JP2001019168A - Operation supporting device for continuous unloader - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To easily grasp a position relation between a scraped part and a wall. SOLUTION: In a continuous unloader wherein an elevator part 5 supported from the ground and vertically brought down in a hold is moved therein and turns a scrape part 1 protruded in a horizontal direction from an end part of this elevator part 5 to scrape a load, four ultrasonic distance sensors 2 appearing in the right/left before/behind scrape part protruded direction are mounted in the scrape part, a distance of the distance sensor 2 relating to a wall of the hold in each sensor direction is measured, a position relation between the scrape part 1 and the wall is calculated based on these sensor distances, and this position relation is graphically displayed in a picture display provided in an operator's cab.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an operation support device for a continuous unloader provided with a scraping portion which is moved and turned in a hold, and more particularly, to a continuous unloading device capable of easily grasping a positional relationship between the scraping portion and a wall. The present invention relates to a driving support device for an unloader.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As shown in FIG. 7, a continuous unloader for picking up bulk cargoes such as coal and iron ore loaded on land is provided at the end of a boom 72 provided from a traveling swivel tower 71 on land to the sea. Is provided with a vertical elevator section 73, and a scraping section 74 protruding in the horizontal direction is provided at a lower end of the elevator section 73. Buckets (not shown) are provided in a chain from the elevator unit 73 to the scraping unit 74. Each bucket scrapes off the load at the scraping unit 74, rises along the elevator unit 73, and moves up along the conveyor (see FIG. Not shown)
Deliver the cargo to As shown in FIG. 8, the movement of the scraping unit 1 in the hold 3 is performed by moving the elevator unit 5. The direction change of the scraping unit 1 is performed by the elevator unit 5
By swiveling the scraping unit 1 around the center.

[0003]

The cab 75 for operating the continuous unloader is usually provided in the elevator section 7.
3 is provided near the upper end. Depending on the position of the scraping unit 74, it may not be visible from the cab 75 to the scraping unit 74. The entrance (hatch opening) of the hold 76 is
In many cases, when the scraping portion 74 approaches the end of the hold 76, the scraping portion 74 becomes invisible from the cab 75. For this reason, it is difficult to prevent the scraping section 74 from colliding with the wall of the hold 76.

Conventionally, an ITV camera is attached to the scraping section 74, and the operator recognizes the wall by looking at the ITV screen in the cab 75.

However, since the ITV screen only displays a two-dimensional image captured by the ITV camera, it is difficult to grasp the positional relationship (distance or angle) between the scraping section 74 and the wall of the hold 76.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to solve the above-mentioned problems and to provide a continuous unloader operation support device which makes it easy to grasp the positional relationship between a scraping section and a wall.

[0007]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to achieve the above object, the present invention is to move an elevator section supported on land and lowered vertically into a hold in a hold, and to move the elevator section horizontally from a lower end of the elevator section. In the continuous unloader that is protruded in the direction and swivels the scraping unit that scrapes the load, four ultrasonic distance sensors facing the scraping unit projecting direction front, rear, left and right are attached to the scraping unit, and in each sensor direction, It measures the distance of the distance sensor to the wall of the hold, calculates the positional relationship between the scraper and the wall based on these sensor distances, and graphically displays this positional relationship on a screen display provided in the cab. .

[0008] By the distance of each sensor and the turning angle of the scraping unit,
Calculate the perpendicular distance from each distance sensor to the wall, and from this perpendicular distance and the scraping part structure data including the mounting position of each distance sensor, determine the shortest distance between the outermost circumference of the scraping part and the wall, and calculate the shortest distance May be displayed on the screen display along with the figure.

Two ultrasonic distance sensors facing diagonally forward and left and right in the direction in which the scraping portion protrudes are attached to the scraping portion, and the measurement distances of these two distance sensors are scraped according to the turning angle of the scraping portion. It may be used for calculating the positional relationship between the part and the wall.

[0010]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

As shown in FIG. 1, in the operation support apparatus for a continuous unloader according to the present invention, six ultrasonic waves facing the scraping section 1 in the front-rear, left-right and left-right directions obliquely forward in the direction in which the scraping section projects. A type distance sensor 2 is attached. In the following, the front sensor 2a, the rear sensor 2b, the left sensor 2c, the right sensor 2d,
These are referred to as a left oblique sensor 2e and a right oblique sensor 2f. Front sensor 2a
Is on the right side of the tip of the scraping section 1, the rear sensor 2b is on the rear end of the scraping section 1, the left and right sensors 2c and 2d are on both sides of the scraping section 1, and the oblique left and right sensors 2e and 2f are on both sides of the scraping section 1. It is located closer to the front. Each distance sensor 2 is mounted so as to face in the horizontal direction.

The ultrasonic distance sensor 2 emits an ultrasonic wave in a direction in which it faces (hereinafter, referred to as a sensor direction) and detects the ultrasonic wave reflected back from the object to return the distance to the object. Is to measure.

As shown in FIG. 2, when the direction in which the scraping portion projects is in an arbitrary direction, the wall 4 of the hold 3 (sea side wall 4a, west side wall 4b, land side wall 4) is detected in each sensor direction.
c, east side wall 4d) distance sensor 2 (front sensor 2)
a, the distance from the rear sensor 2b, the left sensor 2c, and the right sensor 2d) can be measured. The perpendicular distance from each distance sensor 2 to the wall 4 is calculated from each sensor distance and the turning angle of the scraping unit 1, and the position of the wall 4 is recognized based on this distance. In this example, the sea wall 4a is used as an example. Will be described. The front sensor 2a faces the sea side wall 4a in an inclined manner. In order to express this positional relationship, orthogonal coordinates having an X-axis in the direction along the quay and a Y-axis in the direction from the land to the sea are defined with the elevator unit (the center of rotation of the scraping unit) 5 as the origin. The turning angle θ of the scraping unit is represented by an angle formed by the scraping unit 1 with respect to the Y axis.

The perpendicular distance D _T from the front sensor 2a to the seaside wall 4a is calculated from the sensor distance l _T measured by the front sensor 2a and the turning angle θ.

D _T = l _T · cos θ The coordinates (X _BET , Y _BET ) of the front sensor 2a can be obtained by storing information on the mounting position of each distance sensor in the scraping unit 1 as scraping unit structure data. Easy to find from data.

From these, the Y coordinate Y _KS of the sea side wall 4a is obtained. That is, Y _KS = Y _BET + D _T. For other walls, the X coordinate or the Y coordinate can be obtained from each sensor distance. By obtaining the coordinates of each wall in this manner, the positional relationship between the elevator unit 5 and each wall 4 is calculated.

On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 3, a ship wall distance calculation point 6 is set in advance as scraping part structure data. The ship wall distance calculation point 6 indicates a portion projecting out most around the scraping unit 1, that is, a protrusion, and represents the outermost periphery of the scraping unit 1 by a plurality of ship wall distance calculation points 6. be able to. When the distance sensor is attached outside the scraping unit 1, the sensor position is the ship wall distance calculation point 6. These ship wall distance calculation points 6 can be represented on rectangular coordinates, as shown in FIG.

As shown in FIG. 5, first, the coordinates of each ship wall distance calculation point 6 of the scraping section 1 are calculated. Then
The distance from each ship wall distance calculation point 6 to each wall 4 is calculated. In addition, the distance (refer to FIG. 4) from each of the four points to one wall is calculated. Next, for each ship wall distance calculation point 6, the smallest one of the calculated distances to the four walls is selected.

As described above, the positional relationship between the scraping unit 1 and the wall 4 is determined, and the shortest distance between the outermost periphery of the scraping unit 1 and the wall 4 is determined.

Next, the positional relationship and the shortest distance are displayed on a screen display comprising a liquid crystal graphic panel provided in the driver's cab. As shown in FIG.
At 0, a figure 61 representing the scraping unit 1 viewed from above and a square 62 representing the hold 3 are displayed. Reference numeral 63 denotes a square representing a hatch opening obtained by another method. Square 6
From the position of FIG.
Is located at the corner of the hatch opening on the land side, and it can be seen that the scraping unit 1 faces the corner of the hold on the land side. In the illustrated example, the upper side is the land side, and the character "land" is displayed on the upper side. This is a display that is easy for the operator to understand during driving. In the above-described coordinate calculation, the elevator unit 5 is set as the origin. However, in the display, the square 62 corresponding to the hold is fixed at the center of the screen, and the figure 61 representing the scraping unit 1 is displayed by moving and rotating.

In FIG. 6, the shortest distance “**” is displayed around the square 62 on the screen display. Thereby, the operator sets the distance d ₁ between the right front part of the scraping part and the land side wall, the left front part of the scraping part and the west side wall (rectangular shape) as the shortest distance between the outermost periphery of the scraping part (FIG. 61) and the wall. 62
The distance d ₂ in the left side) and the distance between the right rear and the east wall of the cleaning unit can be readily understood the distance between the rear left and the sea side walls of the cleaning unit. Therefore, even when the scraping unit 1 cannot be visually recognized from the driver's cab, the collision can be avoided by grasping the positional relationship between the scraping unit and the wall on this screen display.

Next, the operation of the driving support device in the actual unloading operation will be described.

As the scraper 1 scrapes off the load in the hold, the position of the scraper 1 is lowered, and the load forms a cliff-like collapse surface (77 in FIG. 7). Therefore, the distance sensor 2 measures the distance not to the wall 4 of the hold 3 but to the collapse surface 77. In calculating and displaying the positional relationship, this collapsed surface is recognized as a wall (temporary wall), and a rectangle 62 formed of the temporary wall is displayed. That is, the square 62 displayed during the lifting operation does not always represent the true wall 4. However, since the operator views the screen display as the collision avoidance support information, no inconvenience occurs even when the true wall 4 is not known. From the displayed graphic and the shortest distance, the operator can move or turn so that the scraping unit 1 does not collide with the recognized wall. afterwards,
When the load collapses, the distance sensor 2 measures the distance to the newly formed collapsed surface. As a result, the position of the wall (temporary wall) on the coordinates with the elevator unit 5 as the origin changes, and one side of the square 62 expands on the screen display as indicated by a dashed line. When the load further collapses, a square corresponding to the true wall 4 is finally obtained.

Since the ultrasonic distance sensor 2 utilizes reflection, if the target is a flat surface, the distance may not be measured due to the inclination angle with respect to the flat surface.
For this reason, depending on the inclination between the scraping unit 1 and the wall 4, the scraping unit 1
And the wall 4 cannot be located. Therefore, the turning angle of the scraping unit 1 is set in a predetermined angle range (0 ° ± α °,
90 ± α °, 180 ± α °, -90 ± α °, α = 5-1
5 °), the four distance sensors 2
(Front sensor 2a, rear sensor 2b, left sensor 2c, right sensor 2d) are measured. When the turning angle does not fall within the above-mentioned angle range, three forward distance sensors 2, that is, a front sensor 2a, an oblique left sensor 2e, and an oblique right sensor 2f are used. Regardless of the turning angle, one of these three distance sensors 2 faces the wall 4 at an angle suitable for distance measurement, so that at least the wall position in front of the scraping unit can be obtained. As a result, the tip of the scraping portion that has the highest possibility of collision can be protected. In addition, it is rare that the scraping unit 1 is moved obliquely during operation, and the measurement by the four distance sensors 2 described above is enough to avoid a collision.

[0025]

The present invention exhibits the following excellent effects.

(1) Since the positional relationship between the scraping unit and the wall is displayed in a graphic form on the screen, the operator can grasp the positional relationship between the scraping unit and the wall which is difficult to see from the cab.

(2) Since the shortest distance between the outermost periphery of the scraping portion and the wall is displayed on the screen as a numerical value, the operator can use this distance as a measure for avoiding collision.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a sensor layout showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a plan view of a hold holding a scraping unit according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a side view and a front view showing the outermost periphery of a scraping unit according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram of a coordinate system for calculating a distance according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a procedure diagram for obtaining the shortest distance between the outermost periphery of the scraping unit and a wall according to the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram of a screen displayed on a screen display according to the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a configuration diagram of a continuous unloader.

FIG. 8 is a plan view of a continuous unloader.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Scrape part 2 Distance sensor 3 Hold 4 Wall 5 Elevator part

Claims (3)

[Claims] An elevator section supported on land and vertically lowered into a hold is moved in the hold, and a scraping section protruding horizontally from a lower end of the elevator section to scrape a load is provided. In the continuous unloader to be rotated, four ultrasonic distance sensors facing the front and rear and left and right directions of the scraping section projecting direction are attached to the scraping section, and the distance of the distance sensor to the wall of the hold in each sensor direction is measured. An operation support device for a continuous unloader, wherein a positional relationship between a scraping unit and a wall is calculated based on a distance, and the positional relationship is graphically displayed on a screen display provided in a cab. 2. A perpendicular distance from each distance sensor to a wall is calculated from each sensor distance and a turning angle of the scraping unit, and from the perpendicular distance and scraping unit structure data including a mounting position of each distance sensor, The operation support device for a continuous unloader according to claim 1, wherein a shortest distance between the outermost periphery of the scraping portion and the wall is obtained, and a numerical value indicating the shortest distance is displayed on a screen display along with the graphic. 3. An ultrasonic type distance sensor which faces obliquely forward and left and right in the direction in which the scraping portion projects in the scraping portion, and measures the measurement distance of these two distance sensors according to the turning angle of the scraping portion. 3. The operation support apparatus for a continuous unloader according to claim 2, wherein the apparatus is used for calculating a positional relationship between the scraping unit and a wall.