A. Then, the autonomous robot 2 stores the received number of passengers (A) in the recording device 27 (S602).

Next, the autonomous robot 2 detects the number of passengers waiting for the elevator at the hall (S603). At this time, the autonomous robot 2 detects only the customer using a camera, a sensor, and artificial intelligence (not shown). At this time, the waiting number of persons waiting for the elevator to be detected by the autonomous robot 2 is B.

Next, the boardable number (A) received from the control device 105 is compared with the stand-by number (B) detected by the autonomous robot 2 (S604).

If the number of waiting persons (B) is less than or equal to the number of persons capable of boarding (A) (A≧B), all passengers waiting for boarding can get on the next service machine, and thus the guidance by the autonomous robot 2 is unnecessary (at S604). No). At this time, the autonomous robot 2 may announce that everyone can board.

On the other hand, if the number of people waiting is larger than the number of people who can board (A<B), some of the passengers waiting to board may not be able to board. Therefore, the autonomous robot 2 registers the hall call to the elevators other than the current service number (in the example of FIG. 7A, the number 1 or the number 3), and guides the passengers to the halls. ..

Specifically, in order to allow a person who cannot board the next service machine (second machine) to board another machine (first machine or third machine), the autonomous robot 2 causes the next service machine through the group management control device 109. Request additional hall call registration to the control devices 105 other than the above. Note that the additional hall call registration from the autonomous robot 2 is registered in the control device 105 in parallel with the call registration from the hall button 110, so that the group management control device 109 that receives the call registration via the control device 105 It is possible to judge that two independent hall call registrations were requested from the same floor.

Then, when the control device 105 receives the additional hall call registration from the autonomous robot 2 (Yes in S621), the group management control device 109 transmits the additional hall call registration to the control devices 105 other than the service number (S622). .. In this way, the group management control device 109 can select a serviceable machine and make it respond to the hall call from the autonomous robot 2 (S623). Next, the control device 105, through the group management control device 109, knows the number of the vehicle number additionally registered in the hall call in S624, and transmits it to the autonomous robot 2.

After that, when the autonomous robot 2 receives the machine number information responding to the additional hall call from the control device 105 (S605), the autonomous robot 2 starts guiding the passengers 72 waiting at the hall.

As shown in FIG. 7A, a case where seven people are waiting at the hall and the number of people who can board is three will be described as an example. In this case, as shown in FIG. 7B, the autonomous robot 2 moves to the dividing position of the boundary between the waiting passenger who can get on the next service vehicle and the waiting customer who guides to the additional service vehicle (S607), and adds. Take action to prevent waiting passengers who are escorted to the service unit from boarding the next service unit. During this transition, the autonomous robot 2 may announce that all the users 72 cannot board the next service number.

When the vehicle arrives at the distribution position illustrated in FIG. 7C (Yes in S608), it announces to the waiting customer that he/she cannot get over (S609). For example, make an announcement such as "You can get 3 more passengers in the next elevator. Please use this elevator (Elevator for Unit 3) in the back" to guide you to the additional service unit (S610). ..

Also, if the floor of the destination floor registration information and the floor of the hall call registration information do not match, only boarding from the hall occurs, so there may be an announcement in the car 101 that there is boarding and there will be a seating inside. ..

Further, when the guidance by the autonomous robot 2 is required at the landing on a plurality of floors, if the service number is the same, on the floor to be stopped later, when comparing the boardable passengers and the waiting passengers in S604, The number of people boarding from other floors may be added to the number of people who can board and then compared.

Also, by transmitting the destination floor registration information to the autonomous robot 2, when the autonomous robot 2 provides guidance, it guides the person on the same destination floor to the next service machine and uses the floor other than the destination floor registered. People may be guided to additional service units.

As described above, when multiple passengers are waiting at the hall, the number of people who can board the next service machine is detected, guidance is provided to sort out the customer, and calls other than the next service machine are created. By doing so, it is possible to improve the service to users.

2 autonomous robots,
21 communication device,
22 Robot controller,
23 Announcement device,
24 Waiting person identification device,
25 position detection device,
26 hall call registration device,
27 recording device,
28 self-propelled device,
3 public line,
100 elevator system 101 car,
102 Main rope,
103 Balance weight,
104 hoisting machine,
105 control device,
106 load sensor,
107 cameras,
108 Destination floor button,
109 group management control device,
110 landing button,
111 guide lights,
112 communication device,
113 operation control unit,
114 passenger detection device,
71 landing door,
72 users

Claims (5)

An elevator system that manages the operation of multiple elevators,
An autonomous robot that identifies the number of people waiting at the elevator hall,
A control device that is provided for each elevator car and that calculates the number of passengers that can be boarded in addition to the current number of passengers, from the loading ratio of the car of the elevator car or the image information of the camera that captures the inside of the car When,
A group management control device connected to a plurality of the control devices,
Equipped with
The autonomous robot that has received the number of persons allowed to board from the control device,
If the number of people waiting is less than or equal to the number of people who can board, do not guide at the elevator hall, or guide that everyone can board the elevator arriving next,
If the number of people waiting is larger than the number of people who can board the vehicle, take action to restrain the passengers who cannot board the elevator that will arrive next, or inform all passengers that they cannot board the elevator that arrives next. Elevator system characterized by. The elevator system according to claim 1,
The elevator system, wherein the autonomous robot registers a landing call request to a control device of another elevator machine through the group management control device when the number of waiting persons is larger than the number of persons who can board the vehicle. The elevator system according to claim 1,
The elevator capable of being sent from the control device to the autonomous robot is the lesser of the available passengers obtained from the loading rate or the imageable information, whichever is smaller. system. An elevator system that manages the operation of multiple elevators,
A control device that is provided for each elevator car and that calculates the number of passengers that can be boarded in addition to the current number of passengers, from the loading ratio of the car of the elevator car or the image information of the camera that captures the inside of the car When,
A group management control device connected to a plurality of the control devices,
Equipped with
An elevator system, which transmits the number of people who can board the vehicle to an autonomous robot arranged in an elevator hall. The elevator system according to claim 4,
The autonomous robot that has received the number of persons allowed to board from the control device,
If the number of people waiting at the elevator hall is less than or equal to the number of people that can be boarded, do not give guidance at the elevator hall, or guide that everyone can board the elevator arriving next time,
If the number of people waiting is larger than the number of people who can board the vehicle, take action to restrain the passengers who cannot board the elevator that will arrive next, or inform all passengers that they cannot board the elevator that arrives next. Elevator system characterized by.

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