[0001] The present invention relates to a method for electronic communication between a
mobile device and an elevator, an elevator and an elevator system.
[0002] Many elevators are connected via internet of things (IoT) technologies. When using
floating and dynamic IP-addresses, the current IP-address of an elevator or a component
is primarily unknown to other devices. In this case establishing an internet communication
between a mobile device and an elevator is a complicated and time-consuming process
that often requires downloading dedicated applications. This reduces the user-friendliness.
[0003] It is an object of the present invention to facilitate a fast and reliable establishment
of a communication between a mobile device and an elevator.
[0004] This object is solved by subject-matter according to the independent claims. Technically
beneficial embodiments are subject to the dependent claims, the description and the
drawings.
[0005] According to a first aspect this object is solved by a method for electronic communication
between a mobile device and an elevator, comprising the steps of optically scanning
a visual code comprising a fixed hardware address of the elevator by the mobile device;
transmitting the fixed hardware address from the mobile device to a network node;
determining an internet address of the elevator based on the fixed hardware address
by the network node; and communicating with the elevator based on the internet address.
This yields the technical advantage that a communication channel between the elevator
and the mobile device can be easily created, even when internet addresses are dynamically
assigned to the elevators. Communication between the elevator and the mobile device
can be either directly by using the determined internet address of the elevator within
the mobile device or indirectly by means of the network node acting as a proxy node
between the mobile device and the elevator.
[0006] This method simplifies the integration of elevators within an elevator environment
and brings them closer to the end-users without the need to enforce customer to install
any mobile application. The elevator can be controlled via a regular browser application.
[0007] In a technically advantageous embodiment of the method the internet address is transmitted
to the mobile device for sending requests from the mobile device to the internet address
of the elevator. This yields the technical advantage that a direct communication between
the elevator and the mobile device can be established.
[0008] In a further technically advantageous embodiment of the method requests from the
mobile device are received by the network node and the requests from the mobile device
are forwarded to the internet address of the elevator by the network node. This yields
the technical advantage that an indirect communication between the elevator and the
mobile device is established by which security is increased.
[0009] In a further technically advantageous embodiment of the method the network node acts
as a proxy node between the mobile device and the elevator. This also yields the technical
advantage that security is increased.
[0010] In a further technically advantageous embodiment of the method the fixed hardware
address is a MAC-address of the network interface of the elevator. This yields the
technical advantage that existing hardware addresses are used.
[0011] In a further technically advantageous embodiment of the method the visual code is
a QR-Code or a barcode. This yields the technical advantage that the code can be easily
read by existing applications.
[0012] In a further technically advantageous embodiment of the method the visual code is
located at the elevator. This yields the technical advantage that the corresponding
elevator can be accessed locally on the spot by scanning the visual code with the
mobile device without the need of installing additional communication interfaces,
i.e. Bluetooth/GUI. In addition, the technical advantage is achieved that the corresponding
QR code could be either displayed on existing elevator control GUI or simply physically
attached.
[0013] In a further technically advantageous embodiment of the method the visual code comprises
an internet address of the network node. This yields the technical advantage that
various and distinct network nodes can be used.
[0014] In a further technically advantageous embodiment of the method the network node or
the elevator provides a user interface for controlling the elevator. This yields the
technical advantage that the elevator can be controlled in a user-friendly manner.
[0015] According to a second aspect this object is solved by an elevator comprising a visual
code comprising a fixed hardware address of the elevator and/or a web-address of the
network node. This yields the same technical advantages as the method according to
the first aspect.
[0016] According to a third aspect this object is solved by an elevator system with an elevator
according to the second aspect, further comprising a network node for receiving a
fixed hardware address from a mobile device; and a determining means for determining
an internet address of the elevator based on the fixed hardware address. This yields
the same technical advantages as the method according to the first aspect.
[0017] In a technically advantageous embodiment of the elevator system the elevator system
comprises a communication means for communicating with the elevator based on the internet
address. This also yields the technical advantage that communication between the mobile
device and the elevator can be either directly or indirectly performed.
[0018] In a further technically advantageous embodiment of the elevator system the elevator
system comprises network node acting as a proxy node between the mobile device and
the elevator. This also yields the technical advantage that data security of the elevator
system is increased.
[0019] In a further technically advantageous embodiment of the elevator system the elevator
system comprises a user interface for controlling the elevator on the network node
or the elevator. This also yields the technical advantage that the elevator can be
controlled in a user-friendly manner.
[0020] In a further technically advantageous embodiment of the elevator system the visual
code is located at the elevator. This also yields the technical advantage that the
corresponding elevator can be accessed locally on the spot by scanning the visual
code with the mobile device.
[0021] Specific embodiments are shown in the figures and are explained in the following.
- Fig. 1
- shows schematic diagram of an elevator system;
- Fig. 2
- shows schematic diagram of a further elevator system; and
- Fig. 3
- shows a block diagram of a method for electronic communication between a mobile device
and an elevator.
[0022] Fig. 1 shows a schematic diagram of an elevator system 200 in a trusted network.
The elevator system 200 serves for controlling and operating an elevator 101 that
vertically moves people or goods between floors, levels or decks. Floors to move the
elevator 101 to can be manually selected by pressing a corresponding button of the
elevator system 200. The elevator 101 has an electronic network interface for electronic
two-way data communication that has a fixed hardware address. In addition, the elevator
can have a web-based user interface for controlling, monitoring or maintaining the
elevator 101. This user interface can be accessed via the network interface.
[0023] In a first step a visual code 103, e.g. a quick response code (QR-code), is optically
scanned by the camera of a mobile device 100. The mobile device 100 can be a mobile
phone or a tablet PC with a camera and a barcode or QR-code scanner application.
[0024] In the visual code 103 a fixed hardware address MAC1 of the elevator 101, e.g. a
media access control address (MAC-address) of a network interface, is integrated and
encoded that does not change over time. In addition, a web-address URL of a network
node 105, e.g. a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), is integrated within the visual code
103.
[0025] The mobile device 100 extracts the fixed hardware address MAC1 of the elevator 101
and the web-address URL of from network node 105 from the scanned visual code 103.
Because the visual code 103 encodes the entire URL of the network node 105 together
with GET parameters, i.e. MAC Address of the elevator 101, the scanner could leverage
default internet browser to open the link. A scanner application allows the link to
be opened with a default mobile internet browser. Depending on the scanner application,
the web-address URL can be opened within the internet browser either immediately after
scanning or allows the interacting user to decide on how to access the elevator 101.
A dedicated elevator application can be also integrated with the scanner application
to automatically takeover GET requests that consider a specific DNS domain.
[0026] In a second step the mobile device 100 sends a request for retrieving an internet
address (IP address) of the elevator 101 to the network node 105 that comprises the
fixed hardware address MAC1 of the elevator 101 obtained from optically scanning.
The network node 105 acts as a proxy node. The network node 105 is for example an
internet server running corresponding services. As an addition to the first step it
is possible to use the multicast Domain Name System (mDNS) in order to find the network
node 105 (IoT Proxy), if no public IoT Proxy DNS exists.
[0027] In a third step the network node 105 localizes the elevator 101 to be addressed based
on the received fixed hardware address MAC1. The network node 105 checks an IP-address
mapping with all elevator MAC-addresses, i.e. leveraging a local Address Resolution
Protocol (ARP) cache from within the same network and redirects the mobile device
100 (IoT Proxy client) to the elevator 101 (IoT device). The ARP cache is created
by the network node 105 using a short interval schedule that broadcasts short ICMP
requests to entire network (IoTProxy.IP-Address and IoTProxy.IP-Mask). The corresponding
mapping table serves as a determining means 111 for mapping various fixed hardware
addresses MAC1, ..., MAC4 to the respective internet addresses of the elevator 101.
[0028] As an alternative to the ICMP-based discovery, the internet address IP1 could be
retrieved for given MAC address via multicast Domain Name System (mDNS). This approach
requires elevators being introduced by their logical names equal to hardware MAC address.
[0029] In this scenario the network node 105 sends a mDNS message to several connected devices
101 within the network that comprises of the received fixed hardware address MAC1
of the elevator 101. Only the single elevator 101 that has the requested fixed hardware
address MAC1 of the visual code 103 responds to the mDNS message and transmits in
response its internet address IP1 to the network node 105.
[0030] In a fifth step the network node 105 redirects and transmits the received internet
address IP1 of the elevator 101 to the mobile device 100.
[0031] In a sixth step the mobile device 100 uses the received internet address IP1 to directly
connect and communicate with the elevator 101. The elevator 101 having the QR-code
with this fixed hardware address MAC1 responds to upcoming requests based on the determined
internet address IP1. Thus, a user can employ the web-based user interface of the
elevator 101 for controlling, monitoring or maintaining the elevator 101 via a regular
browser. Consequently, any mobile device 100 is able to get the associated internet
address IP1 of the elevator 101 and establish a communication to this elevator 101.
[0032] The user does not have to have TCP/IP knowledge, since the devices or elevators 101
can use a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) within the Broadcast Domain.
Further, there is no need of programming a dedicated mobile device application for
controlling the elevator 101. The user does not have to know where the elevator 101
is located, since he interacts with the visual code 103 only.
[0033] There is no need of complicated determining internet addresses IP1 of different elevators
101 on the network. Determining internet addresses IP1 of different elevators 101
can simply be performed by scanning the QR codes from the elevators to access their
web-based applications.
[0034] Fig. 2 shows a schematic diagram of a further elevator system 200 using a trusted
network 107 and an untrusted network 109. In this embodiment communication between
the mobile device 100 and the elevator 101 is performed solely via the network node
105 acting as a proxy. A direct communication between the mobile device 100 and the
elevator is not possible.
[0035] The user interface of the elevator 101 can be provided by the network node 105 that
can also translate provided information into an elevator specific format. Therefore,
the network node 105 can handle the end-to-end communication between the mobile device
100 and a legacy elevator 101 by providing an abstract user Web-frontend with a limited
functionality.
[0036] Thereby, the network node 105 can for example handle management of legacy devices
that communicate via outdated Modbus-TCP. For example, the network node 105 contacts
an old elevator controller that does not provide a dedicated web interface but exposes
a set of registers via Modbus-TCP. Based on the fixed hardware address MAC1 it also
can recognize hardware type and supported control registers. A web-frontend provided
by the network node 105 shows the configuration read from the elevator controller
and writes the preferred client settings back to the elevator controller.
[0037] The first to fourth step correspond to the steps discussed with respect to Fig. 1.
However, in the fifth step information from the elevator 101 is forwarded to the mobile
device 100 by the network node 105. The internet address IP1 of the elevator 101,
however, is not transmitted to the mobile device 100. In this way a direct communication
between the mobile device 100 and the elevator 101 is prevented. Instead, the mobile
device 100 and the elevator 101 communicate indirectly via the network node 105 acting
as a proxy node. The proxy node is an intermediary for requests from the mobile device
100 seeking resources from the elevator 101 and vice versa.
[0038] The network node 105 acting as a proxy and a mediator between the mobile device 100
and the elevator 101 reduces attack possibilities. The network node 105 can handle
such scenarios as a secure technician access to an elevator controller or to allow
an elevator request at a specific floor to go to a specific floor only using QR-code-encoded
GET requests. The network node 105 adds an additional security layer, where elevators
101 fail in implementing the relevant protection.
[0039] Fig. 3 shows a block diagram of a method for electronic communication between a mobile
device 100 and an elevator 101.
The method comprises the step S101 of optically scanning the visual code 103 by the
mobile device 100 that comprises and encodes the fixed hardware address MAC1 of the
elevator 101. The fixed hardware address MAC1 of the elevator 101 is decoded and extracted
by the mobile device 100 from the visual code 103.
[0040] In step S102 the extracted hardware address MAC1 from the mobile device 100 is transmitted
to the network node 105. This can be done via cellular phone network, a wireless local
area network WLAN or Bluetooth. In step S103 the internet address IP1 of the elevator
101 is determined based on the fixed hardware address MAC1 by the network node 105.
[0041] This can be done by a mapping table that maps various fixed hardware addresses MAC1,
..., MAC4 to the respective internet addresses. In step S104 a direct or indirect
communication with the elevator 101 based on the internet address IP1. Thereby, it
is possible to use the same identification by the visual code 103 to initiate privileged
connection of the mobile device 100 with the elevator 101 for the elevator technician.
The method can be applied to all electronic devices other than elevators 101.
[0042] All features discussed in the description or shown in the figures with respect to
particular embodiments of the invention can be provided in various combinations in
order to simultaneously realize the beneficial technical effects.
[0043] All method steps can be implemented by means that are adapted for carrying out the
corresponding method step. All functions carried out by a specific structural feature
can be a method step of a method.
[0044] The legal scope of protection of the present invention is defined by the claims and
is not reduced by features discussed in the description or shown in the figures.
REFERENCE SIGNS
[0045]
- 100
- mobile device
- 101
- elevator
- 103
- visual code
- 105
- network node
- 107
- trusted network
- 109
- untrusted network
- 111
- determining means
- 200
- elevator system
1. Method for electronic communication between a mobile device (100) and an elevator
(101), comprising the steps:
- optically (S101) scanning a visual code (103) comprising a fixed hardware address
(MAC1) of the elevator (101) by the mobile device (100);
- transmitting (S102) the fixed hardware address (MAC1) from the mobile device (100)
to a network node (105);
- determining (S103) an internet address (IP1) of the elevator (101) based on the
fixed hardware address (MAC1) by the network node (105); and
- communicating (S104) with the elevator (101) based on the internet address (IP1).
2. Method according to claim 1, wherein the internet address (IP1) is transmitted to
the mobile device (100) for sending requests from the mobile device (100) to the internet
address of the elevator (101).
3. Method according to claim 1, wherein requests from the mobile device (100) are received
by the network node (105) and the requests from the mobile device are forwarded to
the internet address of the elevator (101) by the network node (105).
4. Method according to claim 3, wherein the network node (105) acts as a proxy node between
the mobile device (100) and the elevator (101).
5. Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the fixed hardware address
is a MAC-address of the network interface of the elevator (101).
6. Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the visual code (103) is
a QR-Code or a barcode.
7. Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the visual code (103) is
located at the elevator (101).
8. Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the visual code (103) comprises
an internet address of the network node (105).
9. Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the network node (105) or
the elevator (101) provides a user interface for controlling the elevator.
10. Elevator (101) comprising a visual code (103) comprising a fixed hardware address
(MAC1) of the elevator (101) and/or a web-address of the network node.
11. Elevator system (200) with an elevator according to claim 10, further comprising:
- a network node (105) for receiving a fixed hardware address (MAC1) from a mobile
device (100); and
- a determining means (111) for determining an internet address (IP1) of the elevator
(101) based on the fixed hardware address (MAC1).
12. Elevator system (200) according to claim 11, wherein the elevator system (200) comprises
a communication means for communicating with the elevator (101) based on the internet
address (IP1).
13. Elevator system (200) according to claim 11 or 12, wherein the elevator system (200)
comprises network node (105) acting as a proxy node between the mobile device (100)
and the elevator (101).
14. Elevator system (200) according to one of the claims 11 to 13, wherein the elevator
system (200) comprises a user interface for controlling the elevator (101) on the
network node (105) or the elevator (101).
15. Elevator system (200) according to one of the claims 11 to 14, wherein the visual
code (103) is located at the elevator (101).