Patent ID: 6029104
Filing Date: 2000-02-22
Classification: B61L

Abstract:
A position recognition apparatus for a personal rapid transit, system including a vehicle guideway (10), for aerial-installation at railways in urban areas, and small vehicles (80) for traveling along the vehicle guideway (10) at a time interval of as short as 0.5 seconds between vehicles to provide respective small units of passengers with rapid transit, the guideway comprising two sides and further comprising control ducts attached to both said sides of the guideway, comprising:position designation means, comprising bar code members (50a & 50b) comprising strips arranged in a continuous band configuration on which bar-codes (50) are printed by engravement, wherein said bar-code members (50a & 50b) are attached to the control ducts (21a & 21b) attached to both said sides of said guideway (10) to be displayed towards said vehicles (80), for designating sections and respective corresponding positions of said guideway (10) as at least one member of the group consisting of figures and letters, to designate passage positions where said vehicles (80) travel along said guideway (10);control means (70);position recognition means, comprising bar code scanners (60a and 60b) installed on said vehicles (80) to be opposite to said position designation means, for reading out and recognizing a current position of said vehicles (80) from bar codes of said position designation means, and transmitting recognized position signals of said vehicles (80) to said control means (70); andsaid control means (70), disposed adjacent to said position recognition means, for receiving the position signal supplied from said position recognition means of said vehicles (80), and controlling travelling speed of said vehicles (80) and time intervals between vehicles on the guideway (10).