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June 26, 2003
Elevator Madness
My daily routine forces me to take an elevator daily to get to my desk. What I want to know is, what possible advantage can using a CLOOK algorithm be for elevators? If on the first floor, and I need to go up to the 8th floor (for example) all of the following situations will happen:
1) The elevator in the basement will proceed towards the top floor bypassing the 1st floor without stopping.
2) Another elevator above the 1st floor will decide it's time to race towards the top floor and wait there for the first elevator.
3) The last elevator will arrive on the first floor, only going down despite the fact that no one requested and no one is inside it.
Once all elevators make it to the top floor they will begin a decent towards the first floor to pick up passengers. This has been a source of endless amusement and frustration for those of us in the lab, mainly because we know we can optimize the algorithm and even know where to do it. We just haven't. Stay tuned for future exploits in correcting elevator control.
Posted by Dan at June 26, 2003 08:57 AM