The present invention relates to a remote alarming system for an elevator.
Conventionally, a remote monitoring control system has been realized and placed in operation. In the remote monitoring control system, states and failure information of elevating machines such as an elevator and an escalator installed in a specific area are collectively monitored, and if necessary, control is performed on the elevating machine by connecting the elevating machine to a centralized monitor center installed in a remote area through a general public line. Further, in recent years, along with increases in speed and capacity of the general public line, a high-speed digital network for realizing the Internet or the like is being developed more widely in addition to an analog line conventionally used, by using an existing telephone line, whereby it is possible to transmit image information and sound information in real time at high speed.
On the other hand, there has been a particular demand that, if a failure should occur in the elevator and if a passenger should be trapped in a car thereof, an alarm be given to an operation manager of the elevator or a maintenance company for the elevator immediately, the passenger trapped in the car be rescued, and the elevator be speedily restored to its normal state.
Conventionally, various propositions have been made for the remote alarming system described above. For example, there is proposed a system in which abnormality information and pre-failure information are transmitted to a portable terminal of a maintenance operator through the Internet in a case where an abnormality occurs (see, for example, Patent Document 1). There is also proposed a system in which a failure history is stored in advance in the monitor center and the failure history is transmitted to the portable terminal of the maintenance operator in a case where failure occurs (see, for example, Patent Document 2). Further, there is proposed a system in which a positional relationship of a target area centering on a building in which the failure has occurred with a primary responder and a secondary responder is displayed on a monitor of the monitor center, and a dispatch instruction is automatically transmitted to portable phones of the primary responder and the secondary responder in a case of a significant failure (see, for example, Patent Document 3).
Patent Document 1: JP 2001-101557 A
However, with the conventional systems, a large-scaled and a high-cost monitor center is required to be provided in any of the cases, which results in a tremendous cost for initial capital investment and system development. Further, an operator must be present on the monitor center side for outputting the instruction in any of the cases, which results in generation of a labor cost or the like for an operation. Further, there is no description on information transmitting means for the passenger at the time of failure, so in a case where the building manager is absent and the monitor center fails down, no contact can be made from the outside to the passenger trapped in the elevator until the maintenance operator arrives.
The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned circumstances and therefore has an object to provide a remote alarming system for an elevator in which a remote alarming system can be built with a relatively simple structure and an abnormality can be handled promptly in the case where abnormality occurs, without a provision of a large-scaled and high-cost monitor center.
According to the present invention, a remote alarming system for an elevator includes: an elevator control device including failure information detecting means for detecting failure information of an elevator; a wireless alarming device provided independently of the elevator control device, for transmitting the failure information of the elevator from the elevator control device through wireless communication; a management device remotely provided from a building in which the elevator is located, and which is capable of performing wireless communication; and a portable terminal which is capable of performing the wireless communication with the wireless alarming device and the management device via a base station. In the remote alarming system, the management device includes: a database in which management information corresponding to each of the elevators is registered in advance; communication information creating means for determining an alarm destination based on the management information registered in the database at a time of reception of the failure information, and for creating a telegraphic message transmitted based on contents of the failure information; and wireless communication means for transmitting the created telegraphic message to the portable terminal which is the determined alarm destination, and the wireless alarming device includes in-car communication means which makes possible the communication from the portable terminal as the alarm destination to a passenger in a car by connecting with a speaker provided in the car of the elevator.
According to the present invention, the remote alarming system can be built with a relatively simple structure, and an abnormality can be handled promptly in the case where abnormality occurs. In addition, direct communication is possible between the portable terminal and the passenger in the car, so even when the manager of the building is absent or the monitoring device fails, communication can be directly performed with the passenger in the car.
Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
Here, the elevator control device 2 includes operation control means 21 for performing operation management of the whole elevator, failure information detecting means 22 for detecting a failure of the elevator, and voice notification means 23 for notifying a message by voice in the car depending on an operation state of the elevator, and for notifying by voice through the speaker a fact that an alarm has been transmitted to the outside at a time of transmitting failure information to be described later.
Further, the wireless alarming device 3 includes communication means 31 for communicating with the elevator control device 2, wireless communication means 32 for performing wireless communication with the outside, and in-car communication means 33 for communicating with the outside by connecting to the speaker 11 in the car 1.
Further, the management device 4 includes wireless communication means 41 for enabling communication with the outside via radio transmission, a database 42 in which management information necessary for transmitting the failure information is registered in advance, database management means 43 for managing the database 42, recording means 44 for storing communication records, and communication information creating means 45 for creating a telegraphic message transmitted in accordance with the generated failure information.
Next,
Next, detailed operations of the remote alarming system for an elevator according to the embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in
Next, the management device 4 refers to the database 42 (Step ST45), determines the alarm destination (Step ST46), and analyzes the failure information to create the telegraphic message to be transmitted (Step ST47). Then, the management device 4 automatically transmits the telegraphic message to the determined alarm destination (manager of the building or maintenance operator) (Step ST48). It should be noted that a plurality of managers of the building and maintenance operators can be set as the alarm destination, and an alarm may be transmitted based on a predetermined order of priority.
According to the procedure described above, portable terminals 5 held by the managers of the building and the maintenance operators receive the telegraphic message (Step ST49), whereby it is possible to communicate directly with the passenger in the car 1 from the portable terminal 5 which has received the message (Step ST50).
In the above embodiment, an alarm is given by way of telegraphic messages. However, the telegraphic message and the voice can be presented concurrently to the portable terminal 5 held by the manager of the building or the maintenance operator by creating voice data, for example.
As described above, according to the present invention, the remote alarming system can be built by a relatively simple method without a provision of the large-scaled monitor center, and communication can be directly performed from the portable terminal 5 held by the manager of the building or the maintenance operator to the passenger in the car 1 even when the monitoring device fails or the manager is absent.
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/JP2006/301005 | 1/24/2006 | WO | 00 | 8/10/2007 |
Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
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WO2007/086098 | 8/2/2007 | WO | A |
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Number | Date | Country | |
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20090071762 A1 | Mar 2009 | US |