Cost effective ride maintenance tracking system and method thereof

• US 10,275,953 B2
• Filed: 04/04/2017
• Issued: 04/30/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 04/04/2017
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd. (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd. (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Cronin, John, D'Andrea, Michael Glynn, Morioka, Mikio
• Primary Examiner(s): Shaawat, Mussa A
• Application Number:
  US15/478,736
• Publication Number:
  US 20180286144A1
• Time in Patent Office: 756 Days
• CPC Class Codes: A63G 31/00 Amusement arrangements hoop exercising apparatus driven by the user A63B19/00
• CPC Class Codes: A63G 7/00 Up-and-down hill tracks; Switchbacks
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/20 Administration of product repair or maintenance
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0866 the electronic data carrier being a digital video recorder in combination with video camera

Abstract

A system for tracking and evaluating ride maintenance includes: a management computer including a non-transitory processor and a memory in which a maintenance staff database and a ride maintenance database are stored; a ride condition detection system integrated with the management computer and including: a detector configured to record a video of the ride maintenance activity or an image of a target object at a certain time interval; and a control unit configured to communicate with the detector via a communication line, to detect the position change of the target object, and to store the video of the ride maintenance activity in the ride maintenance video database. The control unit has a memory to store ride condition database and ride maintenance video database.

Claims

1. A system for tracking and evaluating ride maintenance, the system comprising:

a management computer including a processor and a memory in which a maintenance staff database and a ride maintenance database are stored;

a ride condition detection system integrated with the management computer and including;

a detector configured to record a video of a ride maintenance activity or an image of a target object at a certain time interval; and

a control unit having a memory to store a ride condition database and configured to communicate with the detector via a communication line and to receive the recorded video of the ride maintenance activity or image of the target object; and

a maintenance personal device (MPD) wirelessly connected to the management computer,

wherein the management computer causes the processor to perform steps of;

identifying at least one ride condition using the ride condition detection system;

determining whether a maintenance operation is necessary by comparing the at least one ride condition with a reference condition stored in the ride maintenance database; and

when it is determined that the maintenance operation is necessary, automatically generating a ride maintenance schedule based on the maintenance staff database.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the memory of the control unit stores a ride maintenance video database in which the video of the ride maintenance activity is stored.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the management computer further causes the processor to further perform a step of:

transmitting the generated ride maintenance schedule to the MPD.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the processor further performs:

setting a schedule for recording the video of the ride maintenance activity based on the generated ride maintenance schedule;

acquiring the video of the ride maintenance activity at the set schedule from the ride condition detection system;

acquiring a reference video from the ride maintenance database corresponding to the recorded ride maintenance activity video; and

identifying at least one maintenance deviation by comparing the acquired reference video and the recorded ride maintenance activity video.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one ride condition includes a position change of the target object, and

when the at least one ride condition is identified, the management computer generates the ride maintenance schedule by predicting a time when the at least one ride condition meets the reference condition.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the detector includes a vision sensor.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the maintenance staff database stores maintenance results including an average maintenance time, a success rate, and availability of each staff member.

8. The system of claim 4, wherein the ride condition database stores a position change of the target object based on the recorded image and the ride maintenance video database stores the ride maintenance activity at the set schedule.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the MPD receives a maintenance request message from the management computer.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the MPD is a handheld mobile device including a cell phone, a smart phone, a PDA, a tablet computer or a laptop computer, provided to each maintenance staff member, and

wherein the MPD includes a device-side computer, a device-side GUI, a device-side storage, and a communication circuit.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein the success rate is calculated by comparing an image taken after each maintenance staff member completes maintenance operations with a reference image.

12. A method for tracking and evaluating ride maintenance, the method comprising steps of:

identifying, by a ride condition detection system, at least one ride condition; and

determining, by a maintenance tracking system, whether a maintenance operation is necessary by comparing the at least one ride condition with a reference condition;

wherein the management computer includes a non-transitory processor and a memory in which a maintenance staff database and a ride maintenance database are stored,

wherein the ride condition detection system is integrated with the management computer and includes a memory in which a ride condition database and a ride maintenance video database are stored, and

wherein the ride condition detection system comprises;

a detector configured to record a video of a ride maintenance activity or image of a target object at a certain time interval; and

a control unit configured to communicate with the detector via a communication line and to detect a position change of the target object,

wherein the method further comprises a step of;

automatically generating, by the maintenance tracking system, a ride maintenance schedule based on the maintenance staff database when it is determined that the maintenance operation is necessary.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the management computer compares the position change of the target object with a reference value stored in the ride condition database to determine whether a maintenance operation is necessary.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the management computer predicts and generates the ride maintenance schedule based on position changes of the target object.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the method further comprising:

transmitting, by the maintenance tracking system, the generated ride maintenance schedule to the MPD.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein, in the step of generating the ride maintenance schedule, the maintenance tracking system compares each maintenance staff member and selects a maintenance staff member based on their scores calculated using an average maintenance time, a success rate, and availability for each maintenance staff member.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the success rate is calculated by comparing an image taken after each maintenance staff member completes maintenance operations with a reference image.

18. The method of claim 12, wherein the step of transmitting the generated ride maintenance schedule includes sending a message requesting a maintenance operation message requesting whether to accept to the selected maintenance staff member.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein when the selected maintenance staff member accepts the maintenance operation request, the maintenance tracking system sets the schedule for recording the video of the ride maintenance activity.

20. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

setting a schedule for recording the video of the ride maintenance activity based on the generated ride maintenance schedule;

acquiring the video of the ride maintenance activity at the set schedule from the ride condition detection system;

acquiring a reference video from the ride maintenance database corresponding to the recorded ride maintenance activity video; and

identifying at least one maintenance deviation by comparing the acquired reference video and the recorded ride maintenance activity video.