Modifying elevator group behavior utilizing complexity theory

摘要

The position and direction (0-27, FIG. 2) of each elevator car (A-D) in a group of cars is recorded along with time and traffic rate of the elevator group to provide a data stream. The canonic representation of the position and direction data is reduced, to eliminate symmetry (FIGS. 1, 3 and 4) resulting from the relative positions and directions of the cars being the same except for the identification of which car is at which position and direction. An entropy estimation algorithm is used to provide a plot of entropy as a function of time, which is then translated from the other data in the stream to entropy as a function of traffic rate (FIG. 5). A maximum traffic rate is chosen, and thereafter, during normal operation, if the current rate is higher than the maximum, an elevator group parameter is altered to increase the traffic-handling capability of the group, but if the current traffic rate is lower than the maximum, an elevator parameter is altered in a manner to decrease the traffic-handling capability of the group.