Circular Cableway Safety Barriers with Detection Devices
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current circular cableways face challenges in achieving fully autonomous operation due to limitations in sensor and control technology, particularly in winter sports areas where wintry conditions pose safety risks, making it difficult to operate without personnel.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of opposing safety barriers with integrated detection devices, such as optical sensors and motion detectors, in boarding and alighting areas to detect unauthorized passage and persons, allowing for automatic control of cableway vehicles and ensuring passenger safety without continuous supervision.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Extent of automation
If fully autonomous operation is implemented, then productivity and automation level improve, but safety reliability deteriorates due to inability to intervene in emergencies
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces manual visual monitoring with automated sensor-based detection systems. Optical sensors, motion detectors, and radar modules automatically detect persons in passage areas and unauthorized barrier openings, substituting the human operator's mechanical monitoring function with electronic detection mechanisms that provide continuous surveillance without human intervention.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements continuous feedback loops where sensors detect the state of passage areas and safety barriers, transmit this information to the control unit, which then automatically responds by stopping the cableway or alerting operating personnel. This closed-loop feedback system ensures safety conditions are continuously monitored and automatically enforced, maintaining reliability while enabling autonomous operation.
2Reliability
If safety barriers and detection devices are added, then safety reliability improves, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple safety functions into integrated units. Detection devices are merged with safety barriers, control units coordinate multiple sensors and actuators, and the system integrates person detection, barrier status monitoring, and cableway control into a unified safety management architecture. This merging reduces the number of separate components while maintaining comprehensive safety coverage.
Solution Approach 2:
The control unit serves multiple functions: it processes signals from various sensors (optical, motion, radar), controls safety barrier operations, manages cableway stopping sequences, and provides user interfaces. This multi-functional design consolidates what would otherwise require separate dedicated systems, reducing overall device complexity while maintaining safety effectiveness.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This solution enables a higher degree of automation in circular cableways by reliably detecting individuals and preventing unauthorized access, ensuring safety and allowing for fully autonomous operation even in challenging weather conditions.
Implementation Method 1
at least one first sensor unit has an optical sensor, preferably a light barrier, a light curtain or a light grid
Implementation Method 2
at least one first sensor unit has a motion detector, preferably an infrared sensor
Implementation Method 3
at least one first sensor unit has a motion detector, preferably an infrared sensor, electromagnetic sensor or sound sensor
Data Source
AI summary
A circular cableway with cableway stations and cableway vehicles movable between the cableway stations by a conveyor cable, each of the cableway stations having a boarding/alighting area with an entry zone and by an exit zone, includes at least one pair of opposing safety barriers in at last one of the entry zone or the exit zone of at least one boarding/alighting area, each of the pair of opposing safety barriers arranged opposite one another transversely to the conveying direction and which can be displaced from a closed position to an open position; and at least one detection device for detecting people in a passage area located between the pair of opposing safety barriers and through which the cableway vehicles may pass or when one of the pair of opposing safety barriers is displaced from the closed position to the open position.