Elevator Group Control Rear Car Exclusion
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional elevator group-control devices for double-deck or one-shaft multi-car systems cannot change assignments once a destination floor call is registered, leading to potential misassignment of passengers to incorrect cars, especially in systems without destination buttons in elevator cars, resulting in incorrect car selection and possible trapping.
Innovation Solution
An elevator group-control device with a rear-car assignment-candidate exclusion mechanism that prevents the rear car in the same hoistway from being assigned when a front car is already assigned a car call and landing call for the same floor and direction, ensuring passengers board the correct car by excluding the rear car from assignment candidates and eliminating the need for displays to differentiate between upper and lower cars.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a destination floor call is registered by inputting a destination floor at a hall, then the system can manage elevator assignments, but the assignment cannot be changed afterward causing passengers to board the wrong car
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies dynamics by making the car call registration dynamic rather than static. When a destination floor call is registered at a hall, the system dynamically enables car call registration only for the assigned front car, not for the rear car. This dynamic control prevents misassignment while maintaining operational flexibility, resolving the contradiction between assignment accuracy and system flexibility.
2Reliability
If no means is provided for informing a user of whether the arriving car is the front car or the rear car, then the system is simpler, but users may erroneously board the wrong car
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the car identification function from complex display systems and implements it through the existing car call button interface. By enabling car call registration only for the front car (and disabling it for the rear car), the system uses the absence or presence of car call acceptance as the identification mechanism, eliminating the need for additional display devices while ensuring users board the correct car.
3Productivity
If a rear car is assigned a landing call for the same floor and direction as a front car, then car utilization is optimized, but passengers may be trapped if they board the wrong car
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces car call registration status as an intermediary mechanism between the landing call assignment and passenger boarding. The system allows the rear car to be assigned landing calls for optimal utilization, but uses the car call registration function as a mediator to prevent passenger misdirection. Users can only register car calls for the front car, which acts as an intermediary safeguard ensuring they board the correct vehicle even when both cars are actively assigned.
Data Source
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AI summary
If a front car arrives in response to a car call and a landing call is assigned to a rear car in the same hoistway for the same floor and the same direction as the car call, a user who needs to board the rear car to which the landing call is originally assigned may erroneously board a car that has arrived at a car call destination in response to the car call. In an elevator system in which a plurality of cars are operated in a coupled or independent manner in a single hoistway, an elevator group-control device includes a front-car car-call detection means for detecting a car call of a front car with respect to its traveling direction out of the plurality of cars or for detecting a floor and a car that are assigned a destination floor of a registered destination floor call; and a rear-car assignment-candidate exclusion means for excluding, from assignment candidate cars, a rear car in the same hoistway as the front car assigned the car call when a landing call for the same direction as the traveling direction is registered at a floor registered by the car call detected by the front-car car-call detection means.