RU2369906C1 - Method of running transport vehicles inside pipelines - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: transport.

SUBSTANCE: invention relates to trackless transport and can be used to run passenger and freight vehicles inside pipelines. Proposed method comprises control over vehicles by onboard computers and transmission, via radio communication lines, of signals from server computer. It differs from known methods in that route marks with individual codes are applied onto inner walls of pipeline to be read off into vehicle onboard computers. Each transport vehicle is assigned initial and final marks with codes corresponding to embossing point and destination point. Server computer tracks out network topology to select the route with minimum number of marks. Onboard computers control relative location of transport vehicles and passing cross points along the vehicle routes.

EFFECT: trackless passenger and freight vehicles passage inside pipelines.

2 cl, 7 dwg

Description

Application area

The invention relates to trackless transport, in particular to methods for moving inside pipelines.

The method can be used to move passenger and freight vehicles inside pipelines.

State of the art

A device for moving inside a pipeline is known, comprising a cylindrical body mounted on running wheels in contact with the internal walls of the pipeline (see German Patent No. 1759476, class 47 F1, 21/00, 1969). The disadvantages of this device are low traction, limited by the adhesion forces of smooth wheels with smooth walls of the pipeline, the impossibility of remote movement, the inability to move at significant speeds and through branched pipelines.

A device for moving inside a pipeline is also known, comprising two telescopic cylinders with elastic elements fixed to their outer surfaces in contact with the inner surface of the pipeline, the telescopic cylinders being interconnected by a reciprocating drive, and each elastic element is made in the form of wire brushes tilted in the opposite direction of movement of the entire device (see ed. St. USSR No. 510672, class G01N 29/04).

The disadvantages of this device are the design complexity, the impossibility of remote movement, insufficient traction, the inability to move at significant speeds and through branched pipelines.

A device for moving inside a pipeline is also known, which includes two telescopic cylinders with elastic elements fixed to their outer surfaces in contact with the inner surface of the pipeline and made in the form of a flexible elastic cylindrical shell with rigid ends connected to a fluid pressure distributor (see.c. USSR No. 679466).

The disadvantages of this device are the significant complexity of the design of the movable part itself, as well as the impossibility of remote movement without direct contact with the movable part of the device, significant energy costs for movement, the inability to move at significant speeds and through branched pipelines.

A device is known from the prior art (patent RU 2161752, class F17D 5/00) for moving inside a pipeline, comprising a cylindrical body with an elastic element fixed in it in the form of a flexible elastic cylindrical shell with rigid ends in contact with the inner surface of the pipeline, characterized in that an electromagnet placed outside the pipeline with an elastically mounted core in the form of a permanent magnet and an inertial mass of a cylindrical shape made of non-magnetic material are introduced into the device, while the housing is made of ferromagnetic material and continuous, and a flexible elastic shell is hermetically filled with air and stretched in its initial state to a barrel-shaped form, with one of the ends of the shell attached to the end of the housing, and the other to the end of the inertial mass.

The disadvantages of this device are the significant complexity of the design of the moving part itself, as well as the significant energy consumption for moving, the inability to transport through a pipeline laid underground, because it is necessary to use an electromagnet outside the pipeline, and the inability to move at significant speeds and through branched pipelines. The prior art device for moving along the pipeline, including a reciprocating drive in the form of a rotation motor kinematically connected with adjusting wedges and a brush holder, as well as a mechanism for moving along the inner surface of the pipeline in the form of a slide connected to elastic elements curved in the form of a half-wave sinusoid (see ed. St. USSR 1054767, class G01N 29/04, 1982).

The disadvantages of this device are low reliability, design complexity and limited operational capabilities (the impossibility of remote movement), due to the need to move the motor with a reciprocating drive along the pipeline together with the control equipment, the inability to move at significant speeds and through branched pipelines.

A device is known (patent RU 2210765) for moving along a pipeline, including a reciprocating drive and a moving mechanism on the inner surface of the pipeline, characterized in that the moving mechanism is made in the form of a cylindrical shell of cord fabric loosely placed inside the pipeline with end parts turned inside out, the ends of the inverted end parts are hermetically connected to each other along the contour with the formation of a closed annular elastic chamber, partially filled with fer by magnetic fluid, and the reciprocating drive is made in the form of a permanent magnet placed outside the pipeline with the possibility of moving relative to the latter in the longitudinal and transverse directions, as well as a ferromagnetic disk mounted concentrically in the axial hole of the annular chamber with the possibility of elastic longitudinal movement between the limiters within camera length.

The disadvantages of this device are the significant complexity of the design of the movable part itself, as well as the significant energy consumption for movement, limited operational capabilities (inability to move remotely), and the inability to move at significant speeds and through branched pipelines.

A self-propelled device (patent RU 2234992) is known for moving inside a pipeline containing a torque source, a housing, on the outer surface of which is inclined to its longitudinal axis at a certain angle that is the same for all, spring-loaded friction rollers are installed to interact with the inner surface of the pipeline along a helix characterized in that the spring-loaded friction rollers are installed with the possibility of free rotation around their axes, the housing is coaxially connected to the shaft of the torque source a, and the source of torque is rigidly connected to the node extinguishing reactive torque, the movement of the device and the rotation of the friction rollers is carried out by rotation of the housing, the friction rollers are equipped with a drive to change the angle of their inclination, by which by changing the angle can be adjusted as the speed of movement of the device so is his direction. The disadvantages of this device are low traction, limited by the adhesion forces of smooth wheels with smooth walls of the pipeline, the impossibility of remote movement, the significant complexity of both the design of the movable part, and the significant energy consumption for movement, the inability to move at significant speeds and through branched pipelines. The closest analogue is the Transport system inside the pipeline (patent for utility model of the Russian Federation No. 67225), containing the pipeline, characterized in that the T-rails are installed inside the pipeline, and the vehicle, made with the ability to move inside the pipeline, has movable fasteners for T -shaped rails that come in contact with them via wheels.

The disadvantages of this system are the need to insert rails inside the pipeline, which makes the system very expensive.

The technical result consists in realizing the possibility of trackless movement of passenger and freight vehicles inside pipelines and through branched pipelines with a reduced risk of collision of vehicles.

Device essence

The claimed technical result is achieved in that the method of moving vehicles inside the pipeline, characterized by the use of vehicles moving in it and controlled by the on-board computer, the use of a server computer that controls the movement of vehicles and transmits signals to the on-board computers of the vehicles via radio, is characterized in that labels are set on the walls of the pipeline, providing them with an individual code that is read on-board computer transp ortho funds.

The essence of the method is illustrated by diagrams: in FIG. 1 shows a diagram of the algorithm of the operation of address routing for a given system of moving vehicles (TS); in FIG. 2 shows an example of an algorithm for implementing the choice of a route by the TS server; in FIG. 3 presents a flow chart of mergers of vehicle flows (TS); in FIG. 4 is a diagram of the passage of discrepancies in the flows of vehicles (TS); in FIG. 5 is a diagram of a stop (for places of boarding and disembarking passengers) of vehicles (TS); in FIG. 6 shows the principle of maintaining the position of the vehicle when moving inside the pipe; in FIG. 7 shows the principle of separation / merging of flows within the pipeline.

The operation algorithm of address routing for this vehicle moving system is based on the implementation of the following steps and actions (see the diagram in Fig. 1).

First, the user makes a request to the vehicle (station terminal). It checks if the vehicle is available. If there is, then the arrival time is displayed. The nearest free vehicle receives a route to the user's location at the terminal in accordance with the routing rules. If the vehicle is not available (everyone is busy), the user’s request is put in the queue for waiting for the vehicle (in accordance with some technical restrictions).

After the vehicle arrives at the station and the user enters the destination code, the on-board computer sends this code to the district's central computer. If the central computer is unavailable, then the backup computer at a higher level duplicates it.

The district computer checks the limits for transit passes through the TS region from other regions (the limits are lowered by a higher-level computer that analyzes the load of the district system - and so on in a hierarchy).

In accordance with these limits, the district computer queues the application (all applications are processed strictly sequentially) and determines the route for it. An example of an algorithm for implementing the route selection by the TS server is shown in the diagram of FIG. 2.

The route is determined taking into account the position of all previous routed vehicles (this is important). Thus, the district computer knows the prospective loading of each section of the “pipe” and during routing it will not allow overload on any of the sections!

Those. if at some “merger” the flux density is 60 or more cars per minute (that is, more than or equal to 1 mark / second per machine), then all routed vehicles will be sent to other areas bypassing the loaded one.

The route (a sequence of points that must be passed, with the selection of those on which you must deviate "by level") is downloaded to the on-board computer and the command "start" is given.

Since 1 mark passes in 1 second, the position of the vehicle in the system will be known at any time.

If an emergency or emergency situation has occurred in a certain section, then all new routings in the area will cease, and all vehicles that should have passed through the emergency section will be rerouted to other routes.

After this, the routing of new vehicles is restored, but the emergency section is no longer used to determine the route until the accident is cleared by technical personnel.

Trapped in the vehicle section are mechanically evacuated. If necessary, people are evacuated from the pipe on their own - if there is a danger to life. Evacuation of people from the pipe can be carried out, for example, through special hatches installed at a certain distance interval.

The method is based on the control of the server computer by vehicles (TS) (1) that obey the motion model (hereinafter we will call it the “hole model”), based on fixing the distance between the marks (2) having their own code, which is calculated by the on-board computer of the vehicle ( 1) based on the known network topology. The method operates in the total structure of pipelines (3) with highways, which determines the formulation of situational tasks: control of relative position, passage of merges of flows, passage of branching flows and stop. Each of the tasks is divided, in turn, into the following components: the first is the submission of vehicles (1) to the rule of passing the first mark (2) per second, getting vehicles (1) between the marks (2) and rebuilding this vehicle (1) on the previous label (2); the second is the parallel arrangement (4) of highways (3), the connection (5) of two highways (3) into one, the formation (6) of highways (3) into a normal pipe, the integration and reconstruction (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12) vehicles that got out of the “hole model” (1); the third - movement (13) of vehicles (1) in one highway (3), implementation (14) of divergence to the pipe edge with the highway (3) of vehicles (1), which is monitored by the position of the level (15), profiling (16) of the pipe with line (3), saving (17) of the parallel arrangement of pipes with lines (3) and the distance between the marks (2); the fourth - by installing indicators at points (18, 19 and 20) to control the regulation and control of the density of vehicle flows. The on-board computer of the vehicle always strives to maintain the position of the vehicle inside the pipeline according to the level of the plumb line (direction of gravity). This principle is shown in FIG. 6. From FIG. 6 (a) that the plumb line (21) always coincides with the line (22) of the perpendicular to the plane of the bottom of the vehicle while maintaining the movement of the vehicle strictly along the pipe rut. If you deviate from the track for various reasons (for example, when skidding) (see Fig. 6 (b)), the on-board computer detects the deviation angle of lines (21) and (22) and gives the command to turn the steering wheels (23) to the required angle, so that the lines (21) and (22) coincide. Then the steering wheel stops turning until these lines again diverge. This can be realized on the basis of the fact that the vehicles are equipped with an automatic wheel lock system during skidding and a steering wheel control system at the exit of the skid.

The method works as follows.

Each label (2) has its own code calculated by the on-board computer. The implementation of this code reading from a tag can be carried out in various ways, for example, by analogy with scanning a bar code, when the tag is a bar code, and a scanner is located on the vehicle (1). It can also be implemented, for example, by reading information from a chip from a tag, by analogy with a system for reading data from contactless cards in the Moscow Metro installed on checkpoints. This principle of reading information from a tag and its device are not the subject of protection of this device and therefore are not considered in the context of solving the main problem.

You can implement a list of codes on which stopping and opening doors is permissible. The vehicle (1) is assigned the start mark (2) in the form of the code of the mark (2) in which the landing occurred and the endpoint mark code. The computer scans the network topology and selects the route in which the number of passable marks (2) is minimal, and the travel time of each mark is fixed strictly in the form of 1 second. The route, therefore, is a set of parameters - after which mark in which direction to turn the wheels of the vehicle (1), tracking the deviation by level.

Each vehicle has the following tasks: control of the relative position, passage of merges of flows, passage of branches of flows and stopping.

The control of the relative position inside the highway is determined by two parameters: 1. Each vehicle (1) obeys the rule of passing the first mark (2) per second, and exactly at a certain moment in a split second. This means that the tag reading devices of adjacent vehicles (1) will always be located at the distance of the first tag (2). That is, the marks (2) in the pipe with highways (3) are placed at a distance greater than the length of the vehicle (1), and thereby theoretically completely excludes the possibility of contact of vehicles (1) inside the highway (3).

2. In the case of merging flows, the vehicle (1) may fall between the marks, and then the wedged-in vehicle should be located on the previous mark (2). If the previous mark was already occupied by the vehicle in front, then the vehicle following it changes its speed in order to change 1 mark backwards - for the next 20 marks. To do this, in the places where the flows merge, the marks are placed at a distance of at least 2 lengths of one vehicle. In this case, all vehicles are supposed to perform the same length.

When two streams merge, the marks (2) of each stream are located at a distance of at least 2X (where X is the length of the vehicle (1)) and at a distance of 2X between the marks of different streams. Thus, merging two streams into one, vehicles from different streams are forcibly separated so as not to collide when converging in one line. At the joined stream, the setting of 1 mark / sec is lost. This is compensated by the mechanism of the vehicle lagging by one mark. The flow merging flow is as follows (see Fig. 3).

Parallel arrangement (4) of highways (3) - two highways (3) are parallel, the distance between the marks is the same, and the speeds of the vehicles are the same, but the marks on adjacent highways (3) are staggered, and the distance between the marks is at least two buildings Vehicle. The connection (5) of two highways (3) in one or two highways are connected into one, which has a flat lower half in a short section.

Formation (6) of line (3) into a normal pipe - the profile of the formed line gradually becomes a circle, that is, line (3) gradually becomes a normal pipe, in this case vehicles (1) are displaced from two neighboring lines to the position of minimum potential energy, and accordingly, their motion paths coincide. Marks (2) of the second highway (3) end, and braking starts on the vehicle from the second highway - since when the vehicle was converted into marks from the first highway, switching between the marks was 0.5 seconds, and not 1 second, which should cause braking to the intersection with the next mark.

Embedding and rebuilding (7, 8) of vehicles that “get out of the hole model” —a vehicle from the second highway (3) as a result, between the holes in the “hole” model of movement, that is, in the state of N thousandths of a second it does not cross the mark (2) , and turning on the braking, this vehicle (1) begins to displace the vehicle (1) from the first highway (3) located in the hole model. The second vehicle, having determined that the distance to the front of the first vehicle ahead is less than the time that can be traveled in 1 second, starts to slow down by 5%, so that after 20 marks it will be shifted back 1 position - in the hole model. If it is assumed that the two nearest “holes” were filled in the second highway, respectively, the third vehicle going along the second highway, having been rebuilt, rests on the second vehicle, which starts to lag behind by 5% to change into the next “hole”. The third vehicle, during rebuilding that received an “algorithm failure” and initially had a speed of -5% for embedding into the hole model, receives a second signal about the need to reduce speed and again reduces by 5%. Total remains 90.1% of the initial speed. Thus, the movement occurs non-stop. Embedding and rebuilding (9, 10, 11, 12) show how to build in vehicles that are “out of the hole model” back. The only limitation that is imposed on this kind of reconstruction is that the density of the output stream cannot be more than 100% of the possible, and the total theoretical density of the two incoming flows is 200%. Accordingly, the server computer will change the route of the vehicle, which was requested through sections with a predicted density of more than 100% so as not to allow the latter.

The passage of flow discrepancies is carried out exclusively in horizontal sections by tracking the location of the vehicle inside the pipe with highways (3) at level (15). In places of divergence, the highway takes the form of a double pipe, which then diverges into two - the right and left. Accordingly, the vehicle (1) will fall into that pipe with the highway (3), towards which a deviation was made in the horizontal section, and this deviation is fixed at the level (15).

The divergence of the flows of vehicles is as follows (see Fig. 4). The movement (13) of vehicles in one highway (3).

Implementation (14) of the discrepancy to the pipe edge with the highway of vehicles - after the N-th mark (2) embedded in the algorithm of each vehicle (1), the vehicles begin to “cling” to that edge of the pipe with the highway (3), into which side they need to turn. From a technical point of view, this can be implemented in various ways, for example, by tracking by the position of the level (15) or by reading information from the label, where there will be information that the branching of the pipe will begin soon; the result of which are the commands of the vehicle's on-board computer to “press” to that side of the pipe where it is necessary to turn according to the route. 7 shows the principle of separation / merging of flows within the pipeline (view from the end of the pipe). It can be seen that the vehicle (25) is pressed to the right side of the pipe (3), and the vehicle (26) is pressed to the left side of the pipe (3). Thus, when the traffic flows branch or converge, they will always move along their predetermined pipe rut until the movement of the vehicle begins only inside one pipe. Then the process of “pressing” the vehicle to one side of the pipe will stop. A pitched partition (24) is installed between the ruts of the two pipes, which gradually grows to the top of the pipe when the flows are separated and decreases to zero height when the flows converge. Its function is to prevent the vehicle from accidentally getting off track and side collisions between vehicles running in parallel.

Profiling (16) pipes with a trunk (3) - after the divergence, profiling of pipes with pipes starts, as a result of which the vehicle is only in the pipe in which it needed to be in order to continue the route.

Preservation (17) of the parallel arrangement of pipes with highways and the distance between the marks (2).

Stops for the place of boarding and disembarking passengers are located on branches from the main route. The speed of vehicles on the branches is low - about 10-40 km / h, but stops can be arranged in a row. Stops have some design features:

All vehicles can turn to a stop (see Fig. 5), except when the indicator at the point (18) shows the stop of the vehicle at the point (19) in front of it. This means that the entire branch is full of vehicles, and the server computer gives a signal that there is no turn to this branch.

When turning to this branch, the vehicle reaches either a stop and disembarks passengers, or reaches a forward-running vehicle and brakes by 5%, then by 10%, then by 15%, and so on to a complete stop if the vehicle ahead has also stopped. Every second, the on-board computer of vehicle 1 will record a jump of - 1 second in the hole model.

At point (20), a second indicator is installed, at the readings of which a flux density of more than 90% of the maximum start of the vehicle is not stopped.

In general, the method allows for the safe movement of passenger and freight vehicles inside pipelines and through branched pipelines with a reduced risk of collision.

Claims (2)

1. A method of controlling the movement of vehicles within a pipeline, characterized by driving vehicles on-board computers and transmitting to the on-board computers via radio communications signals from a server computer, characterized in that route marks are set on the walls of the pipeline with individual codes that are read into the on-board computers of the vehicles, at the same time, each vehicle is assigned a start and end mark with codes corresponding to the place of landing and final at a point, using a server computer, they look at the network topology and select a route with a minimum number of passable labels, using the on-board computers control the relative position of vehicles, and also perform mergers and forks of traffic flows and stops. 2. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the movement of vehicles obey a movement model based on fixing the distance between the labels having their own code.

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