Tokyo, Japan - Penta-Ocean Construction Co., Ltd. (President Takuzo Shimizu, hereinafter the Company) and Autonomous Control Systems Laboratory Ltd. (Representative Director, CEO , Satoshi Washiya) have developed 'Penta-Ocean Vanguard DroneLiDAR'(hereinafter POV-DL, photograph 1), a real-time receipt inspection system of soil volume loaded on barge using a drone equipped with a 3D-LiDAR sensor and an LTE module(hereinafter, the System).

In projects involving construction of breakwaters or quay walls, contractors must perform receipt inspection by measuring the amount of materials(rubble, gravel, sand, etc. ) loaded on each box barge, in order to properly manage work volume. Conventionally, receipt inspection was performed manually on a box barge by 4 to 6 staff members of the main contractor using range rods or flagging tapes. The procedure takes approximately 20 minutes, followed by manual creation of reports back in the site office. Furthermore, when the barge is stationed off the coast, the staff members need to travel to and from the barge on a transportation boat, extending the time required for receipt inspection to one hour or more. Thus, providing a solution for reducing the task load was a pressing issue.

With the System developed for receipt inspection of soil volume loaded on barge, the operation proceeds as follows: 1. one staff member on land flies POV-DL over water to the box barge, 2. once above the barge, the drone takes pictures of loaded soil with the mounted optical camera, 3. the drone measures the soil amount in the hold with the 3D-LiDAR sensor for five seconds, 4, the amount of the loaded soil is calculated and displayed instantly, and 5. the reports are created automatically.

In this System, an algorithm was constructed to calculate the amount of loaded soil in the cloud using the point cloud data collected by the 3D-LiDAR sensor and to create new reports. In addition, the System is equipped with technique combined with a Simultaneous Localization and Mapping Technology (SLAM)1, which allows stable measuring of loaded materials even on a rocking, wave-swept box barge.

Taking advantage of the implementation of legal structures on the use of LTE networks in the airspace following the revision of Radio Act in December 20202, POV-DL has an extended feature to directly upload the measured data to the cloud for storage without having to return to its home point. Consequently, the entire operation of receipt inspection including data collection using POV-DL, data upload and storage in the cloud, calculation of load amount and report creation, has been successfully systemized .

In a demonstration test conducted in the YoKohama Port Honmoku Area Breakwater Construction Project, time required for performing receipt inspection of loaded soil amount on a box barge(load capacity approx. 2,100m3) was reduced from 20 minutes to 5 minutes, and the manpower from 6 people to 1, confirming the System's contribution to significant improvement of productivity.

Aside from streamlining the receipt inspection operation, the System reduces waiting time of box barges, thereby delivering enhanced efficiency in soil dumping works. Going forward, the Company will promote active use of various ICT techniques in an attempt to bring further productivity improvement in marine works.

(C) 2024 Electronic News Publishing, source ENP Newswire