Latest Control Technology for High Speed Elevators

Technologies for high speed and for enhanced transportation capacity have been demanded for elevator systems which have become main vertical transportation means in recent years due to effective utilization of land by urban development and to trends in buildings to become tall and large. Rope-type elevators driven by a motor, which are of the ordinary type, require a machine room installed atop hoist ways and this has been a major constraint on building design. For this reason, recent trends are for smaller machine rooms, necessitating smaller traction machines and control panels. Designed to achieve high speed, miniaturization and high performance of these elevator components, Toshiba has developed a high-speed and high-performance processor for elevator controllers, a compact and light PMSM traction machines and vibration control in the elevator control system. These new technologies are reported below.