EP0314837A1

EP0314837A1 - Multistorey automatic garage for motor vehicles

Info

Publication number: EP0314837A1
Application number: EP87202106A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Mauro Colombo
Original assignee: High Technology for Industry Ltd
Current assignee: High Technology for Industry Ltd
Priority date: 1987-11-02
Filing date: 1987-11-02
Publication date: 1989-05-10

Abstract

The garage comprises a reception floor (12) and several parking floors (14, 16, 18); consignment docks and return docks (38, 40, 42; 44, 46, 48) at the reception floor, arranged to be accessible to the motor vehicles arriving at the reception floor; movable barriers (50, 52, 53) normally blocking access to and from each dock, and selectively switchable to allow access; several skids (54, 56, 58, 62, 64), normally placed in abutment of respective consignment docks, adapted to receive and support a vehicle arriving at the associated dock; magnetic card readers/markers (96) arranged at respective docks, and adapted to magnetically write at least a skid identification code a card of a user who has driven a vehicle onto a skid at a consignment dock and has inserted the card in the reader/marker, and adapted to read such code from a card that is inserted in the reader/marker of a return dock; several elevators (20) adapted to transfer a skid from one floor to another floor; several remotely controlled trucks (80, 82, 102, 104) movable on each of said floors, each truck being adapted to pick up a selected skid and transfer it from a desired dock to the elevator and vice versa; and a central controlling computer (108) for the movable barriers, the trucks and the elevators, and connected to the readers/markers.

Description

This invention relates to a multistorey automatic garage for the temporary housing or parking of motor vehicles, particularly motorcars.
Parking silos or garages for motocars are known, having several parking floors connected by access ramps, where a motorcar is driven by the user up to a free parking place, which has to be looked for by trial and error, and parked there. The user, after leaving the garage (also known as autosilo, or parking silo) by way of pedestrain stairs or elevators, later comes back to collect his car by the same way, and drives the car out of the garage along the same ramps.
In this sort of parking silos, the surface devoted to the displacement of the cars (ramps, corridors, etc.) is quite large with respect to the surface devoted to the actual parking of vehicles, and the overall floor surface is poorly utilized. Furthermore, users looking for a free parking place sometimes give rise to an intense traffic on the ramps and in the corridors, with mutual hindrance, and the same is true when a large number of vehicles simultaneously reach the parking or leave it. Lastly, these kinds of parking silos do not protect parked vehicles from theft of objects left aboard, because of the unchecked circulation of people within the parking.
Other types of parking silos have been developed, where the motorcars are stored on shelves or cubicles arranged on several floors and ranks, with traveling lift means adapted to pick up and transfer each motorcar, as it arrives at the entrance of the parking silo, from the entrance to an empty cubicle, or vice versa, when the car is collected.
This kind of parking silo provides a better utilization of space, because it is conceived on the pattern of an automatic merchandise stockage system. Both the vertical and the horizontal density of motorcars is optimized, and the corridors between the ranks are reduced to a minimum. Moreover, motorcars are completely protected from theft of objects aboard, because only a limited number of authorized persons are allowed to circulate within the parking silo. Lastly, a better service is provided to the user, because the latter does not have to laboriously drive up ramps and corridors in search of a free parking-place.
On the other hand, this kind of parking silo has new drawbacks. The traveling lift remains busy for a considerable time, of the order of one minute or more, in transferring each motorcar from the entrance to the parking silo to the desired cubicle or vice versa, and this creates delays giving rise to queues of vehicles being consigned, or of users waiting to collect their vehicles.
Furthermore, the traveling lift has to rise to a great height while remaining stable, and is consequently very heavy, in fact one or more orders of magnitude heavier than the vehicle that it carries. Therefore, the energy requirements for managing the parking silo are large.
Another drawback is that the maneuvers for depositing or collecting a motorcar to or from a shelf or cubicle are mechanically critical, and, consequently, the chances of damage to the motorcar are relatively high.
Further, in cases of breakdown of the traveling lift, the entire parking silo is paralyzed, and not only are the users unable to consign a motorcar, but cannot even collect a previously consigned motorcar.
Lastly, the open construction of such an parking silo allows a fire to quickly propagate from one motorcar to the next, with no possibility of promptly removing adjacent motorcars. The open, high-rise construction also gives rise to the further problem that a child or other not fully able person, who should happen to be forgotten aboard the parked vehicle, would remain imprisoned until such time as the traveling lift arrives; or the child could, even worse, step out of the car and possibly fall from a great height.
The main object of the invention is therefore to provide a garage of the above kind, which is completely automatic, which avoids substantially all of the drawbacks of the prior art, and in particular which avoids formation of waiting queues both at the entrance and exit of motorcars, which reduces problems in case of breakdown either of parts of the garage or of single motorcars, and which requires limited personnel and a very small energy consumption.
The above and other objects and advantages, such as will appear from the following disclosure, are achieved by the invention with a multistorey automatic garage for motor vehicles, comprising at least one reception floor accessible to vehicles and at least one parking floor, characterized in that it further comprises:

a) consignment docks and return docks at the reception floor, arranged to be accessible to the motor vehicles arriving at the reception floor;
b) movable barriers normally blocking access to and from each dock, and selectively switchable to allow access;
c) a plurality of skids, normally placed in abutment of respective consignment docks, adapted to receive and support a vehicle arriving at the associated dock;
d) magnetic card readers/marked arranged at respective docks, and adapted to magnetically write at least a skid identification code on a card of a user who has driven a vehicle onto a skid at a consignment dock and has inserted the card in the reader/marker, and adapted to read such code from a card that is inserted in the reader/marker of a return dock;
e) at least one elevator adapted to transfer a skid from one floor to another floor;
f) at least one remotely controlled truck movable on each of said floors, each truck being adapted to pick up a selected skid and transfer it from a desired dock to the elevator and vice versa;
g) a central controlling computer for the movable barriers, the trucks and the elevators, connected to the readers/markers, and programmed for:
i) allowing a vehicle to access a skid abutting a consignment dock by causing the associated movable barrier to open, causing an identification code to be magnetically written on a card inserted by a user in reader/marker associated to said consignment dock, causing a selected truck to transfer said skid from said consignment dock to a selected elevator, causing said elevator to move to a selected parking floor and causing a selected truck at said parking floor to transfer said skid form the elevator to a selected parking place, and recording for subsequent retrieval of which parking place was assigned to the skid having said identification code;
and for
ii) when a card previously marked with an identification code is inserted into a reader/marker of a return dock, causing the identified skid to be transferred from the parking place to said return dock by means of trucks and elevators, and causing the movable barrier at said dock to open for allowing the car to be removed from the skid.

A preferred embodiment of the invention will now be described, by way of nonlimiting example, with reference to the attached draw ings, wherein:

Fig. 1 is an elevation view, in cross-section, of an automatic garage according to the invention;
Fig. 2 is a partial diagrammatic view, in perspective, of the reception floor of an automatic garage according to the invention;
Fig. 3 is a plan view of the reception floor of the garage of Fig. 1;
Fig. 4 is a plan view of a parking floor belonging to the garage of Fig. 1;
Fig. 5 is a perspective view of a motorcar supporting skid belonging to the invention;
Fig. 6 is a plan view of an automatic guide truck which is a part of the garage according to the invention; and
Fig. 7 is a block diagram of a control system for the garage, belonging to the invention.

With reference to the Figures, a garage according to the invention comprises a building 10, e.g. of reinforced concrete, comprising several superposed floors 12, 14, 16, 18, ..., floor 12 being a car reception floor, and the other floors 14, 16, 18, ... being parking floors. Although the building 10 is shown as an overground construction in the Figures, and the reception floor is the lowest floor in the building, an underground construction can also be envisaged, where the reception floor is topmost, or a mixed construction, having a number of floors above and the other beneath the reception floor.
The floors are connected by elevators such as 20, extending through all the floors in a central position. The reception floor 12 has two entrance gates 22, 24, under control of traffic lights such as 25, and two exit gates 26, 28. A central area 30 of reception floor 12 around elevator 20 is depressed, thus forming two opposite steps of quays 32, 34.
Rows of railings 36, arranged side by side on each of the quays 32, 34, define short guide lanes or consignment docks 38, 40, 42, ..., on quay 34, and access to each dock is controlled by a movable barrier such as 50, 52.
In the depressed area 30 of the reception floor 12, several skids or pallets such as 54, 56, 58, ... (further described below) are normally placed in abutment to respective docks 38, 40, 42, ..., of quay 32, acting as a consignment quay for the motorcars (as it will appear below), so that a motorcar such as 60 can ride onto a desired skid by its own power, while being driven by the user himself. The docks of quay 34, acting as a car return quay, are normally empty, but, as it will appear below, skids such as 62, 64 may also be placed in abutment to these docks during operation of the system.
With reference to Fig. 5, each skid comprises a platform 70 with two uprights 66, 68, the platform having a size adapted to easily encompass a motorcar. The platform has tailbords 72, 74 and sideboards 76, 78 around its perimeter, in order to prevent a motorcar from accidentally falling from the skid, e.g. due to a wrong or negligent maneuver. The tailboards 72, 74 are adapted to fold inwardly when the skid is abutted to a dock.
Referring again to Figg. 1 to 4, in the depressed area 30 several remotely controlled trucks (or AGV trucks, for automatic guide vehicle, further described below) are arranged, such as 80, 82, 84, ..., which are remotely controlled through a cable 86 buried in the floor, as known per se, and adapted to ride under the platform of a desired skid in order to lift it and carry it.
With reference to Fig. 6, a preferred truck has a platform 87 with four pivoting corner wheels 88 and two driving wheels 90, the axis of each of the latter wheels being horizontally pivotable under control of drive means 91, known per se. The truck has lifting means 92, also known per se, adapted to raise supporting pads 93 to protrude above the platform 87, in order to lift a skid such as 54 off the ground. Drive means 91 and lifting means 92 may be electrically operated from a rechargeable battery, not shown, and the battery may be recharged during idle periods of the truck.
Near the entrance gates 22, 24 of the reception floor are placed automatic distributors such as 94 of magnetic cards (not shown), known per se, and near each movable barrier 50, 52 are placed respective card readers/markers such as 96, adapted to magnetically mark the card with information such as the motorcar consignment time and an identification code of the skid where the car was left, or, during return of the motorcar to the user, adapted to read data previously written.
In Fig. 4, the plan of a parking floor such as 14 is shown. References 98, 100, ... indicate deposit or parking areas for respective skids of the type mentioned above. Trucks 102, 104, of the kind mentioned with reference to reception floor 12 are also placed on floor 14, and control cables 106 similar to cable 86 are buried in the floor.
With reference to Fig. 7, a central computer 108 is connected for exchanging data with the control apparatus of the elevators, with the control cables for the trucks at the several floors, with the traffic lights, with the drives for the movable barrier at the reception floor, with the card distributors at the entrances, and with the card readers/markers near the barriers.
Computer 108 is programmed for execution of the following steps of management of the entire garage:

a) normally to keep all consignment docks closed, except those against which an empty skid is abutted;
b) when the user, as guided by suitable notices, inserts his card in the reader/marker of the dock where he has driven his car onto a skid, to magnetically write on the card the data and time of day, as well as a skid identification code;
c) to send commands through control cable 86 to a selected free truck to cause the truck to move near the skid identified in step b), to pick up the skid and to transfer the skid to an elevator present at the reception floor;
d) to cause the elevator to move to a selected parking floor;
e) to cause a selected free truck at said parking floor to move near the elevator, to pick up the skid from the elevator, and to transfer the skid to one of the free parking areas on said parking floor, and to store in memory the location of said skid (both floor and parking area) identified by said identification code.
When a user wishes to collect his car, e.g. after paying the parking fee to a booth not shown, the computer is further programmed for executing the following steps, simultaneously with the ones listed above:
g) when a user who desires to collect his car inserts the corresponding card into the reader/marker of an empty dock of the return quay, to read from the card the skid identification code, and to recall the location of said skid from the computer memory;
h) to send commands through the control cable of the parking floor where the skid is located, in order cause a selected free truck to move near the skid parking area, to pick up the skid and to transfer the skid to an elevator present at said parking floor;
i) to cause the elevator to move to the reception floor;
j) to send commands through control cable 86 to a free truck to cause the truck to transfer said skid from the elevator to the dock where said card has been inserted in the reader/marker;
k) opening the movable barrier of said dock so as to allow the car to be removed.

In addition to the above listed steps, the computer may be programmed for execution of checks of other card codes, e.g. to check whether payment has been made, or the like.
Since the operating process described above would quickly exhaust the skids from the consignment docks, while empty skids would accumulate at the return docks, the computer is also programmed for gradually transferring empty skids from the return quay to the consignment quay, by means of an available truck. Should the skids at the consignment quay be exhausted without a corresponding descent of skids to the return quay, the computer is further programmed for causing empty skids to be moved down from the parking floors.
As an alternative, in order to avoid an incessant movement of empty skids from the return docks to the consignment docks, the invention envisages another method of managing the system. By means of traffic lights and/or traffic control barriers, not shown, the computer periodically switches the functions of both quays. The vehicles are initially allowed access to one of the quays, which has previously been equipped with empty skids. Vehicles will simultaneously be returned at the other quay, and a number of empty skids will accumulate there, as freed in turn by the vehicles that are being returned to their owners. Access of vehicles to the quay that had served for consignment heretofore is then stopped, and the incoming vehicles are diverted, by operating suitable traffic lights and/or barriers, to the quay which previously served for returns. The vehicles to be returned are now brought to the quay that used to act as consignment quay.
In this way, the transfer of skid from one quay to the other is often avoided. Even in this case, however, the computer will be programmed for causing empty skids to move down from the parking floors, as needed.
It falls within the alternatives of the invention to incorporate into the management of the system also to collect the parking fee. For example, the user may be required, when collecting a motorcar, to insert his card in an automatic money-collecting machine (known per se), and to introduce currency or its equivalent as requested by the same machine, based on the parking time and/or other data, such as subscription discounts or the like, which may be magnetically marked on the card. The managing program will withhold the return of the motor car until payment is made.
Programming a computer in order to perform the above listed steps falls within common skills in the field of data processing, and it is therefore not described here. Obviously, however, such program ming will normally include optimizing features such as minimum truck travel, assignment of storing floors and parking places for shortest return time, etc. Such techniques are extensively described in the literature.
Moreover, the garage will normally be equipped with conventional safety features such as protection railings, warning signs and lights, and the like.
Preferred embodiments of the invention have been described, but obviously equivalent changes can be brought to them by a person skilled in the art, within the teachings of the invention.

Claims

1. Multistorey automatic garage for motor vehicles, comprising at least one reception floor (12) accessible to vehicles (60) and at least one parking floor (14, 16, 18), characterized in that it further comprises:

a) consignment docks and return docks (38, 40, 42; 44, 46, 48) at the reception floor, arranged to be accessible to the motor vehicles arriving at the reception floor;

b) movable barriers (50, 52, 53) normally blocking access to and from each dock, and selectively switchable to allow access;

c) a plurality of skids (54, 56, 58, 62, 64), normally placed in abutment of respective consignment docks, adapted to receive and support a vehicle arriving at the associated dock;

d) magnetic card readers/markers (96) arranged at respective docks, and adapted to magnetically write at least a skid identification code a card of a user who has driven a vehicle onto a skid at a consignment dock and has inserted the card in the reader/marker, and adapted to read such code from a card that is inserted in the reader/marker of a return dock;

e) at least one elevator (20) adapted to transfer a skid from one floor to another floor;

f) at least one remotely controlled truck (80, 82, 102, 104) movable on each of said floors, each truck being adapted to pick up a selected skid and transfer it from a desired dock to the elevator and vice versa;

g) a central controlling computer (108) for the movable barriers, the trucks and the elevators, connected to the readers/markers and programmed for:
i) allowing a vehicle to access a skid abutting a consignment dock by causing the associated movable barrier to open, causing an identification code to be magnetically written on a card inserted by a user in the reader/marker associated to said consignment dock, causing a selected truck to transfer said skid from said consignment dock to a selected elevator, causing said elevator to move to a selected parking floor and causing a selected truck at said parking floor to transfer said skid form the elevator to a selected parking space, and recording for subsequent retrieval of which parking place was assigned to the skid having said identification code;
and for
ii) when a card previously marked with an identification code is inserted into a reader/marker of a return dock, causing the identified skid to be transferred from the parking place to said return dock by means of trucks and elevators, and causing the movable barrier at said dock to open for allowing the car to be removed from the skid.

2. The garage of claim 1, characterized in that the computer is further programmed for causing the transfer of empty skids from the parking floors to the consignment docks of the reception floor, by means of the trucks and the elevators, when the number of consignment docks equipped with empty skids becomes less than a predetermined threshold.

3. The garage of claim 1 or 2, further characterized in that the computer is also programmed for controlling said traffic lights in order to exchange the functions of the consignment docks and the return docks, when at least a predetermined number of empty skids has accumulated at the return docks.