The invention concerns, first, a signalling procedure for a lift, whereby the control system and the users of the lift are informed on lift calls and the state of the lift, e.g. position, movement and availability, by using serial communication between the control system computer and the actuating and signalling means in the lift car and on each floor level, and, second, a signalling system applying the said procedure. To avoid abundant and complicated wiring and to increase standardization in the design of the lift system main panel and call button stations, the signalling system of the invention employs the polling principle in its internal communication, whereby data are transmitted bi-directionally using digital series loops, one of which connects the devices in the lift car, controlled by and communicating via a microprocessor, another connects the corresponding shaft and door devices, while a third loop is used for communication with the external world.
A hierarchial elevator control system (FIG. 2) utilizes standard Control Area Network (CAN) hardware and message protocols. A broadcast message format includes priority bits and source address bits in subfields within the standard CAN message identifier field, to separate priority levels from message type information, while maintaining collision avoidance by means of the source addresses. In a unicast message format, message response by individual receiving nodes is accomplished with simple standard CAN hardware filtering by providing, within the standard CAN message identifier field, a multi-bit destination address field to identify a unique receiving node to which the message is directed. In the unicast format, remote transmission requests are identified by a control bit in the standard CAN data field, and responded to utilizing a message-type field that is also in the data field portion of the message.
In elevator equipment in which an elevator controller is connected by a common transmission line to an elevator cage and a plurality of apparatus installed at elevator stops on respective floors, signals are transmitted from the elevator controller to the elevator cage and the plurality of apparatus of elevator stops on respective floors. Information transmitted between the elevator controller and the cage as well as each apparatus at elevator stop on each floor is sorted into information which is different for each apparatus on each floor and the cage (unique information) and information which is the same for the plurality of apparatus at elevator stops on respective floors and the cage (common information), and the unique information is transmitted during a first period and the common information is transmitted during a second period, thereby reducing time required for transmission of information during one cycle.
An elevator control system comprises an elevator controller for controlling the running of a cage and a plurality of input/output terminal equipments for controlling devices provided at a landing place on each floor and/or in the cage, each of the elevator controller and the plurality of input/output terminal equipments including a transmission controller provided with a transmission circuit and a reception circuit so that the elevator controller and the plurality of input/output terminal equipments are connected to each other through transmission lines, wherein each of the elevator controller and the plurality of input/output terminal equipments is provided with an abnormality detector for detecting an abnormality and a transmission stopping device for inhibiting transmission through the transmission circuit of its own transmission controller upon detection of occurrence of an abnormality by the abnormality detector.
A LAN elevator network includes (a) a pair of redundant car buses for exchanging signals with car control system elements, (b) a pair of redundant group buses for exchanging signals with the redundant car buses through a car-group bridge, and (c) a pair of redundant building buses, which exchange messages with a building controller, through a group-building bridge. Communication among all nodes on the car bus, group bus, and building bus occurs using a single protocol. Each communications element on a bus communicates with the bus using a communications coprocessor including a transmitter and a receiver.
In order to make it possible to transmit and receive information between terminals and to reduce the number of wires used for an elevator in a building in an elevator system by transmitting and receiving information through wireless transmission even if a very weak radio wave having a narrow communicable range is used, an elevator control unit, a car terminal and floor terminals are individually provided with short distance wireless transmitting/receiving units having a communicable range of nearly a 2-floor distance (5 to 6 m) using very weak radio waves. The radio waves are received and transmitted between the wireless transmitting/receiving units located within the communicable range to transmit information by a relaying method of sequentially transferring information from terminal to terminal until it reaches a final destination.
