The invention relates to a method and apparatus. In the method a determining a first position of a user of a mobile node is determined at a first time instant. A second position of the user of the mobile node is determined at a second time instant. A time difference is determined between the first time instant and the second time instant. A walking speed of the user is determined using the time difference, the first position and the second position. A third position of the user of the mobile node is determined. A walking time required for the user to reach at least one elevator is determined from the third position based on the walking speed of the user. An elevator call and the walking time are transmitted to an elevator call control node.

Methods and systems for making elevator service requests in a building. The method including obtaining a floor plan for the building and overlaying a measurement system of suitable scale onto the floor plan. The method also includes identifying relevant features and their location in the floor plan based on the measurement system, determining a pathway from a user device to a target area in the vicinity of an elevator door based on the relevant features, and computing a travel duration from the user device to the target area. Finally, the method includes assigning an elevator car to a user based on a user service request at the user device and the travel duration.

The present disclosure provides a system and a method for controlling motion of a bank of elevators. The method includes accepting current requests for service by the bank of elevators, accepting a partial trajectory of a motion of a person moving in an environment serviced by the bank of elevators, and obtaining a probability of a future elevator request. The method further includes processing the partial trajectory with a neural network trained to estimate a weighted combination of probability density functions that indicates an arrival time distribution of the person, and generating a set of possible future requests jointly representing the probability of the future elevator request and the arrival time distribution. The method further includes optimizing a schedule of the bank of elevators to serve the current requests and the set of possible future requests, and controlling the bank of elevators according to the schedule.

A method and system are provided for generating automatic elevator calls for an elevator system in a building, in which is a plurality of apartments and in the apartments an apartment-specific sensor, the sensor signal produced by which detects that a person is leaving or has left an apartment. On the basis of the sensor signal, an elevator is called to the floor on which the apartment is situated for collecting the person who has left the apartment.

The invention relates to a method and apparatus. In the method a target area is divided to a plurality of cells. A plurality of movement paths of mobile nodes are determined, each movement path comprising an origin cell and a target cell, the origin cell and the target cell being determined using a magnetic map of the target area. The durations of the plurality of movement paths are determined for an elevator user. A route topology data structure is formed using the plurality of movement paths and the durations of the plurality of movement paths, the data structure comprising for a plurality of cells an estimated time to reach an elevator location. An elevator call in a request cell is determined by a requesting mobile node. The time to reach the elevator location is determined using the data structure and information on the request cell, and an elevator car is selected to serve the elevator call based on the time to reach the elevator location, current positions of at least two elevator cars, and current directions of at the least two elevator cars.

Disclosed herein are an elevator control method and an elevator control system. The elevator control method includes the steps of: receiving a request signal from a robot; registering an elevator control signal to control operation of an elevator based on the request signal; determining whether a current situation corresponds to an exceptional situation in which operation of the elevator dictated by the elevator control signal conflicts with an actual state of the robot based on an image acquired by a camera disposed in the elevator, a location of the robot, and a situation at a platform; maintaining the currently registered elevator control signal based on determination that the current situation corresponds to the exceptional situation; and clearing the currently registered elevator control signal based on determination that the current situation corresponds to the exceptional situation.

A wayfinder system includes at least one beacon operable to transmit information that relates a position of the beacon with respect to a predefined destination. A method of directing a user to a passenger conveyance includes receiving information that relates a position of a beacon with respect to a predefined destination and displaying directions to the predefined destination from the information via a mobile device application. A method of configuring a wayfinder system for a passenger conveyance includes transiting a route from an initial point to a predefined destination; receiving information from at least one beacon along the route from the initial point to the predefined destination; and communicating the received information to the beacon such that the beacon is operable to transmit a position of the beacon with respect to the predefined destination.

A method for processing a user request via a control system of an elevator system comprising: receiving the user request in the control system; generating an identifier via the control system that enables a positive identification of the user request; sending the identifier from the control system to a mobile device associated with the user request, the mobile device configured to receive the identifier and to send an acknowledgment confirming receipt of the identifier in the mobile device to the control system when the mobile device receives a detection signal emitted by a transmitter attached to an elevator car of the elevator system; and when the acknowledgment is received in the control system assigning the user request to a first category or to a second category.

An aspect includes a system with a communication interface configured to receive a mobile device location indicator at a first location and a second location. The system also includes a memory system and a processing system configured to perform operations. The operations include detecting a mobile device at the first location and observing a current state of one or more conditions present during detection of the mobile device. A travel prediction of the mobile device between the first location and the second location is determined based on a travel history of the mobile device and the current state of the one or more conditions. A command is output to a dispatching system based on detection of the mobile device at the first location and the travel prediction of the mobile device to align with a predicted arrival of the mobile device at the second location.

An information processing apparatus includes a controller configured to predict a state of congestion of an elevator installed in a building and generate, based on the predicted state of congestion, a proposal message to propose a departure time for the building to a user planning to travel to the building.