At regular intervals, maintenance technicians must check the condition of the lifts and replace components if necessary. Indoor navigation can help the technician to quickly find the defective elevator and obtain all important status information.
AT A GLANCE
- 2D/3D building maps
- indoor navigation units to be maintained
- status information on the respective elevator
PROBLEM DEFINITION
Large train stations are often very confusing due to their complex building structure. Like any technical system, elevators must be maintained to ensure safety. Since special expertise is required to maintain elevators competently, external technicians must be hired to locate the units to be maintained.
SOLUTION
With the help of a mobile app, the maintenance technician can start a route guidance from his location. In addition to the elevators to be maintained, other POIs (e.g. escalators etc.) can also be selected as navigation destinations. Maintenance work can thus be coordinated better and faster. In addition, a special route guidance system is released for the non-operational technicians so that they do not have to go through any access control.
TECHNICAL IMPLEMENTATION
The position is determined via a network of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons distributed evenly throughout the building. Beacons are inexpensive and can be installed without much effort due to the self-sufficient power supply with batteries. They emit signals from which the app installed on the user’s smartphone calculates a position accurate to within 1-3 meters. The maintenance technician is guided to his destination via turn-by-turn navigation.
On the routes to and from the station, the technicians’ position is determined with the help of GPS. In the entrance areas of the station, three beacons are arranged around the doors in such a way that there is an immediate connection and navigation is available. Via a guidance system, the employee app shows an up-to-date overview of all lifts to be serviced and their status. The Beacon Management Tool from infsoft additionally facilitates the maintenance and monitoring of the radio transmitters. As an option, an interface to a third-party system can enable GPS-based outdoor navigation from any starting point.
Optionally, the collected data can also be sent to the infsoft LocAware platform® for further intelligent processing.
