Patent Application
20210222461
The present disclosure claims priority to Chinese Patent Application No. 201910401181.1 filed on May 14, 2019 in the China National Intellectual Property Administration, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
The present disclosure generally relates to the field of logistics supervision, and particularly, to an intelligent lock.
In the fields of logistics transportation or customs clearance inspection, it is necessary to prevent a cargo compartment (for example, a container) being transported or to be inspected from being opened illegally without permission, so as to ensure the safety of cargo compartment transportation and guarantee the supervisory role of customs clearance inspection, thereby not giving criminals an opportunity. Therefore, a lock used to lock the cargo compartment needs to have high safety and reliability. On the other hand, the lock also needs to be easy to operate and can be adapted to satisfy the locking requirements of cargo compartments with different types/sizes.
Traditional lock usually adopts a structure in which a lock body and a lock rope cooperate with each other. When locking, the lock rope is inserted into a lock hole of the lock body, and when unlocking, the lock rope is pulled out of the lock hole of the lock body. In traditional lock, the length of the lock rope is fixed and cannot be adjusted, and it cannot be applied to the locking requirements of cargo compartments with different types/sizes at the same time. Moreover, the cooperation between the lock rope and the lock body can only be achieved by unidirectional insertion and pulling-out operations, which limits the use flexibility of the lock.
In addition, some smart locks used to lock the cargo compartment adopt auxiliary devices such as travel switches or Hall devices to determine the position and/or travel of a lock tongue (or a lock lever) in the lock body (or the lock hole) to confirm unlocking/locking status of the lock. However, in practice, in the smart locks, auxiliary devices such as travel switches are relatively large and inconvenient to be installed. Moreover, it is sometimes easily affected adversely by the external environment and has a short service life.
In order to solve or alleviate at least one of the above problems existing in the prior art, the present disclosure provides an intelligent lock.
According to an aspect of the present application, there is provided an intelligent lock comprising:
a lock body having a lock hole;
a lock lever, the lock lever being capable of being plugged into and being unplugged out of the lock hole of the lock body;
a first restricting member movably provided inside the lock body, and capable of being moved and latched into the lock hole to restrict the plugging of the lock lever into the lock hole or the unplugging of the lock lever out of the lock hole;
a second restricting member movably provided inside the lock body, and capable of being abutted against the first restricting member so as to restrict a movement of the first restricting member;
a detecting device provided in the lock body, and configured to detect the plugging operation of the lock lever into the lock hole or the unplugging operation of the lock lever out of the lock hole and to send a detection signal; and
a main control element communicatively connected to the detecting device, and configured to determine a locking state of the intelligent lock in accordance with the detection signal sent by the detecting device.
In some embodiments, the second restricting member is movable inside the lock body, between a first position in which the second restricting member is abutted against the first restricting member and a second position in which the second restricting member is separated from the first restricting member; and the detecting device comprises: a first detecting element provided at the first position and a second detecting element provided at the second position; wherein, the main control element is configured: in response to the second restricting member being moved to be in contact with the first detecting element, to determine, in accordance with the detection signal sent by the first detecting element, that the intelligent lock is in an occluded state where the plugging of the lock lever into the lock hole or the unplugging of the lock lever out of the lock hole is defeated; and in response to the second restricting member being moved to be in contact with the second detecting element, to determine, in accordance with the detection signal sent by the second detecting element, that the intelligent lock is in an un-occluded state where the plugging of the lock lever into the lock hole or the unplugging of the lock lever out of the lock hole is freely enabled.
In some embodiments, the detecting device may further comprise: a third detecting element provided at a bottom of the lock hole; wherein, in response to the lock lever being plugged into the lock hole, the lock lever is in contact with the third detecting element, and the main control element determines that the lock lever is in a plugged state in accordance with the detection signal sent by the third detecting element.
In some embodiments, in the occluded state of the intelligent lock, the main control element determines that the intelligent lock is in an abnormal condition if no detection signal is sent by any one of the first detecting element and the third detecting element.
In some embodiments, the first detecting element, the second detecting element, and the third detecting element are spring-loaded post rods.
In some embodiments, the intelligent lock may further comprise: a driving element provided inside the lock body, and configured to drive a movement of the second restricting member inside the lock body, between the first position and the second position; wherein the driving element comprises: a driving motor; and a threaded rod configured to be driven by the driving motor, the threaded rod and the second restricting member constituting a threaded drive.
In some embodiments, the second restricting member has: a center part configured to be engaged with the threaded rod; and an abutting part extending from the center part and configured to be abutted against the first restricting member.
In some embodiments, the first restricting member is in form of a pin, and is movable inside the lock body along a direction perpendicular to an extension direction of the lock hole.
In some embodiments, the lock body has two said lock holes respectively formed at opposite sides of a same surface of the lock body, wherein each of the lock holes is configured for plugging and unplugging operations of one said lock lever; wherein one said third detecting element is provided at the bottom of each of the lock holes.
In some embodiments, the intelligent lock may further comprise: a lock lever assembly constituted by a plurality of lock lever pieces with different lengths, wherein the lock lever is one lock lever piece selected from the lock lever assembly.
In some embodiments, the intelligent lock is a child safety lock of a child-mother type safety lock.
Accordingly, the intelligent lock according to the embodiments of the present disclosure has improved safety and reliability and reduces the manufacturing cost by using a mechanically constructed restriction mechanism. Moreover, in the intelligent lock according to the embodiments of the present disclosure, the lock lever is completely independent of the lock body, which overcomes the limitation that the cooperation between the lock rope and the lock body in the traditional lock can only be achieved by a unidirectional plug operation, and improves use flexibility of the lock, facilitates the operation of the lock. In addition, for the intelligent lock according to the embodiments of the present disclosure lock levers that meet different needs can be selected from lock lever pieces with different lengths and/or models and/or shapes, which can be applied to the locking requirements of cargo compartments with different models/sizes. In addition, according to the intelligent lock provided by the embodiment of the present disclosure, a detection device such as a pogopin device as an example may be used to detect whether the insertion operation or extraction operation of the lock lever relative to the lock hole is in place, which can promptly confirm the unlocking/locking state of the intelligent lock, thereby ensuring the safety of the entire intelligent lock, and increasing the reliability and convenience of the entire intelligent lock.
Specific embodiments of the present disclosure will be described in detail below. It should be noted that the embodiments described herein are for illustration only and are not intended to limit the present disclosure. In the following description, in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present disclosure, a large number of specific details are set forth. However, it is obvious to those skilled in the art that it is not necessary to adopt these specific details to implement the present disclosure. In other embodiments, to avoid obscuring the present disclosure, well-known circuits, materials, or methods have not been described in detail.
Throughout the description, reference to “one embodiment”, “embodiments”, “one example” or “examples” means that a particular feature, structure or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment or example is included in at least one embodiment of the present disclosure. Therefore, the phrases “in one embodiment”, “in embodiments”, “for an example” or “for example” appeared in various places throughout the description do not necessarily all refer to the same embodiment or example. Furthermore, specific features, structures, or characteristics may be combined in one or more embodiments or examples in any suitable combination and/or sub-combination. In addition, those skilled in the art should understand that the drawings presented herein are for illustrative purposes, and the drawings are not necessarily drawn to scale. The term “and/or” as used herein includes any and all combinations of one or more of the associated listed items.
Throughout the description, the terms named with “first”, “second”, “third” and so on are used. It should be understood that the terms named by these numbers do not indicate any order of importance, priority, etc., but only intends to describe different parts so that the different parts can be distinguished by different names.
The present disclosure is described in detail below with reference to the drawings.
The present disclosure provides an intelligent lock, which is mainly used in the field of logistics supervision, especially for a child safety lock in a child-mother type safety lock in a cargo compartment (e.g., a container). Referring to
According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, as shown in
In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, as shown in
In this way, when the intelligent lock 10 needs to obtain the locked state, the lock lever 200 is plugged into the lock hole 101 of the lock body 100, and then the first restricting member 310 (at least its end where the locking portion is located) is moved into the lock hole 100 to be latched to the lock lever 200, and then the second restricting member 320 is moved to the first position (as shown in
In the intelligent lock according to embodiments of the present disclosure, the restriction mechanism may further comprise a driving element 330 provided inside the lock body 100 and configured to drive a movement of the second restricting member 320 inside the lock body 100. For example, the driving element 330 is provided inside the lock body 100 and is capable of driving a movement of the second restricting member 320 inside the lock body 100 between the first position and the second position. As described earlier, when at the first position, the second restricting member 320 abuts against the first restricting member 310, in order to restrict the movement of the first restricting member 310. When at the second position, the second restricting member 320 is separated from the first restricting member 310 so that the restriction on the movement of the first restricting member is released. In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, as shown in
Of course, in other embodiments of the present disclosure, the restriction mechanism may also adopt any components and/or structures other than the components and/or structures described in the above exemplary embodiments, as long as the lock lever 200 can act a movement restriction on the plugging and unplugging operations of the lock lever 200 relative to the lock hole 101. For one example, the first restricting member 310 can move obliquely to the extension direction of the lock hole 100 (instead of in a direction substantially perpendicular to the extension direction of the lock hole 100), as long as it can plug into the lock hole 101 of the lock body 100 to play a restriction role. For another example, the movement of the second restricting member 320 may not be driven by the driving motor, but may be driven by another mechanism.
According to embodiments of the present disclosure, as shown in
A security detecting mechanism in the intelligent lock 10 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure will be described in detail below with reference to
Specifically, as shown in
When the second restricting member 320 is moved to the first position and is in contact with the first detecting element 410 (as shown in
Further, as shown in
Furthermore, when the intelligent lock 10 is in the occluded state, the main control element determines that the intelligent lock 10 is in an abnormal condition (such as being accidentally unlocked or destroyed) if the detection signal sent by any one of the first detecting element 410 and the third detecting element 430 disappears. In this case, the main control element can cooperate with other security detecting mechanisms of the intelligent lock 10 (or even of the entire logistics cargo compartment) to provide security detection warnings for the intelligent lock (or even for the entire logistics cargo compartment).
According to embodiments of the present disclosure, the second restricting member 320 may be made of a metal material, and the first detecting element 410, the second detecting element 420, and the third detecting element 430 may adopts spring-loaded post rods, such as a pogo pin. It can be seen that, in the embodiments of the present disclosure, the spring post rod with small-volume and low-cost (taking a pogo pin as an example) is adopted as an auxiliary device for safety detection, so that under the premise of ensuring the safety of the entire intelligent lock, it improves reliability and convenience of the entire intelligent lock, and reduces the manufacturing cost, when compared with auxiliary devices such as a travel switch or a Hall device used in the prior art.
According to embodiments of the present disclosure, in the intelligent lock 10 as shown in
Furthermore, in some embodiments of the present disclosure, the intelligent lock may further comprise a lock lever assembly constituted by a plurality of lock lever pieces. The plurality of lock lever pieces in the lock lever assembly may have different lengths and/or models and/or shapes. The lock lever 200 described in the forgoing embodiments can be one lock lever piece with certain length and/or model and/or shape, selected from the lock lever assembly. In this way, the intelligent lock 10 according to the present disclosure can provide different lock lever pieces according to different requirements to meet the diverse requirements of the intelligent lock 10. In addition, in some other embodiments of the present disclosure, the intelligent lock 10 can also use a lock rope to replace the lock lever described above, as long as the restriction function of the restriction mechanism in the intelligent lock 10 can also be applied to the unlocking and locking states of the lock rope.
Accordingly, the intelligent lock according to the embodiments of the present disclosure has improved safety and reliability and reduces the manufacturing cost by using a mechanically constructed restriction mechanism. Moreover, in the intelligent lock according to the embodiments of the present disclosure, the lock lever is completely independent of the lock body, which overcomes the limitation that the cooperation between the lock rope and the lock body in the traditional lock can only be achieved by a unidirectional plug operation, and improves use flexibility of the lock, facilitates the operation of the lock. In addition, the intelligent lock according to the embodiments of the present disclosure can select lock levers that meet different needs from lock lever pieces with different lengths and/or models and/or shapes, which can be applied to the locking requirements of cargo compartments with different models/sizes.
However, it should be understood that, in order to highlight the key points in the embodiments of the present disclosure, some details have been omitted in the above description. However, these and/or those technical details may also be included in the embodiments of the present disclosure.
Although the present disclosure has been described with reference to several embodiments, it should be understood that the terms used are illustrative and exemplary rather than restrictive. Since the present disclosure can be embodied in various forms without departing from the spirit or essence of the present disclosure, it should be understood that the above embodiments are not limited to any of the foregoing details, but should be widely interpreted within the spirit and scope defined by the appended claims. Therefore, all changes and modifications falling within the scope of the claims or their equivalents should be covered by the appended claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 201910401181.1 | May 2019 | CN | national |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/CN2020/071779 | 1/13/2020 | WO | 00 |
