WO2022248580A1

WO2022248580A1 - Method and system for monitoring the technical condition of the interior of a shaft system of an elevator installation

Info

Publication number: WO2022248580A1
Application number: PCT/EP2022/064262
Authority: WO
Inventors: Max Mairle; Thomas Georg HORN
Original assignee: Tk Elevator Innovation And Operations Gmbh
Priority date: 2021-05-27
Filing date: 2022-05-25
Publication date: 2022-12-01

Abstract

Disclosed is a method and system for determining and/or monitoring the (electro-)mechanical and/or operating condition of the interior of an elevator shaft (105, 110, 115) of an elevator installation or system for the transport of people or goods between floors or levels of a building, vessel, or other structure, which comprises at least one elevator cabin (100) being movable along the elevator shaft (105, 110, 115), wherein the elevator shaft (105, 110, 115) includes at least one shaft component (125), wherein a sensor system (130, 135) is mounted at the at least one elevator cabin (100), and wherein based on sensor data of at least two sensors gathered during a move of the elevator cabin (100) along the elevator shaft (105, 110, 115), a 3D model-based reconstruction of the interior of the elevator shaft (105, 110, 115), including the at least one shaft component (125), is generated based on which a reliable service plan for technical maintenance of the elevator shaft, or of the at least one shaft component (125) can be set up.

Description

TITLE

METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR MONITORING THE TECHNICAL CONDITION OF THE INTERIOR OF A SHAFT SYSTEM OF AN ELEVATOR INSTALLATION

TECHNICAL FIELD

The invention concerns an elevator installation or system for the transport of people or goods between floors or levels of a building, vessel, or other structure, wherein at least one elevator car or cabin is moved along an elevator guiding system, and more particularly relates to a method and system for monitoring and/or maintaining the technical condition of interior components of an according elevator shaft system.

BACKGROUND

Preventive or predictive maintenance of an elevator system aims to reduce the degradation of its condition or performance. In particular, deterioration of the quality and thus the functionality of technical components of the interior of an elevator shaft is caused by environmental effects, use and wear. Environmental factors affecting the condition of such components can be dust, dirt and temperature. If such components are not serviced or maintained timely, their failure may result so that the elevator installation or system is no longer usable at all or the quality and/or safety of operation or handling capacity of the elevator or elevator system decreases decisively.

Known servicing methods have difficulties take into account the individual wear and aging of mentioned technical components from locally distributed measuring devices. Therefore, corresponding maintenance and repair services of elevators have been scheduled only based on condition or on failure reports sent by automatic monitoring systems.

Conventional methods of monitoring the technical condition of mentioned components of an elevator shaft system are further based on making inferences from events and status. By these methods, the need for maintenance can be determined only on a rough level, typically in terms of either/or information or data. Therefore, the need for maintenance is only determined if elevator operation has stopped completely. US 10,407,275 B2 discloses a passenger conveyance system comprising a multitude of 3D sensors mounted to a movable structure within a vertical shaft and/or a horizontal shaft and a processing module in communication with the 3D sensors. The processing module is operable to identify an obstruction within the horizontal or vertical shaft. Each of the sensors generates one or more depth maps and are operable in the electromagnetic or acoustic spectrum. Depth sensing technologies may be structured light measurement, phase shift measurement, time of flight measurement, stereo triangulation device, sheet of light triangulation device, light field cameras, coded aperture cameras, computational imaging techniques, simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), imaging radar, imaging sonar, laser radar, scanning LIDAR, flash LIDAR, or a combination comprising at least one of the foregoing. Further, the depth based sensing essentially maps the vertical shaft such that the obstructions are readily detected and classified, e.g. using a tool that extends beyond an edge and into the vertical shaft.

CN108928700A discloses a hospital operation state elevator safety monitoring cloud platform which is configured to receive intelligent monitoring terminal information, to identify and analyze elevator video data and to monitor elevator equipment and human behavior in real-time. If the analyzed data is abnormal, an alarm information is generated and an image capturing command is sent to the intelligent monitoring terminal. A user terminal receives the current image data of the alarm information sent by the cloud platform in order to display.

SUMMARY

The invention concerns a method and system for determining and/or monitoring the mechanical and/or operating condition of the interior of a shaft system of an elevator installation or system. The monitoring shall include the checking of a proper operation of e.g. all technical components mounted or moving in the shaft(s) of the elevator system, and is particularly aimed at providing the capability of predictive and/or remote maintenance of the interior of such an elevator shaft, or even a number of shafts, in order to determine the need for maintenance.

The maintenance of elevator shaft systems presents several problems arising due to the fact, that the “interior”, i.e. all components mounted or moving in the shafts of the system, are hidden from personnel or from easy inspection for most of the time. Since future or forthcoming failures of mechanical components could be detected, prior to an actual defect of the component by visual inspection, it is well known to perform manual visual checks of an elevator shaft system’s components as part of a standard elevator service. Until now, it is only possible to inspect the inner walls (i.e. the interior) of an elevator shaft system, if a technician is located physically on the roof of an elevator car/cabin during the movement of the car/cabin along the shaft system.

However, such a manual inspection leads to the following further problems:

Only authorized personnel is allowed to stay or reside on the roof of an elevator car/cabin, making it hard to show findings/issues to non-authorized or nonmaintenance persons.

It is cumbersome to travel through an elevator shaft, when standing on a roof of an elevator car/cabin, which is only possible in an inspection mode, i.e. with a relatively slow speed, and thus only during a time at which public traffic has to be prohibited.

With such an inspection, it is not possible to obtain real-time information about the physical state of the shaft system’s components.

It is emphasized that the above mentioned problems are increasing heavily in very large/complex elevator systems. Such complex elevator systems can be rope-less elevator systems being developed and sold by the present applicant, in particular rope-less elevator systems based on magnetic cushion or transrapid technology, which comprise several elevator cars/cabins that can be moved in only one shaft system. Other such large/complex elevator system installations can be elevator systems installed in high-rise buildings, which can not be shut down at all easily.

Known elevator systems are already equipped with a remote maintenance capability, which enables mobile communication. Therefore, a technician can check and diagnose the functionality of the elevator, for example by mobile phone, and can determine which tasks of the maintenance process are necessary to perform. However, some maintenance aspects or processes of an elevator are yet to be implemented in such a remote maintenance system, like the process of reliably monitoring the (electro-)mechanical condition of a mentioned interior of a shaft system of an underlying elevator installation or system.

In addition, the operation of the mentioned elevator shaft components is crucial for the save operation of the entire elevator system.

The underlying idea of the present invention is to provide a Cloud-based 3D reconstruction of an underlying shaft system’s interior, or the shaft system’s interior components, namely for maintenance and/or for corresponding training purposes. The required 3D data are gathered or recorded with one or more sensor systems being attached to the elevator car(s)/cabin(s). The recorded data are used to generate a 3D model of the shafts’ interior. This model can be kept-up to date and be used for several business or maintenance purposes, using different terminal devices.

To generate such a 3D reconstruction, it is possible to use one or more sensors of one or different kinds of sensors which scan the shaft system using the reflection of radiation or sound waves, e.g. a set of individual cameras mounted on meaningful positions on the car/cabin, 180° cameras mounted e.g. to the top and the bottom of the car/cabin, infrared cameras, LIDAR, radar or SODAR sensors.

The output data of these sensors can either be used individually, or this data can be combined in order to achieve a higher level of detail of the generated model. Hereby additional information dimensions can be gathered by measuring different properties, e.g. the temperature of each voxel of the generated model. If it is desired to also document and remotely inspect the top and the bottom of a car/cabin, even 360° sensors preferably arranged on top of some spacer device, which is mounted to the top and the bottom of the car/cabin, could be used.

If optical cameras are used, it is necessary to provide sufficient light sources so that the resulting images provide enough details to be usable. To achieve this at least the following two options are possible:

The shaft illumination can be kept turned on. This has the benefit that no additional light sources are necessary. The consequence is however, that this consumes comparatively much energy. This could be improved for example by implementing a smart adaptive shaft illumination system, which turns on only segments of shaft illumination, which are in close proximity to a car/cabin.

Additional light sources could be attached to the car/cabin in proximity to the cameras. Hereby LED lights or flashes synchronized to the recording of the individual pictures might be used.

The recorded data could then be uploaded to a Cloud service for processing in order to economize the necessary computing capability on-site and to have the resulting data accessible for authorized service technicians globally.

A precise reconstruction of a 3D model of the system’s interior is possible, if the individual (input) pictures/sensor data sets are taken

(a) from several different perspectives and (b) sequentially while travelling through the shaft system, which leads to a huge number of individual pictures/sensor data sets each providing additional information and therefore refining the resulting 3D model.

The resulting 3D model can then be viewed by different means, e.g. on a normal PC, with VR headsets, or with specialized professional-grade hardware like a 3D cave. Additionally, data from this 3D model can be extracted and checked for regressions of the system automatically.

The generated 3D model can be used for several other purposes, namely for:

Visual inspection of an elevator shaft system by maintenance personnel without the need to be physically present on-site and without temporarily stopping the transport capacity of the elevator system due to the necessary inspection mode.

Training purposes of personnel regarding an elevator shaft system, without the need of having a real or actual demonstration system.

Remote support of inexperienced maintenance or rescue personnel by remote experts, using a live or static 3D model of the shaft system.

Heat monitoring of electrical components and fire protection

Furthermore, it would be possible to update the 3D model according to possible changes either by triggering a manual refresh of the existing data on demand, i.e. by commanding the system to create a fresh set of images and only creating images during this period. Alternatively, the system can be let updating its model permanently, by permanently creating images, which are continuously refining the online 3D model.

The created 3D model can also be used to support advanced maintenance approaches like predictive maintenance. If the proposed approach is incorporated into a predictive maintenance system, a self-learning and self-enhancing artificial intelligence (Al) could both learn to detect upcoming failures with the data provided by the 3D model preemptively and to identify the source of a service interruption rapidly when the prediction failed and the cause is visually identifiable. To be able to deal with the latter case, the Al can learn from sequentially generated 3D models, whether something in the shaft starts looking differently. This should not be the case in the shaft, if certain special elements like movable objects, e.g. other cars/cabins, or flashing LEDs on components, are neglected. In the case that the shaft starts looking differently, the predictive maintenance system would alert a responsible maintenance team accordingly.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The objects, features and advantages of the invention are understood within the context of the Detailed Description, as set forth below. The Detailed Description is understood within the context of the accompanying drawings, which form a material part of this disclosure. In the drawings, identical or similar technical features are designated with matching reference numbers/signs.

FIG. 1 schematically shows a first embodiment of the monitoring system for inspecting an elevator shaft system according to the invention, comprising an arrangement of four conventional photo cameras.

FIG. 2 schematically shows a second embodiment of the monitoring system according to the invention, comprising an arrangement of two 180° cameras.

FIG. 3 schematically shows a third embodiment of the monitoring system according to the invention, comprising an arrangement of two 360° cameras.

FIG. 4 shows an embodiment of the monitoring method according to the invention, by way of a combined block/flow diagram.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The elevator installation and respective elevator shaft system schematically shown in FIG. 1 includes an elevator cabin 100, which can be moved in an elevator shaft 105 comprising shaft walls 110, 115 by means of rails 120. The elevator shaft 105, in the present example, comprises a shaft component 125, namely a counterweight frame in the present example.

The elevator cabin 100, according to a first embodiment of the mentioned monitoring system, comprises four conventional photo cameras as sensor system, wherein two cameras are 130 are mounted on top of the elevator cabin 100 and wherein the other two cameras 135 are mounted on the bottom of the elevator cabin 100. The use of top and bottom mounted sensors has the advantage that the sensor system can gather image data during movement of the elevator cabin 100 in the two directions, e.g. the up and down direction.

When the elevator cabin 100 travels along the shaft 105 in vertical direction by means of the rails 120, the upper two cameras 130 provide triangular-shaped fields of view 140 above the cabin 100, wherein the lower two cameras 135 provide also triangular-shaped fields of view 145 below the cabin 100.

Based on this camera system 130, 135 it is possible, to take detailed pictures/photographs of the inner sides of the shaft walls 110, 115, in particular shaft components like the shown component 125.

The digital pictures or respective image data taken by the camera system 130, 135 are transmitted to a common “Cloud” platform (or respective IT service) by means of a common communication system not shown in FIG. 1 (and the other figures). In the Cloud platform the transmitted image data are used to generate a rather detailed or even exact digital 3D model of the elevator shaft system 105, 110, 115, 125 depicted in FIG. 1, as described in more detail in connection with FIG. 4.

In the second embodiment of the monitoring system shown in FIG. 2, a first camera 200 with a 180° viewing angle is mounted on top of the elevator cabin 100, wherein an according second camera 205 is mounted on the bottom of the cabin 100.

The upper camera 200 provides a semicircular field of view 210 above the cabin 100, wherein the lower camera 205 provides also a semicircular field of view 215 below the cabin 100.

In the third embodiment of the monitoring system shown in FIG. 3, a first camera 300 with a 360° viewing angle is mounted on top of the elevator cabin 100, wherein an according second camera 305 is mounted on the bottom of the cabin 100. The two cameras 300, 305, in particular, are mounted at the end of support devices 310, 315 in order to increase their viewing angles towards the cabin 100.

The upper camera 300 provides a nearly circular field of view 320 above the cabin 100, wherein the lower camera 305 provides also a nearly circular field of view 325 below the cabin 100. The extended fields of view 320, 325 allow to monitor even elevator components or elevator shaft components being arranged or mounted directly above and below the cabin 100.

It should be mentioned that, instead of the cameras 130, 135, different kinds of sensors can be used which scan the shaft system using the reflection of radiation or sound waves, infrared cameras, LIDAR, radar or SODAR sensors, e.g. a set of individual cameras mounted on meaningful positions on the car/cabin. In the described three embodiments, the output image data of the above described cameras are used individually. However, this data can also be combined in order to achieve a higher level of detail of the generated 3D model, wherein additional information can be taken into consideration, e.g. the temperature of each voxel of the generated 3D model.

In order to improve the picture quality in case that optical sensors like the above described photographic cameras are used for visual inspection/monitoring, the following additional light sources can be arranged in the elevator shaft system, or at the elevator cabins, preferably in close neighborhood to the optical sensors or cameras:

The illumination of the elevator shaft can be kept turned on. This has the benefit that no additional light sources are necessary. The consequence is however, that this consumes a lot of electrical energy. Therefore, this approach could be improved for example by implementing a smart adaptive shaft illumination system, which turns on only segments of shaft illumination, which are in close proximity to a moving car/cabin.

The method or process flow depicted in FIG. 4 allows to generate a 3D reconstruction of an elevator shaft system and respective shaft components shown e.g. in FIG. 1. These 3D data can be used e.g. for remote maintenance of the shaft system (or respective components) and/or corresponding training purposes.

The method is divided into two parts, a first part 400 including exemplary process steps for generating the 3D model and a second part 405 including exemplary process steps for monitoring the (electro-)mechanical condition of the interior of a described shaft system of an underlying elevator installation, based on the generated 3D model.

In the first part 400, an elevator cabin is moved 410 along the elevator shaft. During this move 410, photographs are taken 415 by means of a described camera system. The image data of these photographs are stored 420 (in a data storage) at least temporarily. The stored data are transmitted 425 from the elevator installation to a Cloud computing platform by means of a common wired or wireless communication system. In the Cloud, a 3D model of the elevator shaft, in particular of its interior technical components, is generated 430. The Cloud computing economizes the necessary computing capability on-site and the resulting data are then accessible for authorized service technicians globally. In the second part 405, the same or another elevator cabin is moved 435 along the same elevator shaft. During this move 435, photographs are taken 440 again by means of the same or an identical camera system. In the next process step 445, the image data of the taken 440 photographs are compared with corresponding 3D model data, which are provided 450 by the Cloud platform, i.e. gathered from the platform or sent by the platform to the present elevator installation or system.

If this comparison 445 reveals that no difference (e.g. a pixel or voxel difference value greater than a predetermined threshold value) has been determined between these data, then it is jumped back to the beginning (step 435) of the shown procedure. Otherwise, if the comparison 445 reveals that a relevant difference, i.e. a difference greater than the predetermined threshold value, has been determined (or detected), then a corresponding alert message is delivered 455 to a main control unit of the elevator installation/system or to an external maintenance service center. Based in this alert message 455, an according service plan/event for maintenance of the present elevator shaft system is set up 460.

It has to be mentioned that the quality of the generated or reconstructed 3D model of the system’s interior can be further improved, if the individual (input) photographs or sensor data are taken from several different perspectives and if they are taken sequentially while travelling an elevator cabin through the shaft system. Because this leads to a considerably increased number of individual image or sensor data, each of them providing additional information and therefore allowing to refine the resulting 3D model.

Claims

1 . An elevator system for the transport of people or goods between floors or levels of a building, vessel, or other structure, comprising at least one elevator cabin (100) being movable along an elevator shaft (105, 110, 115) which includes at least one shaft component (125), comprising a sensor system (130, 135) mounted at the at least one elevator cabin (100), for determining and/or monitoring the (electro-)mechanical and/or operating condition of the interior of the elevator shaft (105, 110, 115), based on sensor data of at least two sensors gathered during a move of the elevator cabin (100) along the elevator shaft (105, 110, 115).

2. Elevator system according to claim 1 , wherein providing a 3D model-based reconstruction of the interior of the elevator shaft (105, 110, 115), including the at least one shaft component (125), based on sensor data being gathered by the sensor system (130, 135).

3. Elevator system according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the sensor system (130, 135) includes at least a first sensor (130) being mounted on top of the elevator cabin (100) and at least a second sensor (135) being mounted on the bottom of the elevator cabin (100).

4. Elevator system according to any of the preceding claims, wherein the sensor system (130, 135) includes at least one of the following group of sensors: camera with a 90°, 180° and/or 360° viewing angle, sensor using the reflection of radiation or sound waves, infrared camera, LIDAR, radar or SODAR.

5. Elevator system according to any of the preceding claims, comprising a communication unit for transmitting digital image data taken by the sensor system (130, 135) to an external data processing system or to a Cloud platform in order to generate a digital 3D model of the elevator shaft (105, 110, 115).

6. Elevator system according to any of the preceding claims, comprising an adaptive shaft illumination system, which turns on only segments of shaft illumination which are in close proximity to a moving elevator cabin (100).

7. Elevator system according to any of the preceding claims, comprising additional light sources attached to the at least one elevator cabin (100) in proximity to the sensor system (130, 135).

8. A method for determining and/or monitoring the (electro-)mechanical and/or operating condition of the interior of the elevator shaft (105, 110, 115) in an elevator system according to any of the preceding claims, wherein the at least two sensor data provided by the sensor system (130, 135) are combined and used to generate a digital 3D model of the elevator shaft (105, 110, 115), including interior technical components of the elevator shaft (105, 110, 115), and wherein the sensor data are transmitted to an external data processing system or to a Cloud platform in order to generate the digital 3D model of the elevator shaft (105, 110, 115).

9. Method according to claim 8, wherein automatically setting up a service request or service plan for maintenance of the elevator shaft (105, 110, 115), including the interior technical components of the elevator shaft (105, 110, 115), based on a comparison (445) between the generated 3D model and actual sensor data provided by the sensor system (130, 135).

10. Method according to any of claims 8 to 9, wherein the sensor system (130, 135) measures additional physical properties.

11. Method according to any of claims 8 to 10, wherein the sensor system (130, 135) measures from at least two different perspectives and/or measures sequentially while the elevator cabin (100) is moving along the elevator shaft (105, 110, 115).