JPS6334110B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a group management control device for elevators, and more particularly to a group management control device using a digital computer suitable for allocating hall calls to optimal elevators.

Generally, the hardware of a group management control device using a digital computer such as a microcomputer is configured as shown in FIG. That is, the microcomputer 1 reads the hall call information 4 via the input/output interface 2, and at the same time reads the hall call information 4 via the input/output interface 3.
7 (Figure 1 shows the case of three elevators A, B, and C.) Elevator information such as car call information, car service direction, car running speed and position information, car door opening/closing information, etc. Read information about the state of.

And now, when a new hall call occurs,
Based on the previously read information, the program stored in the microcomputer 1 calculates the appropriate service elevator for that hall call, and selects the most suitable elevator among A, B, and C, or the appropriate service elevator. Assign to multiple elevators.

The assigned elevator signal is outputted via the input/output interface 3 to a corresponding one of the control devices 5 to 7 for each car.

The above-mentioned determination of the service elevator, that is, the assignment of a hall call to the most suitable elevator, must be performed particularly quickly. The reason for this is, for example, to prevent group management control with a high probability of failure, such as misassignment to an elevator with insufficient passing or deceleration distance, abandonment of a serviceable elevator, and assignment to the next closest elevator.

Furthermore, recent group control elevators employ a so-called guide light or guide light service system, which immediately displays a service elevator as soon as a hall call occurs. These service methods are a good way to reduce the frustration and frustration caused by waiting customers in the hall not knowing which elevator will arrive, and for this reason, it is necessary to quickly allocate hall calls. be.

On the other hand, it is also important that the service elevator to which the hall call is once determined arrives at the hall call to which it is assigned as soon as possible. In other words, the service elevator must be determined optimally so that the waiting time for customers waiting in the hall is small and the waiting time for other hall calls or passengers in the car during service does not become longer than a predetermined value.

This optimal hall call assignment is complicated, and therefore, for example, a call assignment method has been proposed that manages each hall call from the time it occurs until it is serviced.

The first function of this call allocation method is to minimize long-wait call allocation, which allocates calls in such a way that waiting times for hall calls that occur are as short as possible, and the waiting times of allocated hall calls do not become too long. be. The second function is to give priority to elevators that are in service in the same direction as the generated hall call and have a car call on the same floor (a car call that can be serviced at the same time as the generated hall call). The goal is to improve overall transportation capacity and achieve overall energy savings through simultaneous services.

Now, in the conventional call allocation system, when a hall call occurs, the program shown in Figure 2 is started by an interrupt, and first, a judgment is made in step b (if there is a long wait even if there is a car call for the same service, ), the program for creating the predicted arrival time table, which is the basic data for the call assignment program in step c, is started in step a, and then after the determination in step b, the first function in step c is started. The allocation program based on the function of step d allocates a newly generated hall call.

However, in this method, (1) the program for creating the predicted arrival time table in step a requires a considerable amount of processing time. (2) Special hardware for detecting a newly generated hall call and activating an interrupt, and a separate microcomputer for detecting a newly generated hall call and activating the interrupt program of microcomputer 1. It is necessary to provide the hall call information generating device 4. (3) Even if a car call with the same service as an already allocated hall call occurs, it will be ignored. Therefore, there was a drawback that the effect of priority allocation by car calling described above could not be fully demonstrated. In particular, in order to improve the problem shown in (3), it is essential to reallocate the allocated hall calls due to car calls that occur later, but this reallocation increases the processing time and requires a large interrupt activation means. There was a need to eliminate the drawback of high prices.

The present invention has been made in view of the above, and its purpose is to be able to quickly allocate hall calls to the most suitable elevators, and to also reassign hall calls due to the occurrence of car calls. The object of the present invention is to provide a group management control device for elevators that can perform the following tasks.

A feature of the present invention is that the computer that allocates a hall call to one of the elevators has an allocating means that allocates the hall call to the most suitable elevator when a hall call occurs, and a computer that allocates the hall call to the elevator after the allocating means has once allocated the hall call. The present invention is provided with a reassignment means for reassigning the hall call already assigned to the floor scheduled to stop due to the car call to the elevator where the car call occurs when the car call occurs.

The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the embodiments shown in FIGS. 3, 4, 6 to 10, and FIG.

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram showing one embodiment of the hardware of the group management control device according to the present invention, and the present invention is not limited to the configuration shown in FIG. Applicable. In Fig. 3, in contrast to Fig. 1, even if the microcomputer 1 that performs group management control fails, the hall call registers 4A and 4B are directly connected to the machine control devices 5 to 7, so low-function services can be maintained. It is possible. For example, a lower hall call on each floor is given from the hall call register 4B to the Unit C controller 7 via the interface 2C to enable independent operation, and an upper hall call is given from the hall call register 4A to the Unit A controller 7. 5 and B control device 6, respectively, to interfaces 2A and 2.
B and further by communication line l ₁ 2
It is possible to operate the machines side by side. In addition, an input/output circuit that detects a new hall call and provides an interrupt signal to the microcomputer 1, such as the input/output interface 2 in FIG. 1, is not required, and the communication interface requires less hardware. 3, 51, 61, 71 are provided,
This allows the group management control device to be made inexpensive and small.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing one embodiment of the program configuration of the microcomputer 1 according to the present invention, and FIG. 5 is a time chart for explaining the overall operation in FIG. 4. FIG. 4 will be explained below, but to simplify the explanation, the explanation will mainly focus on the hall call assignment and the hall call reassignment function upon generation of a car call.

Each task PG11, 12 to PG3 shown in Figure 4
1, 32, and 33 are activated periodically at times _T1 to _T3, respectively. Further, higher-ranking tasks (lower numbered tasks) are executed with priority over lower-ranking tasks.

FIG. 5 is a time chart showing the execution status of each task in FIG. 4. At time t ₀ , all tasks
PG11 to PG33 are activated, and first, task PG11 with the highest priority starts execution. Lower tasks of PG12 and below are executed after waiting or interrupting the period indicated by the broken line. Note that even after the activation cycle times T ₁ to _{T 3} have elapsed, tasks that are currently being executed are not activated twice. For example, at time t ₅ , still task PG
If 33 is running a program, it will not be restarted.

In Figure 5, the PG11 task of a is
T ₁ fires periodically and in this task,
Control W ₁₁ creates an input information table TB ₁ based on the information received from each elevator, and control R ₁₁ sends the assigned hall calls, etc. of the output information table TB ₃ calculated and assigned in each task to each elevator (e.g. ,
storage in the transmission buffer and transmission start control) (see Figure 4; the same applies hereinafter). In addition, task PG11
FIG. 6 shows a program PG11 showing the details.

The PG31 task in Figure 5d is activated at a low frequency period of time _T3 , and this task calculates the predicted time for an arbitrary elevator to arrive at an arbitrary floor, and stores it in the call assignment function table _TB2. do
_W31 . Note that the program PG31 showing details of the task PG31 is shown in FIGS. 7 and 8.

On the other hand, the _PG12 task shown in _FIG . Based on the received information R ₁₂ , the newly generated hall call is assigned to the most suitable elevator W ₁₂ . FIG. 9 shows an example of a program PG21 showing details of this task PG12.

In addition, the PG21 task in Figure 5c is activated at a relatively fast cycle of time _T2 , and this task searches for newly generated car calls and searches mainly for the contents of the above function table _TB2 . Reallocation of hall calls to the most suitable elevator based on information R ₂₁
Do W ₂₁ . Incidentally, an example of the program PG21 showing details of this task PG21 is shown in FIG.

Task PG32 in Figure 5e uses a function similar to tasks PG12 and PG21 to select an elevator with the shortest predicted arrival time for a hall call when the sum of the waiting time and predicted arrival time in the output information table _TB3 is extremely large. Make an assignment W ₃₂ .

The PG33 task in Figure 5 f performs statistical processing to record the occurrence of hall calls and car calls, the movements of the elevators that serviced them, the average waiting time over a certain period of time, and the service records for each floor.
Performs processing such as printing and displaying recorded contents and writing to the cassette MT. These are table TB ₁ ,
This is done based on the information read from TB ₂ and TB ₃ .
In FIG. 5, the task PG33 is started every time _T3 , but it may be started at intervals as low as several tens of seconds.

Next, how to create the hall call allocation function table _TB2 will be explained in detail using FIGS. 7 and 8.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing one embodiment of the program PG31. First, in step A20, the counting control of the duration of the hall calls registered in the hall call table of the input information table _TB1 is performed. That is, it controls updating or clearing of the duration timer table in the output information table _TB3 .

Next, in step B, the predicted arrival time from the current position of each elevator to the floor i where the hall call is occurring is determined one after another, and the allocation function table TB ₂ is calculated.
Update each value in the predicted arrival time TS table. Details of this program are shown in FIG.

In FIG. 8, the predicted arrival time TS ^k _i is calculated using the following equations (1) and (2). Here, k is the elevator number, i is the hall call, and i=0 for the hall call in service.

TS ^k _i =T ^k ₀ +T ^k _ss1 +T ^k _ss2 +...+T ^k _sso +T ^k _f ...(1) TS ^k _i =TWK ^k +T ^k _f ...(2) Here, T ₀ ; elevator condition If service cannot be performed immediately due to M/G stoppage, car lights off, air conditioner stoppage, etc., the value will be set corresponding to that time. In addition, if the purpose is to save energy or extend the life of the fluorescent lamp inside the cage, the value shall be higher than the above value. On the other hand, when the elevator is running normally, the initial value for an elevator with a car call is set to a value smaller than the required time.

T _ss1 , T _ss2 , ..., T ^k _sso ; There are n calls to be serviced from the k elevator position to the i-hall call, and the estimated service time required for each traveling section (travel time for several floors + boarding/disembarking time).

TWK ^k ; Estimated arrival time when stopping due to car call and hall call in hall call determined before i hall call, T ^k ₀ , T ^k _ss1 , T ^k _ss2 ,...
..., T ^k _sso .

T ^k _f ; Acceleration from the last service hole call position to the i-hole call position,
Travel time required for deceleration when assuming steady travel and deceleration to i-Hall designated floor.

Note that T ^k _sso and T ^k _f are determined corresponding to the total distance traveled in one drive (stored in the LWK table). Although it is possible to obtain this by calculation, using the microcomputer 1 requires a long processing time, so if a table of distance versus time is provided and the calculation is performed from this table, high-speed processing can be achieved.

In step B55 of FIG. 8, data to be used in step A30 of FIG. 7 is collected. for example,
Maximum waiting time for hall calls assigned to k elevator (duration time Tc + predicted arrival time TS) TW _nax
Then, find the maximum service time for car calls. It also performs control to allocate each waiting time of each service call and store them all in the function table _TB2 . It also processes data for crowd prediction control.

In step A30 of FIG. 7, the above data is used to create an evaluation function table TK1 that can be used for selecting elevators for hall call assignment in FIGS. 9 and 10. For example, the evaluation function table TK ₁ is obtained as follows.

TK1 ^k _i =K ₁・TS ^k _i +K ₂・TW _nax ...(3) These data are used in step C35 of FIG.
It is used as TKI and TKI _C in step D50 of FIG. 10, and is created in step A30 of FIG. Note that K ₁ and K ₂ in equation (3) are weighting coefficients, which are given by K ₂ =1−K ₁ . For example, if K ₁ =0.5, then K ₂ =0.5.

Also, at this time, an infinite number is given to TK1 ^k _i of the malfunctioning elevator or dedicated elevator so that the elevator is not assigned a hall call. In addition, a large value is given to TK1 ^k _i for hall calls that are expected to be full, and service reservation display is suspended.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing an example of an optimal elevator selection program. First, in step C5, index register J is set to 1 in order to calculate from the ascending hole call. Next, in step C10, in order to process from the hall call on the first floor, the index register i is
Set to 1. Then, in step C15, it is determined whether or not a new hall call for the first floor upward indicated by index registers J and i has occurred.If there is no newly generated hall call, step C15 is executed.
55, proceed to the next floor and perform the same process.
When it is determined in step C55 that the top floor, ie, the 9th floor, has been completed, the index register J is set to 2 in order to switch to processing for descending hall calls in step C60.

If it is determined in step C15 that there is a new hall call, a record is made in step C20 so that the next time this program is started, it will be determined in step C15 that there is no new hall call. Next, in steps C25 to C50, the optimum elevator is selected and its hall call is assigned. In this case, first, in step C25, index register K is set to 1 in order to calculate from the first elevator. Note that here, the number of elevators is three. Next, it is determined whether there is a car call on the hall call floor that occurred in step C30, and if there is a car call, the predicted arrival time TS is set as an evaluation function in order to make it easier to select that elevator ( Step C40). The evaluation function is step C in Figure 9.
35 and C40, and is used as a function for optimal elevator selection in step C45. In other words, the evaluation function for an elevator that has a car call that is the same service as a newly generated hall call is the predicted arrival time Ts to the relevant floor.
By giving (i), there are many cases in which the value of the evaluation function is relatively smaller than that of other elevators, and the elevator is preferentially selected as a service elevator.

These have a relationship of TS ^k _i ≦TW _nax in equation (3). Therefore, the larger the ratio of the value of K ₂ to the value of K ₁ is, the higher the degree of priority allocation by car calls becomes. On the other hand, if there is no car call, the evaluation function value TK1 is set as the evaluation function (step C35). Next, when all elevators are finished (step C45),
The elevator with the smallest evaluation function value among these evaluation functions is selected as the optimum elevator, and a hall call is assigned to this elevator (step C50).

FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing an embodiment of a program for reallocating hall calls when a car call occurs. Steps D5, D10, D45, D
50, the following reallocation control is processed for all hall calls as in FIG. In step D15, it is determined whether or not this is the floor where a new car call has occurred, and if it is determined that a new car call has occurred on that floor and in that direction among the three elevators. , steps D20-D
35, the evaluation function (1) of the car call generated elevator and the already allocated elevator is compared, and if the difference is less than the set value Tc (for example, a value equivalent to 30 seconds), the process advances to step D40 and a new The hall call is reassigned to the elevator where the car call occurred.

According to the embodiment of the present invention described above, the predicted arrival time and assignment evaluation function necessary for hall call assignment on any floor are created in advance by a task that is activated at a relatively short cycle. Therefore, high-speed hall call allocation processing can be performed when a hall call or a car call occurs. Therefore, it is effective when processing is performed using a computer with a slow processing speed, such as a microcomputer. Moreover, when a car call with the same service as a hall call that has already been assigned occurs, the most suitable elevator can be selected again, and the calculation is performed in advance when reassigning the call to the most suitable elevator. It is only necessary to read out the evaluation function that has been set, and calls can be quickly assigned. Therefore, even if the frequency of call allocation control due to the occurrence of car calls doubles, it can be efficiently processed. In addition, by reallocating a hall call when a car call occurs, the number of elevator stops for the same traffic demand is reduced, and in group-controlled elevators, the average waiting time can be reduced.

Next, other embodiments of the present invention will be described. In FIG. 4, the call assignment program for car call generation is shown as PS21 as an independent medium-level task, but if this is done, the task level will increase and a timer _T2 will be required.
On the other hand, if it is integrated with the reassignment program based on prediction of the longevity of the task PG32, the calculation process can be made even simpler. However, in this case, there is a high probability that car calls will occur in a plurality of elevators within the period _T3 , so it is necessary to improve the flowchart shown in FIG. 10 as described below. That is, step D30 in FIG. 10 is corrected to ``Select the elevator with the minimum evaluation function of the elevator that has generated a car call, with its evaluation function being TK1c.'', and step D40 is corrected to ``The elevator selected in step D30 is selected.'' Hall calls will be reassigned.''

In the above description, the task PG12 is activated periodically by the timer _T1 , but in the case of the configuration shown in FIG. 1, it may be activated by an interrupt.

As explained above, according to the present invention, it is possible to quickly allocate a hall call to an optimal elevator, and the reallocation of a hall call due to the occurrence of a car call can also be done in the same way. .

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a hardware configuration diagram of a group management control device using a digital computer, Fig. 2 is a flowchart of a hall call assignment program of a conventional group management control device, and Fig. 3 is a group management control according to the present invention. FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an example of the program configuration of the microcomputer in FIG. 3; FIG. 5 shows the execution status of each task in FIG. 4. The time charts in FIGS. 6 to 10 are flowcharts showing an example of a program for each task in FIG. 4. 1... Microcomputer, 2A to 2C... Interface, 3, 51, 61, 71... Communication interface, 4A, 4B... Hall call register, 5, 6, 7... A to C machine control device, PG11
~PG33...Task, TB ₁ ...Input information table,
TB ₂ ...allocation evaluation function table, TB ₃ ...output information table.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. The predicted arrival time for a plurality of elevators operating between multiple floors to arrive at each floor is calculated using the car call registered in each elevator, and at least the predicted arrival time is calculated using the car call registered in each elevator. In the elevator group management control device comprising a computer that allocates a hall call generated using the elevator to one of the elevators, the computer includes an allocation means that allocates the hall call to the most suitable elevator when the hall call occurs; When a car call occurs after a hall call is once allocated by the allocating means, a reassigning means reassigns the hall call already allocated to the floor scheduled to stop due to the car call to the elevator where the car call occurs. An elevator group management control device characterized by comprising: 2. The elevator group management control device according to claim 1, wherein the computer is configured to give priority to activation of the allocation means over the reallocation means.