JPH11286377A - Elevator control method and its device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To control an elevator in such a way that its operation is suspended based on the number of passengers by detecting the number of passenger waiting at an elevator hall by making use of the photographed image of the elevator hall. SOLUTION: A difference between a defined area close to an entrance in the image of an elevator hall photographed by a TV camera 1 and a defined area close to the entrance in an image of the elevator hall photographed in advance where no passenger exists is obtained by an image processing device 9. The number of passenger in the elevator hall is detected based on the difference in pattern between the two areas, and a suspension command is thereby outputted by an elevator control device 8 to the required number of elevators 11 based on the detected number of passengers.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an elevator control method and apparatus for counting the number of people waiting for an elevator in an elevator hall and performing elevator group management. The present invention relates to an elevator control method and apparatus for counting the number of people.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In elevator operation control, a floor and a time zone in which users are expected to increase are predicted, and programming is performed in an elevator control device so that an elevator car operates efficiently on that floor during the time zone. Had gone by. In addition, operation control is performed by a method in which an elevator administrator manually inputs necessary information.

[0003]

However, the prior art elevator control method and apparatus perform operation control programmed according to a specific floor and time zone regardless of the number of people waiting for the elevator. . For this reason, the elevator cage stops on the specified floor without pressing the call button, and the stopped elevator cages concentrate on the specific floor, resulting in inefficient operation control. There is. Also, if the call button is pressed on a floor that has not been programmed, even if there are no or few elevator cages, only one elevator cage that can arrive at this floor earliest is selected, The problem is that elevator cages with no or few passengers will not stop on that floor.

The present invention has been made in view of such circumstances, and detects the number of people waiting for an elevator in an elevator hall, and performs control to stop the required number of elevators based on the result. By
It is an object of the present invention to provide an elevator control method and apparatus capable of improving the operation efficiency.

[0005]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a camera installed on a ceiling of an elevator hall for photographing a person entering and exiting the elevator hall, a first image taken by the camera, When a person is not present in the elevator hall, the second image is compared with a second image taken in advance, and depending on whether there is a difference between the first image and the second image, the person is asked whether the elevator is in the elevator hall. An image processing device for detecting that the person has entered or exited the hall, an arithmetic device for counting the number of people who have entered or exited the elevator hall based on the detection result, and a necessary device based on the number of people counted in the arithmetic device. A control device for outputting a stop command to the elevators corresponding to the number of elevators.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, the image processing apparatus comprises: a first image memory for storing the first image;
A second image memory for storing the second image, an arithmetic circuit for determining a difference between the first image memory and the second image memory, and detecting a person who has entered and exited the elevator hall from the difference; It is characterized by consisting of.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a process for obtaining a first image of the elevator hall in which a state where no person is present in the elevator hall is obtained in advance, and the elevator hall is provided with respect to the first image. A process for defining the entrance and exit areas of the vehicle, a process for photographing the elevator hall to obtain a second image of the elevator hall, and a difference between the first image and the second image. If there is a difference between the process of obtaining each area and the area of the entrance of the first image and the area of the entrance of the second image, the number of persons in the elevator hall is increased,
Processing for counting the number of persons in the elevator hall by reducing the number of persons in the elevator hall when there is a difference between the area of the exit of the image and the area of the exit of the second image And a process of outputting a stop command to a required number of elevators based on the number of persons in the elevator hall.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a process for obtaining a first image of the elevator hall in which a state where no person is present in the elevator hall is taken in advance, and a state where the person is present in the elevator hall. A process of capturing an image to obtain a second image of the elevator hall; a process of determining a difference between the first image and the second image; a process of obtaining the first image and the second image And the threshold value calculated from the area value of one person calculated in advance and the threshold value calculated from the area value of one person, and based on the calculation result, the number of persons in the elevator hall is calculated. The method includes a process of obtaining an approximate value, and a process of outputting a stop command to a required number of elevators based on the approximate value.

[0009]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, an elevator control device according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG.
Is a block diagram showing a configuration of the same embodiment. In this figure, reference numeral 1 denotes a television camera equipped with an optical zoom lens 1a, which is installed on the ceiling of an elevator hall and has a field of view capable of capturing an entire image of the elevator hall. Reference numeral 2 denotes a camera control device, which outputs an image obtained by the television camera 1 according to a signal of an image output request. Further, control is performed to change the focal length of the zoom lens 1a in accordance with a signal for requesting a change in the field of view. Reference numeral 3 denotes a camera platform installed on the ceiling of the elevator hall. The camera platform 3 has a television camera 1 mounted thereon, and can rotate horizontally and vertically by receiving a rotation angle control signal.

Reference numeral 4 denotes a head control device for controlling the rotation angle of the head 3 in response to a rotation angle change request signal. Reference numeral 5 denotes a computer that controls the entire elevator control device, which is connected to a keyboard 6 and a mouse 6a as input devices, has a storage device 7 for storing images, and is installed near an elevator manager. Reference numeral 8 denotes an elevator control device that controls the operation of the elevator from the computer 5. Reference numeral 9 denotes an image processing device that captures an image of the television camera 1 via the camera control device 2 and performs arithmetic processing and the like on the image, and image memories 9a and 9b capable of storing two images; It comprises an operation circuit 9c for performing operations between image memories, an A / D conversion circuit 9d, and a D / A conversion circuit 9e. Reference numeral 10 denotes a monitor that displays an image output from the image processing device 9 and is installed near the elevator manager together with the computer 5. Reference numeral 11 denotes an elevator controlled by the elevator control device. It is assumed that the number of controlled elevators is two or more.

Next, the operation of the embodiment shown in FIG. 1 will be described with reference to the drawings. Here, the image to be processed in the image processing device 9 is a two-dimensional data sequence expressed by the luminance value of each pixel. However, the output image of the television camera 1 is an analog signal, and the image output from the image processing device 9 to the monitor 10 is also an analog signal image. In the following description, it is assumed that the television camera 1 outputs an analog signal of a monochrome image, and the image processing device 9 converts the monochrome image signal into an A / D conversion circuit 9.
Description will be made on the assumption that the processing is performed by setting the luminance value to 8 bits by d. The television camera 1 has a function of automatically adjusting the aperture according to the surrounding illuminance, and outputs an analog image having substantially the same luminance regardless of day or night.

First, an initial setting operation for defining an entrance / exit area of an elevator hall will be described. First, the elevator hall is photographed by the television camera 1. Next, the computer 5 outputs an instruction to the camera control device 2 to capture an image. On the other hand, the camera control device 2
Captures the image from the television camera 1 and outputs it to the image processing device 9. In the image processing device 9, first, the input image is digitized by the A / D conversion circuit 9d and stored in the image memory 9b. Subsequently, the image stored in the image memory 9b is copied to the image memory 9a. FIG.
FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a state in which an image obtained by photographing from the ceiling of the elevator hall by the camera 1 is stored in the image memory 9a. It is assumed that the image range to be captured is a range that can sufficiently cover the entire elevator hall or a person waiting for the elevator in the elevator hall.
In FIG. 2, reference numerals A1, A2, A3, and A4 are areas that define an entrance. An area is defined so as to surround the elevator hall as shown in the figure. The number of people crossing this area is counted to determine the number of people in the elevator hall. Symbol B indicates an enlarged position of the enlarged view shown in FIG. FIG. 3 will be described later.

During the operation of defining the area, the arithmetic circuit 9
c, The image in the image memory 9a is displayed on the monitor 10 via the D / A conversion circuit 9e. The elevator administrator monitors the image (contents of the image memory 9a) shown in FIG.
Using the keyboard 6 or the mouse 6a, the areas A1 and A2 having a width of "U" and having a width so as to surround the elevator hall are defined. At this time, the order of definition is defined in order according to the direction in which a person goes when entering the elevator hall. In this example, the area A1 is defined first, and then the area A2 is defined. The boundary of the defined area is written to the image memory 9a. Next, an area A3 and an area A4 are defined in this order according to the direction in which a person goes when leaving the elevator hall.

The areas A1, A defined by this operation
2, A3, A4 and the image used for the area definition are stored in the storage device 7 via the computer 5. Here, the image stored in the storage device 7 is a base image for detecting a person. Therefore, this image must be an image in which no person exists in the defined area. This image is called an area definition image. The region definition image is read from the storage device 7 by the computer 5 each time the elevator control device operates, and is stored in the image memory 9a.
Is stored in

Next, the operation of counting the number of people entering and leaving the elevator hall will be described. Here, in order to simplify the description, an operation of counting the number of people entering the elevator hall will be described. First, the computer 5 outputs an instruction to capture a new image to the camera control device 2. On the other hand, the camera control device 2
Captures a new image from the television camera 1 and outputs it to the image processing device 9. The image processing device 9 stores the new image in the image memory 9b via the A / D conversion circuit 9d. Subsequently, the arithmetic circuit 9c obtains a difference between the area A1 and the area A2 of the area definition image stored in the image memory 9a and the newly obtained image stored in the image memory 9b.

The phenomena are classified based on the obtained differences. FIG.
Shows the classification of the detected phenomena. FIG. 3 is an enlarged view of a portion denoted by reference numeral B shown in FIG. In FIG. 3, reference numerals B-1 to B-5 are enlarged views of images stored in the image memory 9b. The hatched portion indicates a portion where the image has changed due to the passage of a person. The following four phenomena can be obtained from the processing results of the image processing device 9. The phenomenon “0” is a phenomenon in which there is no difference between the region A1 and the region A2 (see FIG. 3A). Phenomenon "1"
Is a phenomenon in which there is a difference in the region A1 and there is no difference in the region A2 (see FIG. 3B). Phenomenon “2” is in area A1
3 and the area A2 (FIG. 3).
(C)). The phenomenon “3” is a phenomenon in which there is a difference in the region A2 and there is no difference in the region A1 (see FIG. 3D).
Whether or not a person has passed is determined in the order in which the above-described phenomena occur, as shown in FIG. 3, the phenomenon “0”, the phenomenon “1”, the phenomenon “2”, the phenomenon “3”, and the phenomenon “0”. Is determined in this order. Next, the operation for making this determination will be described with reference to FIG. In this figure, the variable "n" is a 2-bit counter, which increases each time it is incremented. The variable “G” indicates the classification of the above-described phenomena (any of phenomena “0” to “3”).

First, the arithmetic circuit 9c clears the variable "n" to "0" (step S1). Next, the computer 5 outputs an instruction to capture a new image to the camera control device 2. The camera control device 2 outputs an image captured by the television camera 1 to the image processing device 9. The image processing device 9 obtains a new image by storing the image in the image memory 9b via the A / D conversion circuit 9d (step S2).

Next, the arithmetic circuit 9c calculates the difference between the area definition image stored in the image memory 9a and the newly obtained image. However, a difference is obtained only for the area A1 and the area A2 defined in the area definition image. The difference is obtained by subtracting the luminance value of the image stored in the image memory 9b from the luminance value of the image stored in the image memory 9a. The result of the subtraction is stored in the image memory 9b. When the subtraction is completed for all the pixels in the regions A1 and A2, the arithmetic circuit 9c sets the region A1
For each of A1 and A2, the number of pixels for which the difference in luminance value is equal to or greater than a predetermined value is counted. Here, the “predetermined value” is set in consideration of a difference in luminance value that can be determined to be sufficiently changed. Then, if the number of pixels that exceed the predetermined value exceeds the threshold value, it is determined that the area has a difference from the area definition image. The threshold used here is
This is for removing a noise component, and if it is smaller than this threshold value, it is determined that there is no difference as a noise component. Then, based on the result of this determination, a phenomenon classification G (any of the phenomena “0” to “3” shown in FIG. 3) is obtained (step S4).

Next, the obtained phenomenon classification G is a variable "n".
It is determined whether the value is the same as (step S5). If the value is the same, the process returns to the process of obtaining a new image (step S2). By this processing, the process waits until a new image is changed as compared with the immediately preceding image. Here,
It is assumed that an image is input to the image processing device 9 at a speed higher than the change speed of the phenomena “0” to “3”. Step S5
In step S6, if the phenomenon class G and the variable “n” are not the same, it is determined whether the phenomenon class G is the same as the value obtained by adding “1” to the variable “n” (step S6). If they are not the same, the order of change of the phenomena is not the order shown in FIG. 3, so the process returns to step S1 and repeats the processing.
However, here, the value of the variable “n” is not updated.

In step S6, the phenomenon classification G and "
If n + 1 is the same, the variable "n" is updated by adding "1" to the variable "n" (step S7). This variable “n” represents a phenomenon that is currently occurring. Next, it is determined whether or not the variable "n" is "0" (step S8). If not, the process returns to step S2 and repeats the processing. If the variable "n" is "0" in step S8, it is determined that one person has passed, and an instruction to increase the number of persons in the elevator hall by one is output to the computer 5 (step S9). ). variable"
n ”becomes“ 0 ”because“ 1 ”is sequentially assigned from the initial value“ 0 ”.
Each time, it changes to “1”, “2”, “3”, and finally “1” is added to become “0”. This is only when the phenomena caused by the person moving toward the elevator hall occur in the order of phenomenon “0”, phenomenon “1”, phenomenon “2”, phenomenon “3”, phenomenon “0”. is there. By this operation, it is possible to detect that one person has entered the elevator hall.

The "A" -shaped area A shown in FIG.
1, A2, A3, and A4 may be finely divided in the length direction of each region, and the above-described processing may be performed on each of the finely divided regions. By making the area defined in this way fine, it is possible to improve the detection accuracy when a plurality of people cross the areas A1 and A2 or the areas A3 and A4 at the same time.

In the above description, the operation of processing the detection of a person entering the elevator hall using the areas A1 and A2 has been described. However, the detection of a person exiting the elevator hall is performed in the areas A3 and A4. , The same processing may be performed by replacing the area A1 with the area A3 and the area A2 with the area A4, and the description is omitted here.
However, the difference from the processing of the area A1 and the area A2 is that when the passage of a person is detected, the number of persons is reduced by one.

Next, the computer 5 detects that a person has passed by the processing shown in FIG. 4, and receives an instruction from the arithmetic circuit 9c to increase or decrease the number of persons in the elevator hall.
Counts the number of persons in the elevator hall at the present time from the increase / decrease instruction and outputs the counted number to the elevator control device 8. Next, the operation of the elevator control device 8 will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the operation of the elevator control device 8. The control method by the elevator control device described here is used when a plurality of elevators are installed.

First, it is detected whether or not the call button of each floor has been pressed (step S1). Next, if the call button has been pressed, the number of persons in the elevator hall on the floor where the call button was pressed is obtained via the computer 5 (step S2). Subsequently, the number of people who are in the elevator cages at the present time is roughly calculated from the weight of the elevator cages (step S3). Next, the required number of elevator cages to be stopped on the called floor is calculated from the number of people in the elevator hall obtained in step S2 and the number of people riding in the elevator obtained in step S3 (step S4). ). Subsequently, the required number of elevator baskets are selected in the order of proximity to the called floor (step S5). Next, a command is sent to the selected elevator car to stop at the called floor (step S6). By this stop command, the required number of elevators 11 can be stopped on the called floor. As described above, the number of persons in the elevator hall of the called floor is detected and the elevator baskets for the number of persons are stopped, so that it is possible to operate efficiently.

As shown in FIG. 6, the number of persons in the elevator hall is determined by using an image of the entire elevator hall as a whole, as shown in FIG. , And the number of persons may be estimated from the difference image. In FIG. 6, reference numeral 9b-1 is an image when no person is present in the elevator hall. Reference numeral 9b-2 is an image obtained by calculating a difference between an image when a person is present in the elevator hall and an image when no person is present. As described above, in the difference image, the number of pixels (the hatched portion shown in FIG. 6) in which the difference is equal to or larger than the predetermined value is counted, and the ratio between the count value and the threshold value is obtained to estimate the number of persons. You may. Here, the threshold to be used may be set based on the number of pixels that is equal to or greater than the above-described predetermined value, using an image when only one person is in the elevator hall. With this operation, an approximate value of the number of people can be obtained.

When the image output from the television camera 1 is a color image, R (red), G (green), B (blue)
Divide each image into G
The above-described processing may be performed using the (green) image.
Further, the above-described processing may be performed on each of the R, G, and B images, or may be performed by converting the image into a monochrome image by the internal processing of the image processing apparatus 9.

[0027]

As described above, according to the first, second and third aspects of the present invention, the television camera is installed at a position where the elevator hall can be overlooked, and the elevator waits in the elevator hall from the obtained image. Since the required number of elevators is obtained and the required number of elevators are stopped based on the result, an effect that efficient operation control of the elevator can be achieved is obtained. In addition, since images of the television camera are sequentially obtained, and even if the number of elevator users changes, the operation can be performed without changing the elevator control program.

According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, an approximate value of the number of persons existing in the elevator hall is directly obtained, and it is not necessary to count the number of people entering and exiting. Is obtained.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing an area definition method in the embodiment shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a method for detecting the passage of a person in the embodiment shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an operation of the method for detecting the passage of a person shown in FIG. 3;

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing an operation of the elevator control device shown in FIG.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing a method for detecting another person in the embodiment shown in FIG. 1;

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... TV camera, 2 ... Camera control device, 3 ...
..Head head, 4 ... Head head control device, 5 ... Computer, 6 ... Keyboard, 7 ... Storage device, 8 ...
Elevator control device, 9 ... image processing device, 10 ...
-Monitor, 11 ... elevator.

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing on the front page (72) Hideo Nakagawa 3-4-1 Shibaura, Minato-ku, Tokyo Inside NTT Facilities Corporation (72) Tsunehiro Sato 3-4-2 Shibaura, Minato-ku, Tokyo No. 1 Inside NTT Facilities Co., Ltd. (72) Shoichi Matsunaga 2-12-19 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo Inside Yamatake Ha Newel Co., Ltd. (72) Noriaki Sana 2 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo No. 12-19, Yamatake Ha Newel Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Hiroshi Ito 2-12-19, Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo Inside Yamatake Ha Newell Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Manabu Yamamoto 2--12 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo No. 19 Inside Yamatake Newel Co., Ltd.

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A camera installed on a ceiling of an elevator hall for photographing a person entering and exiting the elevator hall, a first image photographed by the camera, and a photograph taken in advance when no person is present in the elevator hall. An image processing device that compares the obtained second image and detects whether a person has entered or exited the elevator hall by determining whether there is a difference between the first image and the second image, An arithmetic unit that counts the number of people entering and leaving the elevator hall based on the detection result; and a control that outputs a stop command to the required number of elevators based on the number of people counted by the arithmetic unit. An elevator control device comprising: a device. 2. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the first image memory stores the first image, a second image memory stores the second image, the first image memory, and the first image memory. 2. The elevator control device according to claim 1, further comprising: an arithmetic circuit that obtains a difference from the second image memory and detects a person who has entered or exited the elevator hall from the difference. 3. A process of obtaining a first image of the elevator hall in which a state where no person is present in the elevator hall is obtained in advance, and an area of an entrance and an exit of the elevator hall with respect to the first image. A process of defining; a process of capturing the elevator hall to obtain a second image of the elevator hall; a process of determining a difference between the first image and the second image for each region And if there is a difference between the entrance area of the first image and the entrance area of the second image, increase the number of persons in the elevator hall, and If there is a difference between the exit area of the second image and the number of persons in the elevator hall by reducing the number of persons in the elevator hall, Elevator control method characterized by comprising, based on the number of people in the elevator hall, a process of outputting a stop command to the necessary number of times corresponding to the number of elevators, the. 4. A process for obtaining a first image of the elevator hall in which a state where no person is present in the elevator hall is obtained in advance, and an image in a state where a person is present in the elevator hall is obtained by taking the image. A process of obtaining a second image of the hole; a process of obtaining a difference between the first image and the second image; and a region where the first image and the second image have a difference. Calculating a ratio between the area value of the vehicle and a threshold value obtained from the area value of one person obtained in advance, and obtaining an approximate value of the number of persons in the elevator hall based on the calculation result. A process of outputting a stop command to a required number of elevators based on the approximate value.