Elevator remote monitoring system and monitoring item test method

Abstract

To set appropriate monitoring items according to changes in the condition of individual elevators.SOLUTION: The present invention comprises a report receiving unit 1 that receives abnormality reports related to the monitoring items of an elevator individual 21 from a monitoring terminal 22, and a monitoring item management unit 2 that links the content of the abnormality report to a dispatch instruction system. Also included are an operation data collection unit 3 that collects operation data of the elevator individual 21 from the monitoring terminal 22 for each collection item, and an operating status storage unit 4 that accumulates operation data of the elevator individual 21 for each collection item. Furthermore, the present invention comprises a fault diagnosis unit 5 that extracts collection items that are the cause of a malfunction of the elevator individual 21 based on the operation data accumulated for each collection item. The monitoring item management unit 2 then adds a new monitoring item corresponding to the collection item that is the cause of the malfunction to the targets of abnormality reports for the elevator individual 21.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1

Description

[Technical Field]

[0001] The present invention relates to an elevator remote monitoring system and a monitoring item testing method. [Background technology]

[0002] An elevator remote monitoring system (hereinafter referred to as "remote monitoring center" where appropriate) remotely monitors elevators for abnormalities. A monitoring terminal that detects abnormalities in the elevator is installed locally in each elevator. The monitoring terminal stores elevator monitoring items and abnormality determination conditions for each monitoring item. When the monitoring terminal detects that an elevator monitoring item meets the abnormality determination conditions, it reports an abnormality in that monitoring item to the remote monitoring center. Upon receiving the report, the remote monitoring center links the report content to a dispatch instruction system that instructs maintenance personnel to dispatch depending on the report content. Such prior art is disclosed, for example, in Patent Document 1. [Prior art documents] [Patent documents]

[0003] [Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Publication No. 2020-29314 Summary of the Invention [Problem to be solved by the invention]

[0004] When elevator monitoring is newly initiated, a set of multiple monitoring items and abnormality determination conditions for each monitoring item is uniformly set in the monitoring terminal according to the specifications of the elevator model. Furthermore, even if an abnormality in a monitoring item does not actually require maintenance, if an observation that meets the abnormality determination conditions is found, it will be reported to the remote monitoring center. This creates the inconvenience that the more monitoring items are set when installing an elevator, the more reports that do not require maintenance are received. This increases the burden on the remote monitoring center in sorting whether or not a call is required, and leads to an increase in unnecessary calls by maintenance personnel.

[0005] On the other hand, if the number of monitoring items set when installing the elevator was reduced, there was a risk of insufficient monitoring. Furthermore, since the monitoring items were set manually, there was little opportunity to review the settings afterwards. As a result, there was a risk of excessive or insufficient monitoring continuing.

[0006] The present invention has been made in consideration of the above circumstances, and aims to provide an elevator remote monitoring system that can set appropriate monitoring items in response to changes in the state of individual elevators. [Means for solving the problem]

[0007] To achieve the above object, the present invention comprises a report receiving unit that receives abnormality reports related to the monitored items of the individual elevator from a monitoring terminal, and a monitored item management unit that links the content of the abnormality report to a dispatch instruction system. The present invention also comprises an operation data collection unit that collects operation data of the individual elevator from the monitoring terminal for each collected item, and an operating status storage unit that accumulates the operation data of the individual elevator for each collected item. The present invention further comprises a fault diagnosis unit that extracts collected items that are the cause of a fault in the individual elevator based on the operation data accumulated for each collected item. The monitored item management unit then adds a new monitored item corresponding to the collected item that is the cause of the fault to the targets of abnormality reports for the individual elevator. [Effects of the Invention]

[0008] According to the present invention, it is possible to provide an elevator remote monitoring system that is capable of setting appropriate monitoring items in response to changes in the state of an individual elevator. Problems, configurations, and effects other than those described above will become apparent from the following description of the embodiments. [Brief explanation of the drawings]

[0009] [Figure 1] 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration example of an elevator remote monitoring system according to an embodiment of the present invention. [Figure 2] 2 is a flowchart showing an example of processing by the elevator remote monitoring system shown in FIG. 1. [Figure 3] 2 is a data structure diagram of the operational status stored in the operational status storage unit shown in FIG. 1. FIG. [Figure 4] 2 is a flowchart of a fault cause determination process executed by the fault diagnosis unit of FIG. 1. [Figure 5] 2 is a data structure diagram of abnormality determination conditions stored in an abnormality determination condition storage unit shown in FIG. 1. FIG. [Figure 6] 2 is a data structure diagram of monitoring items stored in a monitoring item storage unit shown in FIG. 1. FIG. [Figure 7] 10 is a flowchart of a test notification process executed by the monitoring terminal of FIG. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0010] Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. In this specification and drawings, components having substantially the same functions or configurations are designated by the same reference numerals, and redundant description will be omitted.

[0011] 1 is a block diagram showing an example of the configuration of an elevator remote monitoring system 10 according to one embodiment of the present invention. The elevator remote monitoring system 10 includes a report receiving unit 1, a monitoring item management unit 2, an operation data collection unit 3, a fault diagnosis unit 5, an initial setting unit 8, and a communication device 9. The elevator remote monitoring system 10 also includes an operating status storage unit 4, an abnormality determination condition storage unit 6, and a monitoring item storage unit 7.

[0012] The elevator remote monitoring system 10 is communicably connected to a site 20 via a remote monitoring network 30. The site 20 includes an individual elevator 21 and a monitoring terminal 22.

[0013] Of these, the notification receiving unit 1 receives abnormality notifications related to the monitoring items of the individual elevator 21 from the monitoring terminal 22. The monitoring item management unit 2 communicates the content of the abnormality notification to a dispatch instruction system (not shown). The dispatch instruction system is a system that prompts maintenance personnel to dispatch. The monitoring items are, for example, items set as monitoring items, such as the elevator's acceleration when stopped, stopping position, acceleration when ascending, and maximum instantaneous power consumption.

[0014] The operation data collection unit 3 collects operation data relating to collection items of the individual elevator 21 from the monitoring terminal 22. The collection items are not limited to monitoring items that are the subject of abnormality reports, but also include items that may become monitoring items in the future.

[0015] The operation status storage unit 4 accumulates operation data related to the collected items for each individual elevator 21. The fault diagnosis unit 5 extracts collected items that are the cause of a fault in the individual elevator 21 based on the operation data related to the collected items accumulated for each individual elevator 21. Then, the monitored item management unit 2 adds new monitored items for the individual elevator 21 that correspond to the collected items extracted by the fault diagnosis unit 5 to the targets of abnormality reporting.

[0016] To elaborate further, in this embodiment, the operation status storage unit 4 chronologically accumulates operation data relating to the collected items of the elevator individual 21. The fault diagnosis unit 5 detects that newly collected operation data relating to the collected items of the elevator individual 21 is gradually deviating from the average value of operation data relating to the collected items previously collected for the elevator individual 21. When this is detected, the fault diagnosis unit 5 extracts the collected item as a cause of a fault in the elevator individual 21.

[0017] Furthermore, the abnormality determination condition storage unit 6 stores abnormality determination conditions for each monitoring item defined for each model of the individual elevator 21. When the monitoring item management unit 2 adds a new monitoring item of the individual elevator 21 to the targets for abnormality notification, the monitoring item management unit 2 also includes the abnormality determination conditions corresponding to the newly added monitoring item.

[0018] Furthermore, the initial setting unit 8 sets the new monitoring items of the elevator individual 21 added by the monitoring item management unit 2 to the monitoring terminal 22. This setting is performed via the remote monitoring network 30.

[0019] Meanwhile, the monitoring terminal 22 has a function of testing newly set monitoring items. The monitoring terminal 22 registers the new monitoring items and their abnormality determination conditions received from the elevator remote monitoring system 10 in a local storage area. Then, in test mode, the monitoring terminal 22 acquires the operation data values ​​of the new monitoring items from the individual elevator 21 by amplifying them several times.

[0020] The monitoring terminal 22 then determines whether the operation data value amplified several times satisfies the abnormality determination condition for the monitoring item. If an abnormality is detected as a result of this determination, the monitoring terminal 22 notifies the elevator remote monitoring system 10 of the identifier of the new monitoring item and the indication of the test mode.

[0021] Here, each element included in the elevator remote monitoring system 10 and the monitoring terminal 22 are operated by a computer executing a predetermined program. Furthermore, each of the storage units 4, 6, and 7 is provided in a storage area of ​​a storage device. This program may be executed by multiple distributed computers in cooperation with each other. Furthermore, the storage area may be distributed among multiple storage devices. The monitoring terminal 22 includes general computer elements such as a processor, a storage device, an input device, a display device, and a communication device.

[0022] Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described. Figure 2 is a flowchart showing the operation of the elevator remote monitoring system 10 and the monitoring terminal 22. The monitoring terminal 22 periodically transmits operation data of the individual elevator 21 to the elevator remote monitoring system 10, separate from an abnormality report when an abnormality is detected (S1).

[0023] The operation data transmitted by the monitoring terminal 22 includes the date and time when the operation data was acquired and the serial number of the individual elevator 21. The transmitted operation data also includes the identifier of the collection item and the operation data value acquired for the collection item. The monitoring terminal 22 transmits the operation data for each collection item at the same time every day. The operation data transmitted by the monitoring terminal 22 is received by the elevator remote monitoring system 10 via the remote monitoring network 30.

[0024] The operation data collection unit 3 of the elevator remote monitoring system 10 receives the operation data transmitted from the monitoring terminal 22 via the communication device 9 (S2). The operation data collection unit 3 passes the received operation data to the fault diagnosis unit 5. The fault diagnosis unit 5 registers the operation data acquired from the operation data collection unit 3 in the operating status storage unit 4 (S3).

[0025] 3 shows the data structure of the operation data stored in the operation status storage unit 4. The operation data stored in the operation status storage unit 4 has a structure in which the date and time when the operation data was acquired by the monitoring terminal 22, the serial number of the individual elevator from which the operation data was acquired, the identifier of the collection item corresponding to the operation data, and the value of the operation data are linked together.

[0026] In addition, for each individual elevator 21 with a specific manufacturing number, the fault diagnosis unit 5 compares the operation data values ​​of the collected items accumulated up to that point with the operation data values ​​of the same collected items acquired this time, and determines whether the collected items are a cause of a fault in the individual elevator 21 (S4).

[0027] An example of a method for extracting the cause of a failure is shown in Figure 4. For a specific elevator serial number and a specific collection item, the failure diagnosis unit 5 calculates the average value of operation data values ​​based on past operation data values ​​(S21). The average value may be a sample average based on recent operation data values, or a population average.

[0028] Next, the fault diagnosis unit 5 compares the calculated average value with several recent operational data values, including the current value, and determines whether the difference between the operational data value and the average value is on the rise (S22). If the increase exceeds a predetermined allowable range, the fault diagnosis unit 5 determines that the collected item is the cause of the fault (S23).

[0029] 2, if the result of the determination is that there is no cause of failure ("None" in S5), the elevator remote monitoring system 10 continues to collect operation data and receive abnormality reports (S6). On the other hand, if there is a cause of failure ("Yes" in S5), the fault diagnosis unit 5 notifies the monitoring item management unit 2 of the serial number of the corresponding individual elevator 21 and the identifier of the collected item that is the cause of the failure (S7).

[0030] At this time, the fault diagnosis unit 5 identifies the model of the individual elevator 21 in which the cause of the fault was detected. At this time, the fault diagnosis unit 5 refers to a correspondence table (not shown) for identifying the model corresponding to the elevator serial number. Then, the fault diagnosis unit 5 reads out from the abnormality determination condition storage unit 6 a template of abnormality determination conditions whose collection items that are the cause of the fault match the model of the individual elevator 21.

[0031] 5 shows the data structure of the abnormality determination condition storage unit 6. The abnormality determination condition storage unit 6 stores templates of abnormality determination conditions. The templates of abnormality determination conditions are stored in the abnormality determination condition storage unit 6 in association with the model of individual elevator 21, monitoring items, abnormality determination thresholds corresponding to the model and monitoring items, and determination conditions for determining an abnormality.

[0032] Here, the model of the individual elevator 21 determined to have a fault factor is "Type01." Also, the collection item (future monitoring item) determined to have a fault factor is "maximum instantaneous power consumption." As a result, the fault diagnosis unit 5 reads out the template in the fourth row from the top, i.e., monitoring item = "maximum instantaneous power consumption," threshold = "+20W," and judgment condition = "exceed."

[0033] Then, in step S7 described above, the fault diagnosis unit 5 notifies the monitor item management unit 2 of the serial number of the individual elevator 21, as well as the monitor items, thresholds, and judgment conditions read from the template.

[0034] The monitor item management unit 2 registers new monitor items for the elevator individual 21 based on the information acquired from the fault diagnosis unit 5 (S8). The monitor items for each elevator individual 21 are registered in the monitor item storage unit 7.

[0035] Figure 6 shows the data structure of the monitoring item storage unit 7. Assume that the elevator serial number of individual elevator 21 is "ELE002211," and only the registration of this serial number is shown. In the data structure of Figure 6, the elevator serial number, the elevator monitoring item, the threshold value of the monitoring item, the judgment condition for the threshold, and the action to be taken when the judgment condition is met are linked. Here, the monitoring items in the top three rows are existing registrations, and are monitoring items that are already being monitored. These monitoring items are already the subject of abnormality reports.

[0036] Based on the information acquired this time from the fault diagnosis unit 5, the monitor item management unit 2 adds the monitor item in the row marked with an asterisk at the bottom of Figure 6. That is, the fault diagnosis unit 5 associates and registers the elevator serial number "ELE002211", the monitor item "maximum instantaneous power consumption", the threshold value "+20W", and the judgment condition "exceeded". At this time, the monitor item management unit 2 registers "test" in the "operation" column.

[0037] Next, the monitor item management unit 2 instructs the initial setting unit 8 to register the newly registered monitor item in the monitoring terminal 22 via the remote monitoring network 30. To do this, the monitor item management unit 2 passes the information in the lines marked with an asterisk in FIG. 6 to the initial setting unit 8. In other words, the monitor item management unit 2 instructs the initial setting unit 8 to register a new monitor item of "maximum instantaneous power consumption," a threshold of "+20 W," and a judgment condition of "exceeded," with the individual elevator 21 with the elevator serial number "ELLE002211" as the registration destination.

[0038] Upon receiving an instruction from the monitoring item management unit 2, the initial setting unit 8 transmits the above-mentioned new monitoring items, thresholds, and judgment conditions to the monitoring terminal 22 that monitors the target elevator individual unit 21. This transmission is performed via the communication device 9 and the remote monitoring network 30. As a result, the initial setting unit 8 instructs the monitoring terminal 22 to register the new monitoring items.

[0039] Upon receiving the instruction from the initial setting unit 8, the monitoring terminal 22 adds the new monitoring items, thresholds, and judgment conditions to the local storage unit (S9). As a result, the monitoring terminal 22 makes the new monitoring items the targets of abnormality reporting. Next, the monitoring terminal 22 starts a test mode to check whether the new monitoring item has been registered normally and whether the abnormality notification is activated normally.

[0040] 7 is a flowchart showing the operation in the test mode. First, in the test mode, the monitoring terminal 22 acquires an operation data value of a new monitoring item from the individual elevator 21 by amplifying the operation data value by several times (S31). That is, when acquiring the operation data value of the maximum instantaneous amount of power, the monitoring terminal 22 acquires an excess value obtained by multiplying the operation data value by a predetermined multiple.

[0041] Next, the monitoring terminal 22 determines whether the excessive operation data value satisfies the normal threshold and judgment conditions (S32). Normally, the excessive operation data value satisfies the normal threshold and judgment conditions and is subject to an abnormality notification. As a result, the monitoring terminal 22 issues a test notification to the elevator remote monitoring system 10 (S33).

[0042] At this time, the monitoring terminal 22 adds to the test notification the serial number of the individual elevator 21, the new monitoring item, its threshold value and judgment condition, and a notice that the test mode is in effect. Then, the monitoring terminal 22 ends the test mode.

[0043] As a result of the above, a test notification is sent in test mode (S10 in Fig. 2). The notification receiving unit 1 of the elevator remote monitoring system 10 receives this notification and notifies the monitoring item management unit 2 of the notification content. Based on the notification content, the monitoring item management unit 2 determines that the notification is a test notification from the individual elevator 21 with the serial number "ELE002211".

[0044] Then, the monitoring item management unit 2 determines whether the linkage between the elevator serial number, monitoring item, threshold value, and judgment condition attached to the test report matches the information during the test operation registered in the monitoring item memory unit 7. That is, returning to the flowchart of FIG. 2, monitor item management unit 2 determines whether or not the monitor item that monitoring terminal 22 has been instructed to newly register has been correctly received as a test notification (S11).

[0045] If the information newly registered in the monitor item storage unit 7 matches the content of the test notification ("Received OK" in S11), the monitor item management unit 2 switches the operation of that monitor item from "Test" to "Notification" and continues monitoring abnormality notifications, including the new monitor item (S6).

[0046] On the other hand, if the newly registered information does not match the contents of the test notification, or if reception of the test notification times out ("Reception NG" in S11), the failure of the test notification is communicated to the dispatch instruction system. The dispatch instruction system then notifies the maintenance personnel that an abnormality has occurred in the addition of the new monitoring item (S12). The monitoring terminal 22 continues monitoring only the existing monitoring items, excluding the new monitoring item, until maintenance is performed.

[0047] According to the present embodiment described above, the elevator remote monitoring system extracts the cause of a failure based on elevator operation data and automatically adds monitoring items according to the cause of the failure. This allows the elevator remote monitoring system to set appropriate monitoring items according to changes in the status of the individual elevator.

[0048] With the previous method of registering monitoring items in advance, there were many cases where the sensitivity was increased to avoid missing an abnormality and to ensure that an immediate report was made. However, in these cases, reports were also made for minor abnormalities that would not have actually required a dispatch. Also, because the monitoring items were set uniformly according to the elevator type, it was not possible to reflect the specific conditions of each elevator. For this reason, with the previous method, the sensitivity was still increased and reports were made. As a result, time was wasted sorting unnecessary reports from reports that actually required a dispatch.

[0049] On the other hand, according to the elevator remote monitoring system of the present invention, it is possible to initially set the number of monitoring items to a minimum and then add monitoring items according to the operating status. Furthermore, this system allows monitoring items to be dynamically set according to the elevator's operating status, which prevents unnecessary calls and reduces the number of maintenance personnel dispatches.

[0050] Furthermore, this system extracts the cause of a failure by analyzing operational data accumulated in chronological order, making it possible to extract the cause of a failure based on operational data.

[0051] If data from during operation detects a decrease in the negative acceleration when the elevator stops, brake wear will progress, and a slight increase in the time it takes for the elevator to stop will be observed. As a result, the stopping position of the elevator car may shift very slightly, but within a range that does not affect operation. If an abnormality report is issued for this slight deviation under normal circumstances, it will result in excessive reports.

[0052] However, because this system detects signs of this discrepancy from daily operation data, it is possible to add new monitoring items that will report if the discrepancy becomes even larger based on these signs. This allows parts to be replaced before equipment failure occurs, and also prevents excessive reporting by not registering the monitoring item when no signs have appeared.

[0053] This system has templates of abnormality judgment conditions for monitoring items for each model, so once the model and monitoring items that will cause failures have been decided, new monitoring items can be quickly registered.In addition, this system automatically registers new monitoring items on the monitoring terminal, reducing the amount of checking work required by maintenance personnel.

[0054] Furthermore, since the system is equipped with a test mode for newly registered monitoring items, reliability of abnormality reporting can be ensured even when new monitoring items are registered remotely. As described above, according to this embodiment, an unprecedented and excellent elevator remote monitoring system can be realized.

[0055] The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and it goes without saying that various other applications and modifications are possible without departing from the gist of the present invention as set forth in the claims. For example, the above-described embodiment has described the system configuration in detail and specifically to clearly explain the present invention, and is not necessarily limited to a system including all of the described configurations. Furthermore, it is also possible to add, delete, or replace part of the configuration of this embodiment with other configurations.

[0056] For example, the fault diagnosis unit 5 may be configured to automatically perform a pattern matching analysis of elevator operation data collected by the elevator remote monitoring system 10, on-site situation data confirmed by engineers on-site, and past fault response records to extract the cause of the fault.

[0057] In addition, in this system, the control lines and information lines shown are those that are considered necessary for explanation, and not all control lines and information lines in the product are necessarily shown. In reality, it can be assumed that almost all components are interconnected. [Explanation of symbols]

[0058] 1...report receiving unit, 2...monitoring item management unit, 3...operation data collection unit, 4...operation status storage unit, 5...fault diagnosis unit, 6...abnormality determination condition storage unit, 7...monitoring item storage unit, 8...initial setting unit, 9...communication device, 10...elevator remote monitoring system, 20...site, 21...individual elevator, 22...monitoring terminal, 30...remote monitoring network

Claims

1. An elevator remote monitoring system comprising: a notification receiving unit that receives an abnormality notification regarding a monitoring item of an individual elevator from a monitoring terminal; and a monitoring item management unit that links the content of the abnormality notification to a dispatch instruction system, an operation data collection unit that collects operation data of the individual elevator from the monitoring terminal for each collection item; an operating status storage unit that accumulates the operation data of the individual elevator for each collection item; a failure diagnosis unit that extracts collected items that may be a cause of a failure of the individual elevator based on the operation data accumulated for each collected item, the monitoring item management unit adds a new monitoring item corresponding to the collection item that is the cause of the failure to a target for abnormality notification of the individual elevator. Elevator remote monitoring system.

2. The operation status storage unit accumulates operation data relating to collected items of the individual elevators in chronological order, When the failure diagnosis unit detects that newly collected operation data relating to the collected items of the individual elevator gradually deviates from an average value of operation data relating to the collected items previously collected of the individual elevator and exceeds an allowable range, the failure diagnosis unit extracts the collected items as a cause of the failure of the individual elevator.

2. The elevator remote monitoring system according to claim 1.

3. an abnormality determination condition storage unit that stores abnormality determination conditions for each of the monitoring items that are determined for each model of the individual elevator; when adding a new monitoring item of the individual elevator to the targets of the abnormality notification, the monitoring item management unit includes the abnormality determination condition of the monitoring item corresponding to the model of the individual elevator.

2. The elevator remote monitoring system according to claim 1.

4. Further, an initial setting unit is provided which sets the new monitoring items of the elevator individual added by the monitoring item management unit to a local monitoring terminal attached to the elevator individual via a remote monitoring network.

2. The elevator remote monitoring system according to claim 1.

5. A monitoring item testing method for a monitoring terminal that is attached to an individual elevator and that issues an abnormality notification to an elevator remote monitoring system when an abnormality is detected in a monitoring item of the individual elevator, a step of locally registering new monitoring items and abnormality determination conditions for the monitoring items received from the elevator remote monitoring system; a step of determining whether the amplified operation data value of the new monitoring item acquired from the individual elevator in a test mode satisfies an abnormality determination condition of the monitoring item; and if the abnormality determination condition is satisfied as a result of the determination, notifying the elevator remote monitoring system of an abnormality including an identifier of the new monitoring item and a test mode. Monitoring item test method.

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