Sensor and IoT based tower crane

Abstract

Industry 4.0 drives industries towards increasingly intelligent and digital. In this revolution, construction industries are also seeking out a new way to keep abreast of the transformation. Digital twins as one of major techniques in industry 4.0, it needs the help of Internet of Things (IoT) technology ,Virtual technology and Big Data. The goal of digital twins is to create a virtual copy of physical world and realize cooperate and communicate between virtual space and physical space. With respect to the application of digital twins in construction industry, a tower crane model is used in this project. The tower crane is represented in both virtual and physical space. To obtain a highly accurate representation of the physical model in virtual aspect, there is a need to sense the current state of the physical model in real-time. Data obtained from virtual model is used, to control the physical model. Therefore, in this paper, it will investigate the various type of sensor that is best suited for the tower crane, followed by the communication protocol between the virtual and physical model. It will also look into the possibility of how Cloud is used to stored and transfer data. At the end of the report, the concept of six Ms approach is proposed to provide a general idea on implementing digital twins in construction industries at different stages.