Applications for sensor fusion in vertical transportation

Abstract

The elevator industry is growing and evolving rapidly after a century and a half of relatively little change. Buildings are growing taller every day and the elevator industry is trying to keep pace with the height required to access the entire building. Buildings are also becoming more complex shapes as building techniques and materials improve and this can require multiple shafts, or an entirely new elevator design, to reach every floor. Elevators, in their current state, have limited sensor capabilities. For example, the cab has levelling sensors to ensure that the floor of the cab is even with the floor of the building and the door has a curtain of light sensors to prevent passengers from being impacted by the door. However, these sensors are rudimentary at best, don’t interact with each other, and provide little to no useful feedback for the company or the technicians. The industry needs to place sensors on every aspect of the elevator and multiple per subsystem. These sensors should feed data into a central hub that can combine values from across the systems, and even individual subsystems, to generate a holistic view of the overall health. Multiple sensor fusion methods are examined with uses related to maintenance and parameter estimation. This study takes results from previous internal Thyssenkrupp projects. The findings of this project will then be used in multiple existing and future projects.