Design of an Automatic T-beam Erection System Based on NB-IoT for Bridge-Erecting Cranes

Bridge-erecting cranes are often used for beam erection in the construction of expressways. To improve the speed and quality of T-beam erection and ensure the safety of bridge-erecting cranes, an automatic T-beam erection system based on the Internet of Things (IoT) is designed in this paper. Narrow Band Internet of Things (NB-IoT) communication technology is used to integrate laser-ranging sensors, batteries, and communication modules into base station subsystems, which are installed in specific locations of the bridge-erecting crane. The position of the T-beam can be measured in real-time by the laser ranging sensors, with which a closed-loop control system is constructed for the T-beam erection system. The information of the running state including the position of the T-beam, the installation progress, and the position of the bridge-erecting crane is transferred to the cloud computing platform by NB-IoT, which can be viewed by mobile terminals. The experimental tests show that the distance measurement range of the system is 0.045m~30m, and the measurement accuracy is 2mm. Compared with the manual operation, the automatic T-beam erection system can reduce the risk of the T-beam erection and improve efficiency.