ELEVATOR CONTROL BY ANDROID APPLICATION

Emina Junuz, Denis Music, Mirza Smajic, Ilhan Karic

1
Faculty of information technologies, “Dzemal Bijedic” University in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina
{emina, denis}@fit.ba, {mirza.smajic, ilhan.karic}@edu.fit.ba

Keywords: elevator, android application, elevator priority call, voice recognition.

Abstract: This paper presents android application for the elevator control. We will analyze the ways of
elevator calls: regular call, priority call and voice call, as well as interface as a link between smartphones and
elevator control panel. Furthermore, we will show the design of the application which stimulates control panel
for the elevator call and interface which will receive signals, process them and send them to the main elevator
control panel.

1 INTRODUCTION final stopping, centering the elevator on the exit and

the floor determination, it is obviously a complex
process and proportionally to this fact the process
Nowadays, almost every smartphone owner tried to
becomes more complex with increasing the number
take control over the processes or devices using their
of floors. The control panel of this type of the
smartphones. If such a control is implemented on the
elevator has PLC (Programmable Logic Controller)
elevator, it can shorten the waiting time, make voice
which must have the same number of digital inputs
elevator calls when your hands are busy and “make
as floors, additional digital inputs for sensors and
the elevator reservation” at certain time. In some
safety systems. A simple example of the logic that is
institutions, such as hospitals, we could implement
written in the PLC is shown in Figure 1, which is
this interface especially in emergency cases where
directly related to the sequence of sensor readings on
even a little delay in the movement can lead to fatal
a given floor.
consequences for the patient’s life. With this type of
interface we can save time of waiting for the
elevator in a way that it will be set in the doctor’s Chosen
private mode which will ensure that the elevator will floor N
be on the right floor at the right time and that it will
wait for the approval for its further movement.
Furthermore, in luxury hotels “the elevator
reservation” at certain time could become very
interesting from the aspect of the customer service. YES
If we take into account that this interface can operate Floor
the elevator, then for sure it can be used to control N
and operate other processes and devices. According
to this, with the single application we could control
the whole building, house or factory. Pre-stopping
NO
Centering the exit
2 ELEVATOR CONTROL
Final stopping
Observing the elevator functionality as a process, the
elevator control and operation do not seem
complicated. However, the logic of the elevator is
simple, but its complexity depends on how many Figure 1: The sequence of sensor readings
floors the building has. Taking into account that
every floor must have minimum of four sensors, As mentioned above, the control panel works with
which functions are pre-stopping (soft stopping), digital inputs and outputs, although some signals are
2 Chapter Error! No text of specified style in document.

received as analogue, it coverts them to digital by

doing galvanic isolation with the help of the relay.
The buttons for the call placed inside and outside of Listening of the
the elevator work on the same principles, they are TCP server
connected to the same input control panel. Taking
into account this fact and given that the electronic
circuits are galvanically separated, we can come into
conclusion that the number of call buttons for one
floor is unlimited and that the way in which the N
O TCP
electronic circuit is closed will not affect the
==
operation of the system.
active

3 ELEVATOR CONTROL BY Y
ANDROID APPLICATION ES
FLOOR = received
character
Guided by everything that was said above, it can be
concluded that the control with the android
application would indeed be possible with the
interface whose outputs are connected in parallel to Output
the inputs of call buttons. Function of such interface microcontroller equal
would be to stimulate the signals which the elevator tovariable value FLOOR
control panel gets at its inputs. It also requires the
network structure for the communication between
the smartphone and the controller.
Figure 2: Interface logic
The microcontroller needs to have as much outputs
4 EXAMPLE SOLUTION TO THE as the control panel input buttons. Furthermore, the
PROBLEM microcontroller outputs are connected in parallel to
the control panel inputs. For example, the output for
the first floor with the microcontroller connects in
Interface, network structure and application are parallel to the existing call button for the first floor.
required for the elevator control through the android Scheme of the connection is shown in Figure 3. It is
application. necessary to make an exit with a microcontroller that
IV.I Interface– is consisted of Ethernet female will be connected in parallel to the control panel
connector and the microcontroller (PIC, AVR, switch in the elevator, which has a role to stop the
Arduino system). The interface function is divided elevator (this is necessary in case of the priority
into two parts. The role of the first part is to be a call).
TCP server and the second one to process the The elevator call
received data and send it to the control panel. TCP buttons
server can be made by placing a TCP / IP stack in
the microcontroller, setting the IP address and port Interface
The
and constantly listening if the information is elevator
received via the network.If the data is received, it is control panel
stored in the variable, and based on it the floor is Floor 1
determined, the feedback that the order is executed Floor 2
is received and the signal is sent to the control panel Floor 3
(Figure 2).

Figure 3: Scheme of the interface connection to the

elevator control panel
IV.II Network structure – should be done in a way
that each floor has its own access point whose SSID
will be a number of the floor where it is (e.g. 1 st
floor should be labeled as “1”) and all of them are
Error! No text of specified style in document.. Authors’ Instructions 3

connected to the router where it joins the interface

with the help of UTP cable. It will function by
making the wireless on smartphone automatically to
choose a wireless network with the strongest signal Choosing the floor
and in the case of the call with the application as button or voice
floor number the SSID will be sent, i.e. the floor
number where the caller is located.
IV.III Android application – should be created in a Sending the call for the
way that it can perform three types of calls: regular choosen floor
call, priority call and voice call. Furthermore, it must Prior
send everything to IP address and TCP server port ity ==
located in the interface. With the regular call, the active
N
application should have a button which would be
O
named "Call the elevator", and when the button is
pressed it takes the SSID name from the access point
to which the smartphone wireless connection is D
connected and forwards it to the interface, which A to
Sending requests
will process the information and call the elevator. interface for priority
Taking into consideration the priority call, it is
immediately thought of the users with privileges. Sending the call for the
They would be received the generated code by the chosen floor and session
operator to enter it in the application in order to activation
unlock the priority mode. Function of the priority
mode is that the user can call the elevator to wait for
him/her locked for the other users until the
command is sent with the same application on which
floor he/she wants to go or until the session time
expires. In this mode interface must have its own Sess N
internal protocol because programs are executed ion == O
sequentially in the microcontroller, the user will be active
assigned with the ID when enters the priority mode
and only the user with this ID will be able to operate
it. The phrase ‘elevator lock’ refers to the following:
if we make the priority elevator call, the interface Y
will send a signal to the control panel to turn on the ES
Choosing the floor
option “STOP” (this option is available in elevators when entering the elevator
– when they operate on regular basis and it can be
turned on by anyone even without the application)
and it will be turned off automatically when the user
chooses the floor or in case of the expired session. Figure 4: The logic of the application
When the user makes the elevator call marked with
priority and button “Call the elevator”, on the mobile
phone display should appear the keyboard with
numbers as much as the building has floors and upon
entering the elevator the user should click on the
5 CONCLUSIONS
floor he wants to go.
If we want to make a voice elevator call we In the previous research it can be seen that we could
need another TCP server which can be crated on the shorten the elevator waiting time by making a call
computer as a program and which would have the while moving towards it. Another important fact is
main role to filter the words such as “first” etc. The that it is possible to implement such an interface to
server will change back these words to “1” so that an existing elevator control panel without any
the application forwards that number to the interface additional investments, changes or affecting the
as a call. operation of the elevator control system itself.

6 REFERENCES
4 Chapter Error! No text of specified style in document.

1. http://www.elevatorcontrols.com/ (datum
pristupa: 10.2.2016.)

2. Yong-Hui Lee, Hyun-Gi Kim, "A Study on

Combined wire-wireless Service System
for Emergency Warning Call", Korea
Information Processing Society Spring
Conference, Vol.17, No.1, 2010