elevators 0.0.1

Software for operating elevators and running simulations

Elevator Library

This library provides developers with an Elevator class, that allows a physical elevator to receive orders and fulfill them. It has to:

1. Receive orders to pick up passengers (floor orders) and drop them off (internal orders). Orders can come also from the administrator of the elevators that could be received through a web server
2. Internally create and adapt a strategy to execute these orders
3. Communicate with the machinery to implement this strategy through motion (go up, go down, open the doors...)

It has to contend with those constraints:

• Acceleration and deceleration will be instant time to go from one floor to the next will take 3 seconds. In future versions these problems will be handled more accurately.
• Doors stay open for 5 seconds and take 1 second to close

Contexts

This class is meant to be used in two contexts:

• Concrete elevator: The embarked program that actually runs the physical elevator. The program's main() function will:
  1. Construct an Elevator instance based on configuration specifying the number of floors, the space between each floor, maximum acceptable acceleration force
  2. Start the instance's internal runtime by calling it's start() method in a background process or thread
  3. Transform signals observed from the different sensors buttons, elevator vertical position etc into requests sent to the Elevator instance.

from multiprocessing import Process
import multiprocessing as mp
import time
import random


def press_button(q, floors):
    """
    Simulates floor buttons being randomly pressed for illustration purposes
    """
    while True:
        time.sleep(random.randint(1, 20))
        q.put(random.randint(0, floors - 1))


def main():
    # Elevator that serves 5 floors, labelled from 0 to 4 — often 0 is referred
    # to as 'Ground Floor'
    floors = 5
    elevator = Elevator(floors)
    call_queue = mp.Queue()

    elevator_runtime = Process(target=elevator.start)
    exterior_control = Process(target=press_button, args=(call_queue, floors))

    while True:
        elevator.pick_up(call_queue.get())


if __name__ == main():
    main()

• Simulated elevators: To run a large scale simulations that scales up to many elevators, many buildings, passengers, machinery events. Many instances can be created and launched where these exterior elements will interact with them concurrently.

Elevator state

The elevator has several states:

• Moving/Stationary
• Vertical position:
  1. 1 for floor 1
  2. 1.5 when it is between floors 1 and 2
• Doors opened or closed
• Cargo weight

APIs

Passenger APIs

• pick_up(floor_number) the passenger calls this method (method call is interfaced by the floor elevator button) to ask the elevator to pick him or her up. Future versions will allow waiting passengers to select 'up' or 'down'.
• drop_off(floor_number) once the passenger is inside the elevator he selects uses this method ( through the internal control panel) to tell the elevator to take him to floor floor_number
• panic() when this method is called the elevator goes to the nearest floor below, sends a message to security and or police forces and opens the doors

Administrator APIs

• fire_alarm() the administrator uses this method to engage the fire safety protocol
• go_to_floor() the administrator calls this method to tell the elevator to go to a certain floor if it isn't busy. This can be useful for trying to optimize the elevator's waiting position through heuristics or machine learning for instance
• emergency_breaks() the administrator calls this method to protect passengers from a catastrophic free fall it calls gets called when the elevator is moving, and the weight cargo weight sensor reads zero indicating that the elevator isn't supporting its' own weight anymore

Parameters

Floors

The elevator has a number of floors. If the number of floors is 5, then the elevator goes from floor 0 (or ground floor) all the way to floor number 4

Maximum Weight

This has to be a required argument in the constructor: having a default could be tremendously dangerous if it was implemented carelessly

Minimum Weight

Weight of the elevator when empty, if the scale/weight sensor reads below this number, the elevator might be in free fall

Safety

Maximum Weight Check

Before closing the doors, the elevator has to check that the weight of it's cargo does not exceed it's safety limit. Specified during the instance's construction.

Fire Safety

If the fire alarm goes off:

• Stationary elevators should open their doors and no longer take instructions
• Moving elevators should go to the closest floor below, stop and open their doors

Panic Button

Meant to be hit by one of the passengers if he is being assaulted by another passenger, or is in danger for any other reason inside the elevator. It will:

1. Go to the nearest floor below
2. Open the doors and send a message to building security or police forces

These steps will be carried out silently so that the assailant isn't alerted

Breaks

Stationary State

When the elevator is stationary the breaks should be on. Especially when the doors are open: if passengers are getting in and out, and the cable snaps the result would be catastrophic

Free Fall

If the weight sensor goes below the minimum weight the elevator could be in free fall emergency breaks have to be on

Door Obstruction

The elevator has an obstruction sensor, if this sensor is activated doors have to open

Metrics

Elevators will produce logs reporting on their activity. These messages can then be sent to a monitoring service allowing for analytics and machine learning lower downstream