Researchers in the US have developed an elevator software that will allow the dumb machines to act intelligently and decide where they have to go and how soon
HOW many times have you waited for an
elevator to make that blessed halt at
where you are and found it too
crammed even for a fly? Well, if Bruce
Powell, a researcher at the Otis Elevators
Inc has his way, those long, irritating
waits for an elevator may finally end.
Powell, a software engineer, works
in the research and development wing at
the headquarters of the world's largest
elevator company at Farmington,
Connecticut, the US.
The average elevator of today is
pretty dumb, responding to calls at random. It can neither analyse traffic patterns nor figure out where to stop first
when called simultaneously to several
floors. Elevator A, say, is on the fourth
floor, nearly empty and rising. Elevator
B, quite packed, is on the eighth floor
and rising. A few passengers are waiting
on the 10th floor. Conventionally,
elevator B, being nearer would respond
to the call and some of the passengers
won't be able to squeeze in, though
the best decision would have been to
dispatch elevator A. Powell and his
colleagues are using the so called 'fuzzy
logic' to assign priorities to factors
as how close an elevator is to the
caller vis-a-vis how crowded it is.
Also, the researchers are hoping to
build a 'memory' software for the
elevator.
It would then recognise a rush-hour
(say, the lunch period, when more
crowds head towards the cafeteria at
a certain floor) and automatically an
elevator, whenever free, would be
dispatched to that particular floor.
Moreover, incorporated with the fuzzy-logic software, the elevator would soon
recognise the traffic pattern on a pleasant day when office-goers would rather
go out and eat. The fuzzy logic software
module is based on the science of neural
network - a sophisticated computer
system modelled roughly on the wiring
and functions of the human brain.
Powell is also researching over more
futuristic fixes: like installing scanners
with memory in an elevator. The elevator would then 'recognise' the regular
users and 'memorise' where they get
down, and stop accordingly.
Otis researchers sit hunchbacked
over their computers in a 28-storey test
tower to analyse a test elevator's speed,
acceleration and retardation, possible
electromagnetic interferences from the
antennae of the building and other
computers. Powell's ideas have met
with initial success in the 48-storey
TransAmerica Building in San Francisco, California, where the average
Iwaiting time' for elevators at certain
busy floors have been cut down to 21
seconds from 48 seconds.
His team is also working on a project to develop elevators that glide sideways to move out of the way of another
'busier' elevator. An office building
would, then, have a single 'hoistway'
and several elevators can be stacked one
on top of the otber. This would save the
trouble of building an individual chute
for every elevator. The 'hoistway' would
have bifurcations sideways - and the
elevator would glide either on rails or be
cushioned by magnetic suspension.
"Technically it's very possible," asserts
Powell, "...and economical too".
Conventional elevators are supported
by heavy steel cables that raise and
lower the cab. They must be eliminated
for an elevator capable of moving laterally. Toward that aim, Otis researchers
have developed a prototype electric
'linear motor' along a single track,
raising and lowering the cab without
the cables.
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