Dynamic fuzzy logic elevator group control system for energy optimization

High-rise buildings with a considerable number of elevators represent a major logistic problem concerning saving space and time due to economic reasons. For this reason, complex Elevator Group Control Systems are developed in order to manage the elevators properly. Furthermore, the subject of energy is acquiring more and more industrial relevance every day as far as sustainable development is concerned. In this paper, the first entirely dynamic Fuzzy Logic Elevator Group Control System to dispatch landing calls so as to minimize energy consumption, especially during interfloor traffic, is proposed. The fuzzy logic design described here constitutes not only an innovative solution that outperforms usual dispatchers but also an easy, cheap, feasible and reliable solution, which is possible to be implemented in real industry controllers

Vertical transportation in buildings

Nowadays, the building industry and its associated technologies are experiencing a period of rapid growth, which requires an equivalent growth regarding technologies in the field of vertical transportation. Therefore, the installation of synchronised elevator groups in modern buildings is a common practice in order to govern the dispatching, allocation and movement of the cars shaping the group. So, elevator control and management has become a major field of application for Artificial Intelligence approaches. Methodologies such as fuzzy logic, artificial neural networks, genetic algorithms, ant colonies, or multiagent systems are being successfully proposed in the scientific literature, and are being adopted by the leading elevator companies as elements that differentiate them from their competitors. In this sense, the most relevant companies are adopting strategies based on the protection of their discoveries and inventions as registered patents in different countries throughout the world. This paper presents a comprehensive state of the art of the most relevant recent patents on computer science applied to vertical transportationConsejería de Innovación, Ciencia y Empresa, Junta de Andalucía P07-TEP-02832, Spain

A brief review on vertical transportation research and open issue

Book of Proceedings of the International Joint Conference-CIO-ICIEOM-IIE-AIM (IJC 2016), "XX Congreso de Ingeniería de Organización", "XXII International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management, "International IISE Conference 2016, "International AIM Conference 2016". Donostia-San Sebastian (Spain), July 13-15, 2016Vertical transportation refers to the movements of people in buildings. High-rise buildings have emerged as a common construction nowadays. In such buildings, the vertical transportation is extremely difficult to manage, specially, when the people arrive at the same time at specific floors wanting to travel to other floors. To solve such situations, the installation of elevator group control systems (EGCS) is a usual practice. EGCS are used to manage multiple elevators in a building to efficiently transport passengers. EGCSs need to meet the demands by assigning an elevator to each landing call while optimizing several criteria. This paper reviews the most relevant contributions in vertical transportation industr

Hybrid of multi-car elevator system and double-deck elevator system

Multi-car elevator system is a new breakthrough in an elevator system in 2001. It has broken the traditional concept of developing only one elevator car in an elevator shaft. Multi-car elevator system can have more than one elevator car moving in an elevator shaft and it has improved a lot in minimizing the waiting time of passengers if compared with only one elevator car in an elevator shaft. The main advantage of multi-car elevator system is to reduce the construction cost where 30% of the core-tube area of the elevator system is made up of shaft. By developing multi-car elevator system, many of elevator shafts need not to be developed and it still can perform about the same efficiency in serving passengers. However, it is still not able to transport a large number of passengers efficiently if the passengers are calling from the same floor, especially during the up-peak traffic. For that reason, the feature of double-deck elevator system is integrated into multi-car elevator system to develop a new hybridized elevator system called “Hybrid of multi-car elevator system and double-deck elevator system” to solve the limited car capacity problem. The performance of both systems, the hybridized elevator system and the multi-car elevator system is simulated. The result shows that the average journey time of the hybridized elevator system is shorter than the multicar elevator system in all the three traffic modes, i.e. up-peak, down-peak and inter-floor traffics. For the up-peak traffic mode of the hybridized elevator system, it manages to achieve the best result of 33.5% shorter of the average journey time compared to the multi-car elevator system

A viral system algorithm to optimize the car dispatching in elevator group control systems of tall buildings

Nowadays is very common the presence of tall buildings in the business centres of the main cities of the world. Such buildings require the installation of numerous lifts that are coordinated and managed under a unique control system. Population working in the buildings follows a similar traffic pattern generating situations of traffic congestion. The problem arises when a passenger makes a hall call wishing to travel to another floor of the building. The dispatching of the most suitable car is the optimization problem we are tackling in this paper. We develop a viral system algorithm which is based on a bio-inspired virus infection analogy to deal with it. The viral system algorithm is compared to genetic algorithms, and tabu search approaches that have proven efficiency in the vertical transportation literature. The experiments undertaken in tall buildings from 10 to 24 floors, and several car configurations from 2 to 6 cars, provide valuable results and show how viral system outperforms such soft computing algorithms.Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación (España

A review of multi-car elevator system

This paper presents a review of a new generation of elevator system, the Multi-Car Elevator System. It is an elevator system which contains more than one elevator car in the elevator shaft. In the introduction, it explains why the Multi-Car Elevator System is a new trend elevator system based on its structural design, cost saving and efficiency in elevator system. Different types of Multi-Car Elevator System such as circulation or loop-type, non-circulation and bifurcate circulation are described in section 2. In section 3, researches on dispatch strategies, control strategies and avoidance of car collision strategies of Multi-Car Elevator System since 2002 are reviewed. In the discussion section, it reveals some drawbacks of the Multi-Car Elevator System in transport capability and the risk of car collision. There are recommendations to the future work as well

Comparing Elevator Strategies for a Parking Lot

In this paper, we compare elevator strategies for a parking garage. It is assumed that the parking garage has several floors and there is an elevator which can stop on each floor. We begin by considering 4 strategies detailed in page 23. For each strategy, we loop the program 100 times, and get 100 mean values for wait times. Welch\u27s test confirms highly significant differences among the 4 strategies. Repeating the analysis multiple times we see that the best of the 4 strategies is strategy 2, which places the elevator on floor 2 (the median floor) after use

Quality and quantity of service in lift groups

This research was focused on quality of service experienced by passengers in lift systems where multiple cars are sharing same shafts (multi car lift systems) and destination control. These modern lift systems have opportunities and constraints for control algorithms arising by existing and additional quality of service criteria. These additional criteria have rarely been considered in existing literature, control algorithms or traffic analysis. The overall aim of the research was to determine and analyse existing and new quality of service criteria for destination control systems and multi car lift systems in terms of traffic handling and developing lift control concepts considering these criteria. Therefore, the impact on passengers’ quality of service was reviewed using psychology of waiting principles. Detailed definition and analysis was done for reverse journeys in destination control systems and departure delays with a focus on multi car lift systems. To develop and analyse control algorithms known event based traffic simulation, round trip time calculation and Monte Carlo simulation were extended and applied. Traffic control algorithms and concepts were developed to improve passenger experience when using lifts. Additional to dispatching algorithms equations for improved lift kinematics and controlled stopping distances were derived to reduce departure delays in multi car lift systems. Possible improvements were shown in case studies. Compared to traditional lift systems, special opportunities and constraints of a circulating multi car lift system in traffic handling were explored and analysed. New cycle time calculations for shuttle and local group applications were developed. Results were provided using case studies, and necessary control concepts were addressed. With the results of this research, better understanding and assessments of multi car lift systems and destination controls are possible. The traffic control algorithms explored help to build better lift controllers, considering passengers perception. The introduced traffic analysis methods for circulating multi car lift systems support lift planning

Ridesharing in rail-freight transport and use of digital aggregator:prospects and difficulties – a developer’s perspective

The adoption of ridesharing principles, inspired by the Uber model, in road transport has presented a promising perspective for cost and time reduction. Particularly within the expanding urban transport networks, this concept has significantly enhanced passenger comfort. The implementation of an aggregator, a software program that gathers data from various sources and consolidates it based on user requirements or history, facilitates swift decision-making across different interfaces. This service model is employed in the context of rail-freight transport with ridesharing. The investigation aims to comprehend how an aggregator in rail-freight ridesharing can modernize freight operations, leading to cost and time savings and making the overall business model appealing to stakeholders