Textile Optical Measuring Strip for Elevator Car Position Detection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing elevator car position detection systems face reliability issues due to environmental factors like dust, moisture, and material settling, leading to soiling, rusting, and warping of metal tapes, which require costly maintenance and increase susceptibility to failure.
Innovation Solution
A textile-based tape measure with integrated optical coding, featuring openings, core elements, and reflective surfaces, which is flexible and resistant to environmental conditions, allowing for simpler installation and maintenance-free operation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a steel tape measure is used in elevator shafts, then the tape provides structural strength and durability, but it becomes susceptible to rusting, soiling, and warping due to environmental influences such as dust, moisture, and ferroconcrete abrasions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the traditional steel mechanical tape measure with an optical measuring system consisting of a flexible measuring tape with optical codes and a reading head with optical sensors. This substitution eliminates the mechanical steel tape that rusts and warps, replacing it with an optical system that is immune to environmental degradation from dust, moisture, and abrasions while maintaining measurement functionality.
Solution Approach 2:
The measuring tape uses a composite structure combining a flexible textile or plastic base material with optically active elements (reflective, absorptive, or fluorescent coatings, or embedded optical codes). This composite construction provides both the flexibility needed for shaft settling accommodation and the optical properties required for reliable position detection without susceptibility to rust or soiling.
2Stability of the object's composition
If manual readjustment or tensioning apparatuses are used to maintain tape arrangement, then the tape position can be corrected, but the cost increases significantly and susceptibility to failure increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs a dynamically adaptable optical measuring tape made of flexible textile or plastic material that can naturally accommodate shaft settling and building material changes without requiring tensioning apparatuses or manual readjustment. The flexible material allows the tape to move and reposition itself, maintaining measurement accuracy while eliminating complex mounting hardware and associated failure points.
Solution Approach 2:
The flexible optical measuring tape is self-adjusting to shaft movements and settling through its inherent material flexibility, eliminating the need for external tensioning devices or manual intervention. The system serves itself by automatically adapting to environmental changes without additional complexity or cost.
3Adaptability or versatility
If a textile base body is used instead of steel, then the tape becomes resistant to environmental conditions and easier to install, but the structural strength may be reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a composite measuring tape combining flexible textile or plastic base material with optically active elements (reflective coatings, absorptive layers, or embedded optical codes). This composite structure provides environmental resistance and flexibility while the optical elements maintain measurement precision, compensating for the reduced structural strength of non-metallic materials.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses flexible textile or plastic thin films as the measuring tape substrate, which naturally resists environmental degradation from rust and soiling. These flexible materials accommodate shaft movements and settling while maintaining measurement functionality through integrated optical coding, replacing rigid steel with adaptable non-metallic materials.
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
The textile tape measure provides reliable and cost-effective elevator car position detection, maintaining accuracy over time without the need for complex adhesion or layering, and is suitable for harsh environments.
Implementation Method 1
a sensor apparatus is fastened which comprises an illumination source and a sensor comprising a detection field for detecting the tape measure
Data Source
AI summary
The invention at hand relates to a tape measure for determining the position of an elevator car (42) in an elevator shaft (41), the tape measure being disposable vertically in the elevator shaft and preferably so as to extend across at least two floors (43a, 43b, 43c, 43d), the tape measure having a tape-shaped base body (1) and optical coding (2). The tape-shaped base body (1) is made of a textile material and in that the optical coding (2) is inserted in the base body or is applied on a surface (1a) of the base body.