RU2727325C2 - Method for three-dimensional track navigation in automated assistance by control of cargo handling equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: transportation; computer engineering.SUBSTANCE: disclosed is a method for three-dimensional navigation in automated assistance by control of cargo-handling mechanisms—CHM based on application of radar. CHM path is followed by markers based on nonlinear scatterers—electromagnetic waves NS, and to identify the markers, nonlinear radiolocation stations are used, arranged on a mechanism with a directional pattern oriented in series as each marker moves. At that, the nonlinear radiolocation station transmits to the markers probing signals of one high frequency f, and from the markers, reflected and reformatted signals are received at frequency 2 fand 3 f, according to which, after the pulse or frequency processing with the probing signal f, the nonlinear radiolocation station determines the direction to the marker, distance to it and calculates instantaneous speed of mechanism. These data are continuously transmitted to the central control processor of the mechanism, which by means of software controls movement of mechanism along path and lifting/lowering of cargo in assigned points of route, taking into account wind speed for regulation of all types of movement, reducing speed at strong wind to stop.EFFECT: higher level of automation of loading and unloading operations.3 cl, 6 dwg

Description

The invention relates to radio engineering, more precisely to nonlinear radar (NRL), and can be used to control the movement of lifting transport mechanisms (GPTM) from the place of acceptance of cargo to the destination and back, for example, home-tower construction cranes, port cargo-loading and cargo-receiving cranes, forklifts, gantry cranes, etc.

Further, the method can be used for optimal control (movement on rails) of tower cranes with a load: speed, acceleration, stopping place for lifting the load to a given height / floor: to control the lifting of loads to a height by a construction crane under wind loads, i.e. possible rocking and even rotation of the load with the lifting platform.

In general, navigation is finding the optimal route, determining the location, direction and values of speed and other parameters of the object's movement. In our case, this is the movement of the crane along a given route at a given speed, stopping in the right place and delivering the cargo to a given point and returning to the starting point.

It is interesting to use this system for loading and unloading cargo on sea and river vessels by port cranes: automatic control of the movement of the crane in time with the cargo: starting to receive cargo, starting to move, stopping at the right place with high accuracy near the desired hold (lowering or receiving cargo ), reverse movement, etc. This promises great economic benefits, since demurrage of a vessel in port (time of unloading and loading) is estimated at several thousand dollars per hour.

Also, the proposed technical solution can be used for optimal control of agricultural machines: tractors for plowing, various harvesting machines: combines, matsipurs, hay mowers, etc., when, to paraphrase the proverb, “feeds every day”.

A common problem in the operation of GPTM, in particular construction cranes, is:

- limited actions in poor visibility conditions (fog, rain, snow, nighttime);

- unsatisfactory operational and economic indicators;

- the notorious human factor (the well-being and mood of the driver-operator, his experience) in general, the limited human capabilities in determining the distance, reaction to changing situations, etc.

Further, the problem of loading and unloading operations is labor productivity, namely the experience and skills of the operator-operator, which in most cases are at an average level.

Example. Modern construction: all building assembly operations must be carried out strictly on schedule, up to minutes. The operator of the construction crane abruptly took the load with the boom of the crane and quickly took it from its place, and the load on a long cable, and it begins to swing back / forth and even can rotate, you have to stop and wait for the load to calm down, and this time and idle time for other workers, therefore , losses and delays in construction.

Second example. Unloading and loading at the port of sea transport. A seaport crane must drive up to the hold at the berth, accept the cargo, drive with it to the expected car, unload, drive up to the hold again, etc. Requires continuous clear work, because unloading and / or loading time at the port is very expensive. This means that everything again depends on the experience-skill of the driver. Automation of these processes suggests itself.

At present, attempts are known to automate such work, but they are in their infancy, for example, robotic lift trucks in warehouses, but they have not found widespread use due to very complex technical solutions, and, therefore, are very expensive and do not justify themselves.

An example of a very accelerated construction with the use of mechanization and partial automation is known from the history of construction. This is the decision of the early 60s of President de Gaulle to leave NATO, then the headquarters of which was moved from Paris to Brussels, for which a new headquarters was built in just half a year, not under a roof, but on a turnkey basis with all communications and equipment , communication nodes. It was a huge amount of work, very difficult and very fast. The construction schedule was scheduled literally by the minute for the whole day and was strictly followed.

Completely interesting and economically justified solutions are not known by the authors in the available sources.

The technical objective of the invention is to increase the level of automation of various loading and unloading operations, monotonous technological operations such as plowing, harvesting, etc.

The technical result is achieved through the use of nonlinear radars in the proposed field of application, which, using the example of a construction crane, determine:

- continuous coordinates of finding a construction crane on its railway track and stopping at the right place;

- assignment and determination of continuous coordinates of the crane boom hook;

- assignment and determination of continuous coordinates of the crane boom trolley from its mast;

- determination and setting the height of the hook of the crane boom with a load relative to the ground level;

- taking into account the wind speed during crane operations;

- reduction in time costs, and hence economic costs;

- increasing labor productivity.

To solve the problem, a method of three-dimensional navigation in automated assistance with the control of cargo-lifting and transport mechanisms is proposed - GPTM based on the use of radar, characterized by the fact that markers based on nonlinear scatterers - HP electromagnetic waves are used on the route of the GPTM, and nonlinear markers are used to recognize markers Radar - navigation radar, located on the mechanism with a directional diagram, oriented sequentially as you move to each marker; moreover, the navigation radar transmits probing signals of one high frequency f0 to the markers, and reflected and reformatted signals are received from the markers at a frequency of 2 f0 and 3 f0, according to which the navigation radar after phase pulse or frequency processing with a probing signal f0 determines the direction to the marker, the distance to it and calculates the instantaneous speed of the mechanism, this data is continuously transmitted to the central control processor of the mechanism, which, according to the tripping system, controls the movement of the mechanism along the route and the lifting / lowering of the load at the designated points of the route, also taking into account the wind speed to regulate all types of movement: reducing their speed in strong winds before stopping at very high values.

FIG. 1 shows a structural electrical diagram of the device according to this method, which is shown;

1 - crane control panel (PU) with a liquid crystal display (LCD) with a keyboard type on a smartphone;

2 - modem (receiver-converter of commands from the control panel);

3 - central processing unit (CPU) of the circuit;

4 - specialized software (SPO);

5 - the first non-linear radar (navigation radar);

6 - markers M (nonlinear scatterers - HP) on the route of the crane;

7 - anemometer (wind speed detector;)

8 - executive mechanisms;

9 - crane with a cart;

10 - block of transmitting and receiving antennas for navigation radar 5;

RK - radio channel;

f ₀ - probing signal from the navigation radar;

2f ₀ and 3f ₀ - received signals from HP (second harmonic from f ₀ and third from f ₀ ).

11 - second navigation radar;

12th navigation radar.

FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of the arrangement of the constituent parts of the method, which shows:

13 - crane mast and boom (located across the railway track);

14 - cargo area;

15 - building under construction;

16 - railway track;

M1 - MN - markers (HP) located along the cargo areas of the building under construction.

The diagram in Fig. 1 has the following connections: the control panel 1 by the radio channel RK through modem 2 is connected by a bidirectional bus A to the control input of the CPU 3, the first navigation radar 5 by a probing signal of frequency f _{0 is} connected in series with nonlinear scatterers of markers 6, the outputs of which are the second 2 f ₀ and the third harmonic 3 f _{0 of} this frequency is also connected in series with the unit of receiving and transmitting antennas 10, the output of which is connected by a bidirectional bus B to the signal input of the CPU 3, in the memory of which the SPO 4 is entered; the outputs of the CPU 3 are connected to the power mechanisms 8 of the crane 9; the second NRLS 11 bidirectional bus B is connected to the CPU 3, and the bidirectional bus G - with nonlinear diffusers 12; the output of the anemometer 7 is connected to the signal input of the CPU 3.

The choice of non-linear radar in this application is due to the following.

Traditional active radar uses linear reflection (scattering) of electromagnetic waves from various objects. In this case, the radar receiver perceives the reflected oscillations of the same frequency (taking into account the correction for the Doppler shift) as the radiated oscillation. The information extracted from the received signal is usually encoded either in the time lag, or in the value of the phase incursion, or in the lag of the modulation law (for example, in frequency) of the received signal relative to the sounding signal, or in the difference between the time shifts or phase incursions of the signals received by several receiving paths, or in the difference in their amplitudes. Signal processing in active radars allows detecting various objects (radar targets), measuring their coordinates, recognizing targets, searching for them, automatic tracking, and other tasks.

In many cases, radar targets are located against the background of other objects of natural or artificial origin (for example, against the background of the underlying surface of the earth). In this case, the input of the radar receiver receives a signal not only from the target (useful signal), but also from all objects falling into the directional diagram of the radar antenna system and diffusely scattering electromagnetic waves. These vibrations form external interference, which makes it difficult to detect and observe the desired signal from the target. The masking effect of external interference is one of the main problems of modern active linear radar.

An alternative to traditional radar is nonlinear radar, which is the sensing by electromagnetic waves of media with nonlinear inclusions - nonlinear scatterers (HP) - this is, as a rule, a man-made object capable of converting the spectrum of radio waves incident on it into waves of higher frequencies, multiple of the sounding one. This leads to the emergence of new properties: an increase in the signal / noise level, increased selectivity, and generally noise immunity.

The diagram in Fig. 2 has the following components and their location relative to each other;

On the railway track 16 there is a construction crane 9, the crane itself contains a mast and a boom 13; on one side of the railway track 16 there is a building 15 under construction, and on the other - markers 6 - M1 - MN, next to the railway track 16 there is a loading platform 14 for receiving cargo by a construction crane 9; the unit of transmit-receive antennas 10 of the navigation radar 5 is located on the counterweight of the crane bogie 21 in such a way that its directional pattern is oriented to the markers M1 - MN sequentially as the crane 9 moves along the railway track 16.

FIG. 3, 4 depicts a simplified diagram of the crane 9, which shows:

17 - crane trolley;

18 - crane boom cart;

19 - load on the crane boom cable;

20 - crane boom cable;

21 - counterweight;

M - distance from the crane boom to ground level = const;

H1 - distance from the crane boom to the load = var;

DH1 - correction to H1 for the height of the load;

S1 - measured distance from navigation radar 2 to crane trolley = var;

S2 - measured distance from navigation radar 2 to load 19 on cable 20 = var.

The circuit has the following connections.

The crane 9 is located on a trolley 17 with a counterweight 21, on which the first navigation radar 5 is located; the first HP 12 is located on the crane boom trolley, and the second HP 12 is located on the hook (not shown) of the cable 20 (essentially on the top of the load 19), at the junction of the crane mast and the boom there is a second navigation radar 11.

When moving along the railway track, the boom of the crane 13 is in the stowed position strictly along the railway track, and when it stops at the desired marker it turns strictly perpendicular to the side of the building under construction.

Before starting work, the operator of the cargo platform 14 from PU1 records the following operations: starting the movement, stopping the crane at the desired marker, the required height of lifting the cargo, the height of the cargo from the hook to the bottom of the cargo, the coordinates of the cargo in height and the coordinates of the unloading platform are also entered. After the cargo has been removed by the operator-receiver of the cargo from PU1, a command is sent to the return journey

(the control panel travels with the crane: for example, in a special case on the mast 12).

The operation of the method of FIG. 2 occurs as follows. The operations of receiving goods from the site 14 and their unloading on the roof of the building 15 under construction are carried out manually, and the delivery of goods occurs in automatic mode. For this, markers M1 - MN are placed near the railway track 16 at certain intervals between them, starting from the cargo area. The number of markers directly depends on the length of the building and the location of the unloading areas. The sequence of crane actions is entered into the central processor 3 in the special software (SPO): lifting the load to a given height, starting the movement, moving speed, stopping at a certain marker, the angle of rotation of the boom with the load, lowering the load to a predetermined place. After unloading, the cradle (hook) of the crane 9 is lifted, returned to its original place and all over again.

Examples of

1. Tower crane.

- Track marking (M1 - MN).

- The sequence of actions of the crane is entered in the STR PU1.

- Stop the crane in the right place at the marker 1 of the load area 14.

- Acceptance of cargo.

- Following a route at a given speed.

- Stop at the desired marker.

- Lifting cargo to the top of the building, unloading.

- Return route to the loading platform.

2. Port crane (loading into holds and / or on deck).

- Acceptance of cargo in the right place.

- Following the route.

- Stop at the desired place (for example, in the 1st, 2nd or Nth hold, or a place near the deck).

- Loading.

- Return route.

3. Port crane (unloading).

- Following to the place.

- Stop at the desired place (1, 2, 3 holds, a place near the deck).

- Lifting the load.

- Following to the place of unloading.

- Unloading.

- Return route.

In both examples, the given movement parameters are maintained: acceleration, movement speed, braking distance, speed of lifting / lowering of loads, angular speed of rotation of the crane boom, etc.

It should be noted that this is not complete automation, but, by and large, an automated system for helping to control technological processes when using load-lifting and transport mechanisms. This allows:

- significantly improve the quality of movement and delivery of goods to the destination, regardless of running conditions (rain, snow, fog, night);

- to minimize the delivery time (saving time);

- therefore, to reduce the cost of construction and handling operations.

The work of determining the desired marker of FIG. 1 happens as follows.

Nonlinear radar (NRL) is a radio engineering system that solves the problem of detecting a given marker.

The navigation radar consists of a transmitting device that performs single or multifrequency sounding of the space, tuned to one of the harmonics of the sounding signal or to one of the combination frequencies, and a circuit for processing the received signals.

Thus, the navigation radar, when the crane is moving, sequentially determines the exact location of each marker, and, upon the signal from the CPU, through the trip, it issues commands to brake at the desired marker and lift the load to the specified upper cargo area of the building under construction.

As the HP of each marker, a pn junction is used, for example, based on a Schottky diode, connected between the excitation points of the simplest emitter and placed in a radio-transparent screen on a mast with a height of about one meter.

FIG. 5 shows the path of the rays for measuring the ordinates of the crane when approaching the stop marker, which shows: HP - nonlinear diffuser; NRLS - non-linear radar station;

1 - distance between HP and the middle of the railway path of the crane at the height of HP - NRL = const;

1 '- the measured distance between HP and the radar at the current time, equal to var;

(a - b) - calculated distance from the crane to the start of the stop marker.

The work of the system when measuring the ordinates of the crane to the stop marker is as follows. With the frequency of the interrogated sounding signal from the navigation radar, the range is measured to HP. For each request and return signal, the CPU calculates the distance from the tap to the start of the stop marker according to the Pythagorean theorem, equal to

FIG. 6 shows the beam path for measuring the instantaneous speed of the crane, which shows:

HP - nonlinear scatterer;

NRLS - non-linear radar station;

A - D - conventional navigation radar positions in terms of the time of approach to the stop marker;

R is the distance between HP and the middle of the railway path of the crane at a height of HP - NRL = const;

R1 - R3 - measured distances between navigation radar and HP at each moment of time, equal to var;

ΔS ₁ - ΔS _N , calculated distances of passage of the crane for time intervals Δt ₁ - Δt _N.

в нашем случае

причем ΔS вычисляется как на фиг.3 путем вычитания расстояния от крана до остановочного маркера между двумя соседними запросами, т.е. ΔS₁=S₁-S₂ и т.д. Измерение скорости нужно для управления движением крана с целью точной остановки и нужного маркера по сигналам на исполнительные механизмы с ЦП.The instantaneous speed is measured as follows. With the frequency of the interrogated sounding signal from the navigation radar, the range to HP is measured and the time between two inquiries is recorded, then this instantaneous speed is measured by the formula:

in our case

and ΔS is calculated as in Fig. 3 by subtracting the distance from the crane to the stop marker between two adjacent requests, i.e. ΔS ₁ = S ₁ -S ₂ , etc. The speed measurement is necessary to control the movement of the crane in order to accurately stop and the desired marker according to signals to the actuators from the CPU.

Because the time between requests is a few milliseconds, the speed can be averaged over several requests.

Determination of the height of the load (coordinates in height) on the boom of the crane is as follows. The second NRL 11 calculates the distance to the first HP1 equal to S1, and also measures the distance to the second HP2 equal to S2. Because the height from the ground to the arrow is known, then according to the right-angled triangle H2 - S1 - S2 in the CPU3, the leg H2 is calculated by the expression:

And then the height from the ground to the hook is calculated, equal to H1 = Н-Н2, and only then the total height from the bottom of the load to the ground is calculated, equal to H1-ΔН. Because the height of the load may be different, then for its smooth lowering it must be taken into account.

In conclusion, it should be noted that this task: finding marks - markers and using them to determine the speed and ordinate of the crane is possible even for an ordinary radar that is not nonlinear, but it is technically very difficult, because such locators do not distinguish the marker signal from other targets on the route of the crane and, in general, from any reflective objects, and there can be many of them near stop markers, as at any construction site, therefore, there will be many false targets, and which one is true is not highlighted ... Only the use of navigation radar uniquely solves this problem, and no less successfully, and the transmitter power of the navigation radar lies within microwatts, which is commensurate with the power of a cell phone.

Nonlinear scatterers (marks) in conditions with multiple reflections due to the presence of a large number of metal objects can be made in the form of active radio tags using ultra-wideband radio signals that are resistant to difficult propagation conditions.

Active RFID tags have their own power source and, as a result, an increased range of operation, and implement additional processing, for example, encryption.

Other options can be used as active RFID tags, for example, parametric RFID tags.

Despite the limited service life of an active RFID tag, it is usually years, which is more than remaining in most applications.

Currently, micro batteries with a service life of several years with a large number of amperes / hours have been developed and applied. When decoding code modulation: the serial number of the marker is entered on the LCD in the control panel according to the RK, from which it is visible near which stop marker the crane is located, despite, for example, poor visibility: night, fog, snow charges, etc.

The proposed method describes the use of three navigation radar and their location. In fact, depending on the conditions of the decisive tasks for the delivery of cargo, their number can be increased and the location of all navigation radars can be different.

Thus, in the proposed technical solution, three-dimensional navigation is performed along the length of the track, the height of the load lifting and by determining the coordinates of the unloading platform - the width.

Claims (3)

1. A method of three-dimensional navigation in automated assistance for the control of cargo-lifting and transport mechanisms - GPTM based on the use of radar, characterized by the fact that markers based on nonlinear scatterers - HP of electromagnetic waves are used along the route of the GPTM, and nonlinear radars - navigation radar are used to recognize markers located on the mechanism with a directional pattern, oriented sequentially as you move to each marker; moreover, the navigation radar transmits probing signals of one high frequency f ₀ to the markers, and reflected and reformatted signals are received from the markers at a frequency of 2 f ₀ and 3 f ₀ , according to which the navigation radar after phase pulse or frequency processing with a probing signal f ₀ determines the direction to the marker, the distance to it and calculates the instantaneous speed of the mechanism, this data is continuously transmitted to the central control processor of the mechanism, which, according to the trip system, controls the movement of the mechanism along the route and the lifting / lowering of the load at designated points of the route, also taking into account the wind speed to regulate all types of movement: reducing them speed in strong winds before stopping at very high values. 2. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the markers are located at key points of the route: the beginning, end and in certain places along the route of the GPTM, as well as on the GPTM itself. 3. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the first navigation radar is located on the ballast of the crane trolley and is oriented to markers along the route of the GPTM, the second navigation radar is located at the junction of the mast with the crane boom and is oriented to the HP1 marker located on the rope hook and to the marker HP2 located at the bottom of the crane mast bogie and is oriented towards the marker located at the geometric center of the unloading platform.

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