Elevator Control System

Using Finite Automata

Ankita Manish Singh

Dept. of Computer Science Engineering
Isha Ashish Bahendwar Ramdeobaba College of Engineering and Management
Dept. of Computer Science Engineering Nagpur, India
Ramdeobaba College of Engineering and Management encrypt10011bnt@gmail.com
Nagpur, India
bahendwarisha.97@gmail.com
Prof. S.G. Mundada
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Computer Science Engineering
Ramdeobaba College of Engineering and Management
Nagpur, India

1
Abstract— The basic conception behind the given problem powered by hand or by through animals. This type of elevator
definition is that the functioning of the electronic elevators can was first installed in the Sinai Monastery of Egypt. In the 17 th
be controlled and operated by the users through an android century, elevators were placed in the building of England and
application. Different operations like travelling to upper floors France. After that in 1793, Lvan Kuliben created an elevator
or lower floors from the current floor of the user can be with the screw lifting mechanism for the winter place of Saint
handled by considering the floors as states of finite automaton. Petersburg. After that, in 1816, an elevator was established in
Every floor in this design will be considered as a final state the main building of Sub-Moscow village called
because any of them can be destination of the elevator user. Arkhamgelskoye. Most of them ran hydraulically. The very
This paper comprises the history of elevators, their working, first hydraulic elevators used a plunger below the car to raise
the proposed idea of application and its functioning. It focuses or lower the elevator. A used to pump applied water pressure
on the connectivity of the lift and users through mobile phones to a plunger, or steel column, inside a vertical cylinder. In the
in a very secured and user-friendly manner. year 1852, Elisha Otis was the person who introduced the
safety elevator, which prevented the fall of the cab, in case the
cable broke. In 1857 March 23rd, the first Otis passenger
I. INTRODUCTION elevator was installed in New York City. The very first electric
elevator was built by Werner von Siemens in 1880. [11]
An Elevator is a machine which is used by people for J.W. Meaker patented a method which permitted
fast and comfortable transport of goods or themselves from elevator doors to open and close safely in 1874. In 1882, when
different levels or floors in any multistoried building. hydraulic power was a well-established technology, a
Elevators are generally powered by electric motors that either company later named the London Hydraulic Power Company
drive traction cables or counterweight systems like a hoist, or was formed. In 1929, Clarence Conrad Crispen, with
pump hydraulic fluid to raise a cylindrical piston like a jack. Inclinator Company of America, created the first residential
All the regular visitors of that building would have elevators. [10]
their personal accounts with all their details and the default
floor the work on or live on. Any stranger would not be III. DESIGN
allowed to use the lift until and unless he/she has an id and
password. New accounts can be created for recently joined Before electronic elevators were invented and came
employees or uses by the authorized person. In the similar into commercial market, ropes were used for the functioning
manner, accounts of old employees can be removed. During of the elevators. The elevators are the machine that have
account creation, the user would be asked for the floor of platform which are pulled or pushed to change its level with
his/her regular use. Whenever someone wants to use the the help of mechanical means. A modern-day elevator consists
elevator, he/she would be asked for password on the of a cab (also called a "Cage" or "Car") mounted on a platform
application and if valid password is entered, the application within an enclosed space called a shaft or sometimes a "hoist
would ask him/her whether he wants to go to his regular floor way". Earlier, elevator drive mechanisms were powered by
or some other floor. According to the option he chooses, the steam and water hydraulic pistons or by hand.
lift proceeds further. If it is his/her regular floor, it takes him In this way, in the coming years elevators have
there. But, if he goes for the second option, the application developed a lot. Many advancements are done in elevators and
would offer him the list of input options. He/she can choose infact digitally operable elevators have been developed and
the input options from: more and more advancements are being done for elevators to
1. Manually enter the destination floor number. become more efficient and user friendly.
2. Through buttons.
3. Through arrow keys.  Elevator algorithm
The user can choose its mode of input from the
drawer in the left side of the home page. The elevator algorithm, is a simple algorithm by which
In this way, this application maintains security for a single elevator can decide where to stop, is summarized as
elevators and provides amenity. follows:
In this android application, SQLite database is used In computer operating systems, the elevator algorithm
to store the uses account information (an in-built database has found an application as an algorithm for scheduling hard
supported by android). Diverse operations can be performed disk requests. Modern elevators use more complex heuristic
related to the accounts of the users whenever the need arises, algorithms to decide which request to service next.
like,
1. Editing profiles. 1. The current floor of elevator is stored as current.
2. Adding details. 2. When user selects a floor, where he wants to reach,
Only authorized people perform the following operations: then that floor’s position is stored as new_pos.
1. Adding accounts for new employees 3. Then that value is compared with current value in
2. Deleting accounts of old employees order to determine the direction of the elevator (up or
down).
4. Then the new_pos is incremented/decremented
II. EVOLUTION OF ELEVATOR
accordingly and that position is stored as current and
the process goes on.
Vertical lifts have been used to build the pyramids in
Egypt. Archimedes was the person who invented the first
reference elevator in 312. From some literacy source,  Principle
elevators were developed as cable on a hemp rope and
 6. Now, in the newer versions of android studio, it has
1. As soon as the application is opened, it launches inbuilt facilities to connect with firebase which
itself and asks the use to login with his account name provides an online database.
and password. If the user is new and wants to create a 7. Building light weight applications to serve day to day
new account, he can contact an authorized person, needs of users.
who can us the security password and create new 8. It also provides support for connection to various
account with all the required details. hardware using Bluetooth or wireless fidelity. [8]
2. The application welcomes you with a message and
asks if you want to follow the regular routine and
reach its usual floor which is his work place or  XML (Extensible markup language)
residence.
3. If the destination floor is different than the usual In Android Studio's platform, we can quickly build
destination, the user can choose any mode of input layouts by dragging widgets into a visual design editor instead
from the drawer i.e., input from keyboard or buttons. of writing the layout XML. Extensible Mark-up Language
4. Using any mode of input user can enter his (XML) is a mark-up language. The design goals of XML are
destination and travel to that floor using this simplicity, generality and usability across the Internet. It is
application and logout after reaching. used to design the front end of the android applications.
5. Users can edit its profile and change password It provides various attributes to the layouts and
whenever he wants to. widgets in order to give a simple and elegant view to the
application. [9]
IV. TECHNOLOGIES USED

 Android V. FINITE AUTOMATA

Android is a Linux based operating system for A finite automaton is a simple machine used to
mobile devices such as tablets, televisions and recognize patterns within input taken from some character set
smartphones. Android is developed by Andy Rubin in (or alphabet). The job of finite automata is to accept or reject
October ,2013 in California, United States of America. an input depending on whether the entered input is in the
After that, Google acquired android incorporation in pattern defined by the finite automata. Some of the recent
2005. The main people, who developed android were applications of finite automata are software engineering,
Andy Rubin, Rich Miner, Chris White and Nick Sears. parallel programming and VLSI designs.
An elevator controller system is one of the applications of
It is an open source operating system which is freely finite automata. It consists of a mechanism that does not
available on many devices and cell phones. It is currently remember the previous trajectory but, remembers only the
the most widely used operating system. The devices current floor. The direction of motion can be upward if the
which work on android operating system are mostly current floor is not the top floor and the requested floor is
available at affordable prices. People find working with above it whereas, the direction of motion would be downward
android operating system easy and efficient i.e. it is handy if the current floor is not the ground floor and the requested
and much user friendly. floor is below it. Therefore, at any instance of time, an
elevator in use can be defined by following mathematical
Android softwares are developed using Android
terms:
Studio, Eclipse, etc.
1. States: finite set of states to present the
possible requested floors from the current
 Android Studio position.
2. Inputs: finite set of input depending upon
Android Studio is the Integrated Development the number of floors the building has.
Environment (IDE) for Android application development, 3. Outputs: finite set of output depending upon
based on IntelliJ IDEA. In Android studio, the front end i.e. the user’s request.
the UI is developed using xml files whereas the backend is
developed using java files. It also has an inbuilt package We can represent finite automata graphically, with nodes
named SQLiteOpenHelper to develop the database. We just for state and arcs for transitions.
have to extend the class inorder to perform database The elevator controller is going to control the operations
operations. Android studio offers many inbuilt services. They and working of the elevator as per the need of the user. Thus,
are: the corresponding state diagram is for designing of the finite
1. An efficient gradle building system. automata for the working of elevator controller. (Note that the
2. A user-friendly environment for coders to develop given state diagram has been drawn according to the Mealy
Machine). In reference with the elevator working, the finite
android apps for developing handheld devices,
automata is useful in such a way that every destination floor
wearables, TVs, etc. can be reached from the current floor only by going through
3. Instant Run option so that compilation and running of all the floors that come in its way. This operator will be work
projects would be faster. using buttons and the controller will work according to the
4. Facilities to import templates and GitHub codes following state diagram [2].
which provides a great help for the programmers.
5. Perfect testing tools and easily updating facilities. The following finite automaton consists of:
1. A finite set S of 5 states. There is a navigation drawer which asks them which type
2. A special start states. of user input they want to provide.
3. Set of final or accepting state.
4. A set of transitions from one state to another labelled  Input by buttons
with characters that is the operation like, up or down.
In this UI, there are 6 buttons numbered 0-5. The button
which user presses denotes the floor which they want to
go and there is a textview which displays the floor
number. A loop goes on from current floor till the
expected floor.

 Input by user

In this UI, there is a textview and a button. User enters the

floor no. which he/she expects to go and then presses the
Fig. 1: Finite Automata go button. A loop goes on from the current floor to the
floor entered in the textview and then it is displayed that
you reached x floor.
IV. APPLICATIONS
 Input through arrow keys
 Operators/controller of elevators
This application provides an interface to the user In this UI, there are two arrow keys up and down, and a
to select the destination floor from the current floor text view displaying the counter if the up-arrow button is
which he/she wants to reach and updates the current pressed the number in the textview is incremented by one,
counter value accordingly. if down arrow is pressed, the value in the texview is
 Used for offices where only authorized people can decremented by one. If the users desired floor number is
use the elevators. entered in the text view the user will have to press ‘go’
As this application provides security, only those button then again, a loop continues till the target floor and
users can use the lift who have an account in this the it is displayed that you reached x floor.
application.
 Used for security purpose and convenience of the
users. VI. MODULES
As only those users can login whose account  Login
exists in this application, this app is secured. And this
app automatically takes the user to its destination
floor, in this way it provides convenience to the users. This module will ask for username and password of the
person. If the username and password matches and record
in the database then the user is directed to the ‘Choosing
V.IMPLEMENTATION new routine or daily routine’ page else the user is
prompted with incorrect username and password and is
 Basic Idea told to re-enter it.

The secured elevator app is a basic android application  Account creation

and it implements the idea of lift. Its connection with
automata is discussed above. This app works in This module allows the user to create his/her account if
following manner: the user is authorized. This module will ask for authority
As it is a secured elevator, it can be used by only specific password and then only allows to create an account. And
people who have the right to access it. There’s an then the user has to fill four details username, password,
authority password for that purpose, the person who profession, and most important the floor that he want to
knows the authority password can only create his/her go most of the times. Then the login page is displayed and
account in this lift. For using this lift, it is must to have then the user is allowed to login.
an account.
After account creation, the user can login by their  Choosing new routine or daily routine
username and password and have two options in front of
them:
(i) They can follow their daily routine This module prompts the user whether he/she wants to
(ii) They can go to some other floor today. follow their daily routine or want to go to some other
If they choose the first option they would reach to the floor.
desired floor which they step on daily.  Operations with database
Where as if they choose second option they would be
brought to a page where they have options to edit their This section allows user to edit, view and delete their
account, delete their account, and view their account. accounts.
 Selecting the type of input.

This section allows the user to choose which type of input

they want to give the three ways were discussed above.

Fig. 4: input using arrow keys

Fig. 2: Deleting account

Fig. 5: operations with account

Fig. 3: login account

Fig. 6: Home page

  An elevator controller operator using finite automata
can be created by using platform independent
programming languages such as java.
 The users can be served with convenience, efficiency
and security by using the facility of user accounts.
 Hence in this way, Finite automata can be used to
control elevators and system having different states.
 Thus, this application provides different convenient
modes to operate the elevator and also provides
secured access to the elevator.

REFERENCES

[1] An introduction to formal languages and automata by Peter Linz.

[2] Lustig, A. "Lift Simulation Program", Elevator World, March, 1986, pp.
74-79.
[3] Hummet, G.T. ; T.D. Moser; B.A. Bowell. "Real Time Simulation of
Elevators", Winter Simulation Conference, Miami Beach, Dec 4-
Fig. 7: message display 6, 1978, pp. 393-402.
[4] Barney, G.C. , "Lift Simulation Using PC's", Proceedings of
ELEVCON'88, IAEE, Karlsruhe, W. Germ., June, 1988, pp. 22-29.
TABLE OF FIGURES [5] John E. Hopcroft, Jeffery D. Ullman, “introduction to automata theory ,
languages , and computation.
[6] http://www.explainthatstuff.com/how-elevators-work.html
Fig. no. Name Page. No.
CONCLUSION
1 Finite Automata 3
2 Deleting account 4
3 Login account 4
4 Input using arrow keys 5
5 Operations with account 5
6 Home page 5
7 Message display 5
[7] Introduction to theory ofcomputation by Michael Sipser
[8] https://developer.android.com/studio/intro/index.html
[9] https://developer.android.com/studio/write/layout-editor.html
[10] http://www.eastersealstech.com/2014/07/16/evolution-elevators/
[11] http://www.livescience.com/57282-elevator-history.html
[12] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-do-elevators-work/
[13] https://cs.stanford.edu