Remote Crane System

1. Equipment overview

Single beam bridge cranes and grabs (electromagnetic cranes) are widely used in the mining industry. Some crane operating positions have environmental impacts such as high temperature and noise, and are prone to human error due to continuous operation, which may lead to safety or production accidents.In addition, the crane positions are scattered and difficult to maintain, which also brings considerable challenges to organizational management.

For such simple and repetitive operations, it is necessary to realize remote control through transformation, and liberate personnel from harsh environments, which is safe, and at the same time facilitates centralized and unified management, which can optimize the personnel structure.

• The whole system consists of three parts: remote control system (including video surveillance, control joystick, etc.) + 5G network + crane (including 5G equipment, PLC, high-definition camera, etc.). By upgrading the electromechanical technology and deploying 5G equipment on the crane side, the communication link between the crane and the remote control system is opened up by using the 5G network, so that the operator can complete various tasks through the crane in a comfortable office. To achieve the transition from “blue-collar” workers to “white-collar” workers. Moreover, multiple high-definition cameras on the crane provide the operator with an all-round view, ensuring the accuracy and real-time performance of remote control.
• On the basis of retaining the original underground remote control operation, an automatic remote control operation system is added. The original underground remote control operation is used as an emergency, and the driver operates in an emergency according to the original operation method. The operator only needs to operate the operating system interface simply.
• Solving the interference of multiple crane, with automatic obstacle avoidance function.
• The equipment selected by the system is specially designed for the industrial site environment, with high anti-electromagnetic interference, dust-proof and waterproof performance, 365*24 hours of continuous operation, to meet its use in steel industry.
•  With security prevention, self-locking and remote control functions.

2.Typical mature application scenarios

Remote crane is applicable to all crane operation scenarios.

• Product warehouse remote crane system
• Steel-making warehouse remote crane system
• Raw material area remote crane system

3. System Features

1) Advanced and mature

The remote control system meets the needs of real-time control and positioning operations under human-machine collaboration, and fully considers the operator’s visual comfort and operational comfort, allowing the operator to complete various operations on the crane in a comfortable control room.

The equipment and technology selected by the system represent the advanced and mainstream products and technologies in the world today, and are widely used in many fields.

2) real-time

In the whole solution, stable performance is the key to the success or failure of the crane remote control system implementation. The communication network must have the characteristics of large bandwidth, low delay and high reliability. The communication system mainly includes wireless AP, antenna, signal converter and optical fiber. The crane terminal and remote control terminal build a communication system through the 5G network. The uplink rate reaches 200Mbps, the downlink rate reaches 1.2Gbps, and the communication delay reaches 20 milliseconds, which fully meets the requirements of PLC of Real-time delivery of control instructions, real-time high-definition video transmission, and real-time video monitoring.

3) Accurate position detection

Using 5G base station location detection technology, its absolute address information is true and reliable, there is no code error, no accumulated error, and the positioning accuracy is 10cm.

4) High reliability

The equipment selected by the system is specially designed for the industrial site environment. It has high anti-electromagnetic interference, anti-vibration, high and low temperature resistance, dust-proof and waterproof performance, 365*24 hours of continuous operation, meet its use in steel and other enterprises.

The remote control crane is designed according to the double insurance principle of “double signal, double detection and double correction”. It has the functions of crane centralized control, 4K ultra clear remote monitoring, video linkage, automatic correction alarm, anti-collision safety and so on, realizing the goal of “remote operation and real-time monitoring”. At the same time, it ensures stable networking in harsh environments such as high temperature and high pressure, and the communication failure detection between the crane PLC and the management station. When there is a communication failure, the equipment will automatically stop at the current position to ensure safety.

5) High security

Multiple detection and protection measures fully avoid equipment damage caused by equipment failure and human operation, reduce maintenance costs and improve production efficiency. Improving the working environment of the driver, reduce the workload of the driver, ensure the normal operation of the scrap steel operation in the harsh working environment to ensure the continuous operation of the front-end production line, and reduce the failure rate of the equipment to improve the work efficiency.

6) There is no dead Angle in all directions, and the audience data is clearer.

In the past, when driving the crane, the crane operator could only see the operating status of his own angle, and other angles needed to be commanded. Now, the multiple high-definition cameras equipped on the crane provide the operator with an all-round view and ensure accuracy and real-time of the remote control. The operator lifts the oxide slag to the designated area by remotely controlling the crane, and can see the distance information of the crane in the horizontal and vertical directions, the height of the truck body and the loading and unloading position from the video.

4. System composition

The equipment of this project consists of on-board system, ground system and communication system.

• Ground operating system;Ground control station
• Hard disk burner; Fiber Ethernet Switch
• On-board operating system; wireless AP
• On-board PLC; Onsite surveillance cameras
• Canopen bus; Support machine frequency converter
• Switching machine inverter; Big car frequency converter
• small car frequency converter; grab bucket Craft Card
• Support motor; switch motor; Big car motor1
• Big car motor2; small car motor; Lifting encoder
• small car positioning system; big car positioning system

 1) On-board system

The system on the machine mainly includes the frequency conversion control system (optional, the control is more reliable), the PLC control system, the positioning system and the video monitoring system.

2) Communication system

The main function of the communication system is to communicate the on-board PLC with the ground system PLC, transmit the real-time crane information to the ground monitoring system and accept the automatic control instructions of the ground operating system. In addition, the signal of the video monitoring system is also transmitted through the communication system. The communication system mainly includes wireless AP, antenna, signal converter and optical fiber. The crane terminal and remote control terminal build a communication system through the 5G network. The uplink rate reaches 200Mbps, the downlink rate reaches 1.2Gbps, and the communication delay reaches 20 milliseconds, which fully meets the requirements of PLC of Real-time delivery of control instructions, real-time high-definition video transmission, and real-time video monitoring.

3) Ground system

The ground operating system includes video monitoring system, real-time operating system of crane state information monitoring and remote operating system, etc. Remote operation system specifically refers to: the ground operation station has corresponding operating platform and corresponding driving status display device, and the driver can complete the remote operation of grab driving under the guidance of semi-automatic system or observe the real-time video monitoring system by himself.