Abstract:
A system enables a handicapped person to select a destination floor in an elevator using a single control and comprises a first mechanism to sequentially enumerate potential destination floors, a second mechanism enabling user selection of a desired destination floor by interacting with the single control when the desired destination floor is enumerated by the first mechanism, and a third mechanism to coupled a signal from the second mechanism to command the elevator to halt at the user-selected designation floor. The system may be disposed within and/or without the elevator.

Description:
RELATION TO PENDING APPLICATION  
       [0001]    Priority is claimed to co-pending U.S. provisional patent application serial No. 60/392,233 filed by applicant herein on 27 Jun. 2002 and entitled “Method and System to Select Elevator Floors Using a Single Control”. 
     
    
     
       FIELD OF THE INVENTION  
         [0002]    The present invention relates generally to systems that aid the handicapped, and more particularly to a system enabling handicapped persons to more easily make floor selections in a common elevator.  
         BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
         [0003]    Many handicapped people are challenged to accomplish everyday tasks that non-handicapped people take for granted, and systems and mechanisms are known in the art to help the handicapped. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,878,530 to Eccleston (1999) entitled “Remotely Controllable Automatic Door Operator . . . “provides a system to help the handicapped open and close room doors.  
           [0004]    Modern wheelchairs have improved mobility for many handicapped people. However after a wheelchair bound person has entered a public building, it can be very challenging for such persons to make elevator floor selections.  
           [0005]    For many wheelchair bound individuals, the control buttons for many elevators are located too far above floor level to be easily reached, thus making it difficult for such individuals to select a floor by pressing an elevator control button. Some wheelchair bound individuals may not have the use of their hands and consequently will control their wheelchair with a specialized system. Some such systems are controlled by positions of the handicapped person&#39;s head, or by a straw mechanisms through which the handicapped persons blows and sucks air.  
           [0006]    Even if the elevator control buttons are within reach, many handicapped individuals lack sufficient hand motor skills to press the desired button to select a floor. For example, a person, wheelchair bound or otherwise, with a severe hand palsy may lack to the ability to press a single small button that is one of many buttons on the elevator control panel. In practice, it is not uncommon for a wheelchair bound person to wait, often for an extended period of time, until a non-handicapped person can be asked to assist in pressing the elevator control button.  
           [0007]    In short, there is a need for a system to enable handicapped individuals, including wheelchair bound individuals, to more easily select floors for an elevator without assistance from others. Such system should be universally accessible and controllable by any wheelchair bound person as long as that person can control their wheelchair. Preferably such system should provide user selection of floors using a single control, which control should be actuatable by contact with a portion of a wheelchair and/or another object under the control of a user, including a portion of a user&#39;s body. Such system should provide universal access in that the handicapped person should not require special skills or equipment to make use of such system. Such system should provide for visual and/or audible choices for the floor selections that are available. Preferably such system should be useable from inside an elevator and/or from outside the elevator, e.g., adjacent the elevator entrance.  
           [0008]    The present invention provides such a system. 
       
    
    
     DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES  
       [0009]    [0009]FIG. 1 depicts a generic elevator with a control mechanism, mountable within an elevator and/or outside an elevator, according to one embodiment of the present invention; and  
         [0010]    [0010]FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the system shown in FIG. 1, according to the present invention.  
     
    
     DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS  
       [0011]    [0011]FIG. 1 depicts the interior of a conventional elevator  10  that has a control panel  20  of typically small and closely spaced buttons  30  that a passenger must press to select a destination floor. It will be appreciated that what is depicted in FIG. 1 might also be the exterior of a conventional elevator  10 , e.g., adjacent the entrance door to the elevator. With respect to control panel  20 , a given button  30  may be less than 1 inch 2  in area. However a wheelchair bound passenger  40  may not be able to reach any of buttons  30  as they are often placed at a height convenient for standing passengers and thus too high for seated persons. Many wheelchair bound passengers have limited use of their hands and must use their hands to control their wheelchairs, and thus cannot activate tiny elevator buttons even if the buttons were within reach. Also, even a non-wheelchair bound passenger who suffers from hand palsy or other hand motor skill deficit may find it difficult to press one button  30  from the group of buttons on panel  20 .  
         [0012]    In general, when a passenger selects a floor by pressing a button  30 , control electrons  50  associated with elevator  10  causes the elevator to stop at floors so selected. Further, control electronics  50  can illuminate selected buttons  30  or present another display to confirm floor numbers that have been selected by passengers.  
         [0013]    In FIG. 1, elevator  10  is shown equipped with a system  100  according to the present invention. Again it is noted that system  100  may be disposed within the elevator and/or external to the elevator, e.g., adjacent the entrance door to the elevator. System  100  includes a display  110  that preferably continually sequentially shows the floors at which elevator  10  can stop, for example “1”, then “2”, then “3”, etc., then repeating, preferably from highest floor to lowest floor. For elevators that service a great many floors, perhaps more than  20 , display  110  can first sequence the tens digits, e.g., “0”, “1”, “2” and then sequence the units digits, e.g., “0”, “1”, “2”, . . . “9”.  
         [0014]    The continuous sequential display  110  of available floors preferably occurs under control of electronics  120  associated with system  100 . In addition to visually signaling potential floor selections, electronics  120  can via speaker  130  also (or instead) acoustically generate acoustic signals  140  announcing potential floor selections. In this regard, electronics  110  can include a voice synthesizer  150  (see FIG. 2) or the like to annunciate the sequence of floor selection numbers. Understandably the annunciated floor selection signals  140  may be annoying to other passengers, whereas the electronically displayed signals  110  are silent. As noted below, annunciated signals can be deferred until system  100  actually detects the presence of a person requiring system  100 , for example by briefly contacting touch control  180 , which is described below.  
         [0015]    At the risk of making system  100  somewhat less universal, if desired electronics  120  could include a low power wireless transmitter  160  that could broadcast the annunciated floor selection signals to a receiver  170  close to the handicapped person&#39;s ear. In such embodiment, speaker  130  can be omitted as the annunciated signals would be generated by receiver  170  such that only a person very close to the receiver would hear the spoken signals. Transmitter  160  could be a low power RF transmitter perhaps operating at a frequency within the receiving frequency range of an ordinary transistor receiver  170 , e.g., perhaps 1600 KHz. Alternatively, transmitter  160  could be an IR unit, a sub-sonic transmitter, a super-sonic transmitter, in which case receiver  170  would be selected to receive such transmissions.  
         [0016]    System  100  includes a preferably large touch control  180  that preferably is sized and positioned for easy contact by a portion of a handicapped passenger&#39;s wheelchair. Of course touch control  180  may also be contacted by a portion of a handicapped person&#39;s body, e.g., a hand, an elbow, etc.. In a preferred embodiment, when touch control  180  is contacted, the currently displayed or annunciated floor selection is “frozen” within electronics  120 , thus indicating a desired floor selection. If multiple digits are sequenced, e.g., “tens”, “units”, the remaining digit will now sequence to be frozen when panel  180  is again contacted. Once digit(s) selection occurs, electronics  140 , which also can control the sequential display  110 , couples the floor selection electronically to elevator control electronics  50 , which will cause elevator  10  to stop at the selected floor.  
         [0017]    Touch control  180  may be 24″ in height and perhaps 6″ in width, a total area of perhaps 144 inch 2 , which area makes the touch control an easy “target” for a wheelchair. Clearly such a large touch control is easier for a handicapped person to interface with than a tiny, often inaccessibly high elevator button  30 . Of course other dimensions may be used for touch control  180 , however the suggested dimensions enable the control to be readily contacted by a portion of a wheelchair. Although more than one touch control  180  may be disposed within (and/or adjacent an external portion of) elevator  10 , the placement of too many controls  180  increase the likelihood of inadvertent floor selection by an elevator passenger simply bumping into the control.  
         [0018]    Touch control  180  may be implemented in various ways, for example by coupling to a mechanical switch. Without limitation, touch control  180  may instead include a piezo-electric region that senses pressure, and/or may include a capacitive region that responds to physical proximity of an object, e.g., a contacting wheelchair portion, a portion of a user&#39;s body, etc.  
         [0019]    As noted, system  100  typically will be installed within an elevator, but may also (or even instead) be installed externally to the elevator, for example adjacent the elevator door. From the standpoint of the owner of the building in which the elevator is located, it is less expensive to install a single system  100  within an elevator than to install a separate system  100  at each floor in the building at which the elevator stops.  
         [0020]    [0020]FIG. 2 is a simplified block diagram of system  100  and will be self-explanatory in view of the above description. Although system  100  can be implemented primarily electronically, one could instead provide the sequential listing of potential destination floors mechanically. For example a large disk, perhaps  15 ″ diameter, could have floor numbers printed near the outer periphery, with one number visible at a time through a viewing window, perhaps similar to that shown for display  110  in FIG. 1. The disk could be made to rotate mechanically until a user-selection is detected via control  180 , at which time the number currently viewable would be communicated to the elevator control system  50 . If desired, regions of the disk could be encoded such that for each number there is a unique encoding pattern of holes, perhaps BCD encoding, not visible to passengers. However the hole pattern corresponding to the numbers displayed when the user-selection is detected could be detected, e.g., with a photo-diode and photo-detector, and thus signaled to the elevator control system  50 .  
         [0021]    In summary, the present invention can provide universal access for wheelchair bound persons to select a destination floor in an elevator without use of the hand. The invention need not require special skills by the handicapped (or other) passenger, and in the broadest sense does not require that the handicapped passenger carry special equipment to work with the present invention.  
         [0022]    Modifications and variations may be made to the disclosed embodiments without departing from the subject and spirit of the invention as defined by the following claims.