Patents Examined by Robert Nappi
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Patent number: 5774349Abstract: A high-voltage generator for high d.c. voltages, particularly for feeding an x-ray tube has secondary windings applied by a printed technique on printed circuit boards that are held at a common printed circuit board, and which are interconnected thereto in printed technique with components for producing the high-voltage.Type: GrantFiled: September 26, 1996Date of Patent: June 30, 1998Assignee: Siemens AktiengesellschaftInventors: Peter Tichy, Gerhard Nagengast, Norbert Wackerbauer, Richard Eichhorn, Udo Jansohn
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Patent number: 5773772Abstract: A plurality of express shuttle elevators S1-S4 exchange elevator cabs at a transfer floor 26 with local elevators L1-L10 by means of a carriage 107, the casters of which 93 are guided by tracks 70-83. The transfer floor has linear induction motor (LIM) primary segments 60-67 disposed on the transfer floor; the carriage has a LIM secondary 128 thereon for propulsion. The carriages can be locked 91, 92 to the transfer floor for loading, and cabs can be locked 131 onto the carriages for stability when being moved. A controller (FIGS. 10-13) keeps track of the progress of the cabs from one elevator to another.Type: GrantFiled: June 19, 1996Date of Patent: June 30, 1998Assignee: Otis Elevator CompanyInventors: Richard C. McCarthy, Joseph Bittar, Frederick H. Barker, Bruce A. Powell, Samuel C. Wan, Paul Bennett, Anthony Cooney, John K. Salmon, deceased
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Patent number: 5773771Abstract: Apparatus for restricting motion of an elevator car includes bars or other stiff, elongated members, which are extended outwardly from opposing ends of the elevator car, when the car is positioned in a specified zone of vertical displacement, above the lower edge thereof The displacement zone may be on the order of twelve inches. An elevator control, such as an inspection bank mounted on top of the elevator car, is then operated to move the elevator car slightly downward, to the lower edge of the displacement zone, whereupon the elongated members are brought into solid contact with respective complementary supporting members, joined to opposing elevator guide rails. As the elongated members are extended, a switching arrangement, electrically coupled to the control, is simultaneously actuated to prevent movement of the elevator car above the displacement zone while the elongated members are in their extended mode.Type: GrantFiled: July 30, 1996Date of Patent: June 30, 1998Inventor: Charles Chatham
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Patent number: 5767461Abstract: An elevator group supervisory control system for selecting the most suitable car among a plurality of elevators, when a hall call is made, to assign to the hall call, comprising: temporary assigning means for temporarily assigning the car by a conventional method such as a fuzzy group supervisory control based on group data representing states of the elevator system at the moment when a new hall call is made; and a neural net for receiving numerical values converted from group data including the result of judgment of the temporary assigning means and outputting an assignment fitness of each elevator. It decides the most suitable elevator from the output pattern of the neural net to assign to the hall call.Type: GrantFiled: December 22, 1995Date of Patent: June 16, 1998Assignee: Fujitec Co., Ltd.Inventors: Masami Nakagawa, Kenji Sasaki, Sandor Markon, Ichiro Nagashima, Takeshi Midoritani, Tomoaki Tanabe, Naoki Ohta
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Patent number: 5765664Abstract: An elevator drive fault detector for detecting operational faults in an elevator drive having an inverter and only one circuit breaker includes a current sensor, a monitoring device, a control device and an operational control system. The current sensor provides a current sensor signal. The monitoring device determines if an operational fault exists in response to the current sensor signal and provides an operational signal. The monitoring device disables the operational signal if the monitoring device determines that an operational fault exists or if the elevator drive fault detector performs a system check operation. The operational control system provides both the run command and an operational check signal and is responsive to the operational signal such that if the operational signal is disabled then the operational control system opens the one circuit breaker and disables the run command such that the control device disables a PWM signal.Type: GrantFiled: January 30, 1997Date of Patent: June 16, 1998Assignee: Otis Elevator CompanyInventors: Peter Herkel, Gunter Blechschmidt, Wolfgang Zemke
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Patent number: 5767460Abstract: A group controller for controlling elevator cars in a building having a plurality of floors includes an elevator dispatcher for controlling the operation of the elevator cars during single source traffic conditions, the elevator dispatcher having a constraint for limiting car assignments in response to the constraint; and an adaptive contraint generator for modifying a value of the constraint in response to an elevator control system output variable.Type: GrantFiled: November 30, 1995Date of Patent: June 16, 1998Assignee: Otis Elevator CompanyInventor: Kandasamy Thangavelu
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Patent number: 5765663Abstract: Methods and apparatus are provided which can reduce life cycle costs associated with wear on active horizontal suspension actuators for elevators and also reduce cost of such actuators. The method includes discriminating lateral movement of elevator due to car loading imbalance from that of movement due to building sway and operating the actuators only in the case of lateral movement due to car loading imbalance. The discriminating may comprise the steps of detecting a car position outside a deadband, and allowing changes in the actuators to counter the forces causing such positional changes only if the car position stays outside the deadband for more than a predetermined time, e.g., more than half the predetermined period of building sway, which is an architectural constant for a particular building.Type: GrantFiled: November 4, 1996Date of Patent: June 16, 1998Assignee: Otis Elevator CompanyInventors: Eric K. Jamieson, Daniel S. Williams
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Patent number: 5767462Abstract: A group controller for controlling elevator cars in a building having a plurality of floors includes a traffic and traffic rate estimator for providing fuzzy estimates of traffic and traffic rate; an open loop fuzzy logic controller for providing a control parameter in response to the fuzzy estimates of traffic and traffic rate; and an elevator dispatcher for controlling the operation of the elevator cars during single source traffic conditions in response to the control parameter.Type: GrantFiled: November 30, 1995Date of Patent: June 16, 1998Assignee: Otis Elevator CompanyInventor: Kandasamy Thangavelu
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Patent number: 5760350Abstract: An apparatus and method for providing an elevator door performance result of an elevator door in an elevator door system which normally operates sequentially from state-to-state in a closed loop sequential chain of normal operating states is disclosed. A plurality of parameter signals provided by the elevator door system is monitored by the apparatus. The apparatus comprises: a door state sequencer for providing a performance measure; a module for providing a reference measure and an acceptable range; and an abnormal detection module for analyzing the door performance measure.Type: GrantFiled: October 25, 1996Date of Patent: June 2, 1998Assignee: Otis Elevator CompanyInventors: Ronald R. Pepin, Robert Mashiak, Sanjay Kamani, Patrick Lusaka, Jean-Marie Rennetaud
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Patent number: 5756946Abstract: A linear induction motor for opening and closing elevator car doors in an elevator system includes a motor primary fixedly attached to a door hanger and a motor secondary flexibly mounted to a header bracket of the elevator car. A pair of swivel joints secure the ends of the motor secondary to the header bracket. The swivel joints compensate for misalignment and twisting of the elevator car doors by allowing multi-dimensional movement of the motor secondary relative to the header bracket.Type: GrantFiled: November 7, 1996Date of Patent: May 26, 1998Assignee: Otis Elevator CompanyInventors: Michael J. Tracey, James A. Rivera
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Patent number: 5756951Abstract: An arc chute for a circuit-breaker has a chute member with arc splitters and an end member that seals off the chute member to the top. The end member has three barriers for arc gases, the first and the second barrier have webs with a more or less square cross-sectional shape which are arranged in double the pitch of the arc splitters. Situated above the second barrier is a cooling chamber, which is sealed off to the outside by the third barrier that is provided with outlet orifices.Type: GrantFiled: September 23, 1996Date of Patent: May 26, 1998Assignee: Siemens AktiengesellschaftInventors: Karl-Heinz Manthe, Martin Bottcher, Gunter Seidler-Stahl
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Patent number: 5754045Abstract: A semiconductor switching circuit using semiconductor devices includes steep front wave thyristors which are connected in parallel and inverse with each other in their forward directions. An inductor is connected in series between a power source and the semiconductor switching circuit. The semiconductor switching circuit has an instant disconnection time of 100 to 1000 microseconds.Type: GrantFiled: September 5, 1997Date of Patent: May 19, 1998Assignees: The Kansai Electric Power Co., Inc., Kansai Tech CorporationInventor: Takemitsu Higuchi
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Patent number: 5754414Abstract: A self-compensating high voltage switched power converter monitors the variations in real time of the resonant frequency of the converter, and controls a switching transistor of the converter to establish an operating frequency which corresponds to the resonant frequency. The collector voltage of the switching transistor is monitored, and the transistor is switched only when the collector voltage is decreasing toward a minimum value and is below a predetermined reference level. This enables the power converter to operate at a high frequency, which affords small size, light weight, and high efficiency.Type: GrantFiled: February 23, 1996Date of Patent: May 19, 1998Inventor: Gary J. Hanington
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Patent number: 5750946Abstract: A system including a group controller for controlling the dispatching of elevator cars in a building. The group controller operates by using control parameters stored in its memory. The system records car loads of cars leaving the lobby and the time intervals between their departures and uses fuzzy logic to categorize the car loads and intervals into fuzzy sets. The system determines the lobby traffic and traffic rate using fuzzy relations among car loads, departure intervals, lobby traffic and traffic rate and the fuzzy logic rules. The group controller collects traffic data during operation. The system runs simulations off-line, after single source traffic periods, using the specified control parameter values. The system collects and analyzes performance data to identify significant deviations from acceptable performances. New sets of control parameters are selected using appropriate specified rules.Type: GrantFiled: November 30, 1995Date of Patent: May 12, 1998Assignee: Otis Elevator CompanyInventor: Kandasamy Thangavelu
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Patent number: 5749443Abstract: A security system for an elevator is disclosed that secures access to a landing by having the resident use a transmitter identifying the secured landing. In a building having a plurality of secured landings, the transmitter provides access to only one of the secured landings by emitting a signal that identifies only that secured landing. The emitted signal is received by a receiver and sent to a controller of the elevator system. In a particular embodiment, the elevator system includes a plurality of common landings and a plurality of private landings. Each transmitter provides access to all the common landings and only the particular private landing that corresponds to that transmitter.Type: GrantFiled: May 12, 1995Date of Patent: May 12, 1998Assignee: Otis Elevator CompanyInventor: Ulisses G. Romao
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Patent number: 5750945Abstract: An elevator motion control system compares a dictated flight path signal (101), indicative of a desired elevator flight path along a nominal flight trajectory, with a measured flight path signal (108), indicative of actual elevator motion, and provides a motion command signal (115) to both a high pass filter (117) and a low pass filter (116) such that the frequency of the motion command signal is split into high and low frequency components (141,118). An active elevator hitch (36) is used to implement the high frequency/low stroke portion of the motion command signal while the elevator motor (28) is used to implement the low frequency/high stroke portion of the motion command signal.Type: GrantFiled: June 3, 1996Date of Patent: May 12, 1998Assignee: Otis Elevator CompanyInventors: James W. Fuller, Randall K. Roberts
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Patent number: 5747755Abstract: An elevator car position compensator includes a compensated position signal generator which, via a closed-loop feed-back arrangement, adjusts a true position signal by using a signal related to dynamic slip and stretch of the hoist ropes.Type: GrantFiled: December 22, 1995Date of Patent: May 5, 1998Assignee: Otis Elevator CompanyInventors: Steven D. Coste, Jeff Izard
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Patent number: 5739669Abstract: The device 1 for the management of a plurality electric battery elements 2 connected in series, comprises a plurality of battery management modules 4, each management module being connected in parallel to the terminals of a respective battery element 2 and supplied by its output voltage, the management modules 4 including a digital circuit 11 and being connected in series by at least a digital liaison 9, 9' so as to exchange binary information between said digital circuit 11 and a control unit 5 of the battery, and is characterized in that at least a capacitor 8, 8' is connected in series on said digital liaison 9, 9' so that the binary information may be exchanged between each management module 4 and the unit control 5, independently of the electric potentials at the terminals of the battery elements 2.Type: GrantFiled: September 30, 1996Date of Patent: April 14, 1998Assignee: EM Microelectronic-Marin SAInventors: Marcel Brulhardt, Christian Terrier
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Patent number: 5736693Abstract: A linear induction motor utilizes a double-sided primary and a dual secondary to directly drive an elevator car door open and closed. The invention has the advantage of being compact: all magnetic-attractive loads are confined to a primary mount bracket, and all thrust loads are carried directly by the car header, not transferred to the cab. Also, high thrusts can be developed from a small space, i.e., short net working coil area, due to the double-sided primary winding and dual secondary arrangement. The configuration is basically simple, with a low moving mass and easy-to-fabricate parts, the primary core being particularly easily wound.Type: GrantFiled: September 25, 1995Date of Patent: April 7, 1998Assignee: Otis Elevator CompanyInventors: Zbigniew Piech, Jerome F. Jaminet, Thomas M. Kowalczyk, Edward E. Ahigian, Richard E. Kulak, Thomas M. McHugh, Thomas He, Richard E. Peruggi, David W. Barrett
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Patent number: 5736694Abstract: A system for regional and local supervision and monitoring of elevator equipment, that includes a modular system containing a service center set of equipment and an on-site set of equipment connected to at least one building. Communication between these sets of equipment is implemented using a remote communication link. A connection from an elevator car to a service center and from a service center to an elevator car is provided through the on-site equipment. A connection between an elevator car and a preselected service point can be established by the on-site equipment.Type: GrantFiled: August 16, 1995Date of Patent: April 7, 1998Assignee: Kone OyInventor: Seppo Ketoviita