On the visual reality and monitoring of gantry cranes using FBG sensing

Abstract

ABSTRACT The gantry crane is an important and representative rotary rail loading and unloading crane. In order to ensure the safe and reliable operation of the gantry crane, it is particularly important to monitor its condition. Many ports still use the traditional after-sales maintenance system. And, the equipment and means for fault detection and repair are also backward. This paper proposes a design of a human-computer interaction system for gantry crane equipment on-line monitoring. The virtual reality technology is used to display the monitoring data and analysis results of the gantry crane in the three-dimensional space in real time. We sample the stress and temperature signals of the gantry crane using Fibre Bragg Grating sensors installed in some structural key points. The sensors are connected to the fibre grating demodulator of the monitoring room through a transmission fibre. Signals collected by the sensors are processed and analysed to diagnose the condition of the gantry crane. The system presents the crane’s operating status to the user in a realistic ‘virtual environment’, so that the fault information can be quickly and accurately fed back.