Method and a system for automatic generation of elevator calls

Abstract

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.

Claims

1. A method for generating automatic elevator calls for an elevator system in a building, in which is at least one apartment, in connection with which is a sensor, the sensor signal to be received from which indicates the departure of at least one person from an apartment, and in which method an automatic elevator call is generated to a floor on which an apartment is situated when a person is leaving or has left the apartment on the basis of the sensor signal, said method comprising the steps of: connecting the position data, comprising the position coordinates of the sensor on the floor and/or the distance of the sensor from the elevators, of the sensor to the elevator call; and taking the position data into account in the control of the elevator, wherein the sensor is a storage dock for a keycard of an apartment where the elevator call is generated when the at least one person removes the keycard from the storage dock.

2. The method according to claim 1, the method further comprising the step of transmitting information about the elevator serving an elevator call and/or about the arrival time at the call-giving floor to a terminal device in the possession of a person.

3. A system for giving automatic elevator calls to an elevator system in a building, comprising: at least one elevator and a control system of the elevator system and at least one apartment, which is provided with at least one sensor, the sensor signal produced by which indicates a person is leaving and/or has left an apartment; a back-end system, which comprises an interface, via which the sensor signal is transmitted to the back-end system; and the back-end system is arranged to generate an elevator call to a floor on which an apartment is situated on the basis of the sensor signal and to transmit the call to the control system of the elevator system via an interface, which elevator call comprises the position data of the apartment or of the sensor, which position data comprises the position coordinates of the sensor on the floor and/or the distance of the sensor from the elevators, wherein the sensor is a storage dock for a keycard of an apartment where the elevator call is generated when the at least one person removes the keycard from the storage dock.

4. The system according to claim 3, wherein the back-end system is arranged to transmit information about the elevator serving an elevator call and/or about its arrival time to a terminal device of a person.

5. The system according to claim 3, wherein the back-end system is a building automation system.

Description

LIST OF FIGURES

(1) FIG. 1 presents one embodiment of the system according to the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

(2) FIG. 1 presents a system according to the invention, with which the departure from an apartment of a person 150 in the apartment 100 is monitored and on the basis of the monitoring automatic elevator calls are generated for the elevator system 120. The apartment 100 is e.g. a hotel room, which a person has reserved for his/her use. The elevator system 120 comprises a control system 123 of the elevator system and at least one elevator 122, which serves the floor on which the hotel room is located. The system further comprises a back-end system 130, to which is connected, via an interface 132, one or more sensors 140a-140e that are in a hotel room. On the basis of the sensor signal to be received from a sensor 140a-140e, the back-end system 130 can deduce that a person 150 is leaving and/or has left a hotel room 100. The back-end system in this case automatically generates an elevator call, which it transmits via an interface 121 to the control system 123 of the elevator system. The elevator system sends an elevator according to the aforementioned elevator call to collect the person from the floor on which the hotel room 130 is. The elevator call to be automatically generated can be a conventional up/down call or a destination call. If the elevator call is an up/down call, the elevator arrives at the floor according to the call, opens the doors of the elevator and stays to wait for the arrival of the person 150. When the person arrives in the elevator lobby, he/she goes into the elevator and selects his/her destination floor by pressing the pushbutton in the elevator car for the floor he/she wants. If the elevator system registers destination calls, the back-end system 130 sends to the elevator system a destination call wherein the call-giving floor is the floor on which the hotel room is situated and the destination floor (target floor) is a floor connected to the hotel room 100 in the memory 131 of the back-end system, e.g. a parking floor on which the person 150 keeps his/her car.

(3) FIG. 1 presents a number of different sensor alternatives 140a-140e, with which the departure of a person from a hotel room 100 can be detected. 140a presents a storage dock on the wall of a hotel room, into which dock a person puts the keycard 151 of the hotel room 100 when he/she enters the hotel room. Correspondingly, when the person is leaving the room 100, he/she takes the keycard from the storage dock. Information about the removal of the keycard is transmitted to the back-end system 130 via the interface 132. Since the storage docks 140a are apartment-specific, the back-end system 130 knows from which hotel room a person is leaving and can therefore generate an elevator call to the floor on which the hotel room is. 140b presents an optical sensor, which is disposed close to the door 101 of the hotel room and from the signal produced by which the back-end system can deduce the departure of a person from the hotel room and can generate an automatic elevator call in the manner described above. The sensor 140b is connected to the back-end system via an interface 132. 140c presents a camera arrangement, which monitors the people leaving by the door 101. The camera arrangement 140c sends information about a departure to the back-end system 130 via the interface 132 when it detects that a person 150 has left by the door 101. On the basis of the information the back-end system automatically generates an elevator call in the manner described above. 140d presents a reader device, e.g. a Bluetooth base station, which monitors the presence in a hotel room 100 of a terminal device 152 or identifier in the possession of a person 150. When the reader device 140d detects that the identifier or terminal device has been taken outside its reading range, e.g. out of the hotel room 100, the reader device 140b sends information about the departure of the identifier or terminal device to the back-end system 130 via the interface 132, in which case the back-end system generates an automatic elevator call in the manner described above. The identifier is, e.g. a remotely-readable RFID identifier (Radio Frequency Identifier), a terminal device 152 e.g. a mobile phone provided with a Bluetooth connection. 140e presents a present/absent switch. When a person arrives in his/her apartment, he/she turns the switch 140e to the present position, in which case e.g. the building automation system controls the air-conditioning of the apartment on. When the person leaves the apartment, he/she turns the switch to the absent position, information about which is transmitted to the back-end system/building automation system, which on the basis of the information generates an elevator call in the manner described above and sets e.g. the air-conditioning to stand-by mode.

(4) A sensor (140a, 140b, 140c, 140d or 140e) is connected either with a fixed or with a wireless data transfer connection to the interface 132 of the back-end system 130 (the data transfer connection is not presented in FIG. 1). The back-end system is able to distinguish the sensor signals of different hotel rooms from each other in such a way that the back-end system has information about from which hotel room a person 150 is leaving or has left. The position data (floor and position coordinates on the floor and/or distance from the elevators) of a hotel room or of a sensor can also be recorded in the memory 131 of the back-end system. The back-end system can connect the position data of a hotel room to an elevator call, on the basis of which the elevator system 120 can estimate when a person 150 will arrive in an elevator lobby to await an elevator and in this way can optimize the operation of the elevator system. From the viewpoint of the operation of the system one sensor (140a, 140b, 140c, 140d or 140e) is sufficient but a number of apartment-specific sensors can be connected to the back-end system and they can be used simultaneously for improving operational reliability and for avoiding unnecessary elevator calls.

(5) In one embodiment of the invention the elevator system 120 is an elevator group, which comprises a number of elevators 122 and in which the elevator calls can be destination calls. A person 150 has a terminal device 152, e.g. a mobile phone provided with an Internet connection. When the person 150 leaves a hotel room 100, the back-end system 130 automatically generates a destination call for the elevator group 120 in the manner described above. The group control of the elevator group 120 receives the aforementioned call and allocates an elevator from the elevator group for serving the call. The elevator group 120 transmits information about the allocated elevator to the back-end system 130 via the interface 121. The address information, e.g. the IP address, of the terminal device of the passenger is recorded in the memory 131 of the back-end system, on the basis of which address the back-end system sends the identification data of the allocated elevator to the terminal device 152 of the person via the Internet connection. The message to be transmitted to the terminal device is e.g. Go to elevator B. The elevator system can also send to the back-end system an estimate of how long the allocated elevator will take to arrive at the floor on which the hotel room is. The back-end system sends the aforementioned time estimate onwards to the terminal device of the person, in which case the message e.g. Go to elevator B, arriving in 40 s is transmitted to the terminal device from the back-end system.

(6) THE INVENTION IS NOT ONLY LIMITED TO BE APPLIED TO THE EMBODIMENTS DESCRIBED ABOVE, BUT INSTEAD MANY VARIATIONS ARE POSSIBLE WITHIN THE SCOPE OF THE INVENTIVE CONCEPT DEFINED BY THE CLAIMS. THUS, FOR EXAMPLE, THE CONTROL SYSTEM OF THE ELEVATOR SYSTEM CAN COMPRISE ONE OR MORE CONTROL APPARATUSES. THE BACK-END SYSTEM CAN BE AN APPARATUS SEPARATE FROM THE ELEVATOR SYSTEM OR CAN BE INTEGRATED EITHER PARTLY OR WHOLLY INTO THE CONTROL SYSTEM OF THE ELEVATOR.