Wireless system and operation management server

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10140871-B2
Application number	US-201515124138-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 22, 2015
Priority date	Aug 25, 2014
Publication date	Nov 27, 2018
Grant date	Nov 27, 2018

Abstract

A wireless system for a mine performs a management of the quality of wireless communication at each point in the mine at a time point closer to a current time while maintaining the operating state of each dump truck. The wireless system is provided with a server, wireless base stations and dump trucks in the mine. The server contains fleet operations management information and communication quality information, and the dump trucks each include a GPS and a wireless terminal. The server specifies an update target point where the communication quality information requires an update. Then, the server specifies one of the dump trucks, which is plan to travel through the update target point, from the fleet operations management information, calculates a time at which the dump truck would arrive at the update target point, and performs communication trigger processing to make the dump truck transmit wireless data.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A wireless system for communicably connecting plural haulage vehicles, which travel in a mine, and a fleet operations management server, which manages operation of the respective haulage vehicles, together via a wireless communication network, wherein:
the haulage vehicles each comprise:
position calculating equipment that calculates a position of an own vehicle of the haulage vehicle, and
a terminal-side communication control unit that performs control to conduct a wireless communication with the fleet operations management server;
the fleet operations management server comprises:
a server-side communication control unit that performs control to conduct a wireless communication with each haulage vehicle,
a fleet operations management information storage unit that stores fleet operations management information including the position of the own vehicle of each haulage vehicle as received from the haulage vehicle,
a communication quality information editing unit that performs edition of communication quality information, in which point identification information specifically identifying individual points in the mine, communication quality index values indicating quality levels of conditions of connections to the wireless communication network at the points, and update times indicating times at which the communication quality index values were updated lastly, are associated with each other, and
an update timing monitoring unit that specifies, each one of the points, at which one point the communication quality index value does not satisfy a condition for allowing to consider the communication quality index value to be a communication quality index value at a current time, as an update target point and performs communication trigger processing to trigger communication for newly acquiring a communication quality index value of the update target point;
the update timing monitoring unit specifies one of the haulage vehicles, which one haulage vehicle is planned to travel through the update target point, as a target vehicle on a basis of the fleet operations management information, calculates an estimated arrival time at which the target vehicle would arrive at the update target point, and performs processing to make the target vehicle conduct transmission of wireless data as the communication trigger processing at the estimated arrival time;
the terminal-side communication control unit of the target vehicle performs the transmission of the wireless data, which includes the position of the own vehicle, to the fleet operations management server at the estimated arrival time; and
the communication quality information editing unit updates the communication quality information on a basis of the wireless data received.

2. The wireless system according to claim 1 , wherein:
the update timing monitoring unit uses, as the condition, at least one of that a time elapsed from the update time is less than a time threshold level for determining whether the communication quality index value is new or old, that a sampling number of communication quality index values at the update target point is equal to or greater than a specified number of times set beforehand to ensure effectiveness of the communication quality index value, and that none of the communication quality index values are missing.

3. The wireless system according to claim 1 , wherein:
the update timing monitoring unit transmits, as the communication trigger processing, a quality-measuring signal, which is for measuring communication quality, to the target vehicle at the estimated arrival time; and
the terminal-side communication control unit of the target vehicle returns, to the fleet operations management server, a quality response signal indicating that the quality-measuring signal has been received.

4. The wireless system according to claim 3 , wherein:
the quality-measuring signal includes signal identification information that can specifically identify the quality-measuring signal, and the quality response signal includes signal identification information of the quality-measuring signal to be responded.

5. The wireless system according to claim 1 , wherein:
the fleet operations management server further comprises a travel-permitted zone setting unit that sets, for each haulage vehicle, at least one of segments of a section of a preset travel route in the mine as a travel-permitted zone in which the haulage vehicle is permitted to travel;
each haulage vehicle further comprises a request information processing unit that produces travel permit request information to request the fleet operations management server to set and grant a new travel-permitted zone, and
a travel control unit that allows each haulage vehicle to autonomously travel according to the travel-permitted zone received from the fleet operations management server;
the terminal-side communication control unit transmits the travel permit request information when each haulage vehicle has reached a permit request point located on a side nearer by a permit request distance, which has been set in view of a stoppable distance of the own vehicle, from an end part of the travel-permitted zone granted to the own vehicle;
the update timing monitoring unit outputs the update target point to the travel-permitted zone setting unit; and
the travel-permitted zone setting unit sets the travel-permitted zone so that the permit request point registers with the update target point.

6. The wireless system according to claim 1 , wherein:
the fleet operations management server further comprises a travel-permitted zone setting unit that sets, for each haulage vehicle, at least one of segments of a section of a preset travel route in the mine as a travel-permitted zone in which the haulage vehicle is permitted to travel; and
the update timing monitoring unit specifies one of the haulage vehicles, which one haulage vehicle is traveling on a side nearer in an advancing direction than the update target point in the travel-permitted zone, as the target vehicle when the travel-permitted zone with the update target point included therein has been set, or specifies one of the haulage vehicles, which one haulage vehicle is traveling in a travel-permitted zone set at a closest position on a side nearer than the update target point when the travel-permitted zone with the update target point included therein has not been set yet or when the haulage vehicle, which is traveling in the travel-permitted zone, has passed through the update target point even if the travel-permitted zone with the update target point included therein has been set.

7. The wireless system according to claim 1 , wherein:
the update timing monitoring unit calculates the estimated arrival times of the respective haulage vehicles, and specifies one of the haulage vehicles, which one haulage vehicle indicates fastest one of the estimated arrival times, as the target vehicle.

8. The wireless system according to claim 7 , wherein:
the update timing monitoring unit calculates the estimated arrival time of each haulage vehicle in accordance with the following formula (1):
t=t 0 +( P 1 −P 0 )÷ V 0   (1)

where
t: time of arrival at the update target point
t 0 : current time
P 0 : current position of the haulage vehicle
P 1 : position of the update target point
V 0 : travel speed of the haulage vehicle.

9. The wireless system according to claim 8 , wherein:
the fleet operations management information includes vehicle identification information that specifically identifies the respective haulage vehicles, the current positions of the respective haulage vehicles, the update times of the current positions, the travel speed

Assignees

• Hitachi Construction Mach Co

Inventors

• Yamasaki Ryota
• Yamada Tsutomu
• Hamada Tomoyuki

Classifications

• H04W24/08

  Testing, {supervising or monitoring} using real traffic · CPC title

• H04W4/40

  for vehicles, e.g. vehicle-to-pedestrians [V2P] · CPC title

• H04W4/44

  for communication between vehicles and infrastructures, e.g. vehicle-to-cloud [V2C] or vehicle-to-home [V2H] · CPC title

• H04W4/029

  Location-based management or tracking services · CPC title

• H04W4/30

  Services specially adapted for particular environments, situations or purposes · CPC title