Indoor positioning for dynamic environments
Unlike in the automotive industry with their fixed production lines, ships are manufactured in the “block construction” principle. Small units are used to create larger units. These are partly already walkable, are equipped with cables and pipes and are finally joined to sections. Ten sections, in turn, form a block, which is further equipped and finally transported to the yard. A cruise ship, for example, consists of 90 such blocks.
“The localization of people and the timely transmission of safety-related information is extremely difficult in such a situation,” explains Wilhelm Stork, head of the Institute of Technology in the information processing of the KIT. At present, for example, the detection and transmission of security threats and risks, such as missing railings, exposed cables or easily flammable construction waste, are carried out manually. Routes run the ship off and capture critical conditions such as combustible materials near hot work on paper forms. At the end of their inspection, they give this information to their supervisor, who in turn initiates the necessary measures.
“The potential for innovation is enormous if one is to regulate processes with the help of digital technologies,” says Frank Hartmann of the Institute for Technology in Information Processing at KIT. Hartmann has developed a localization system that not only enables faster resolution of safety risks and increases in working safety. It also helps to optimize the logistics and document the construction progress almost in real-time. Its system has a hybrid approach: along with the necessary infrastructure of the construction site – such as the power supply – antennas are laid for a short-range radio communication system. From the measurement of the distance to several antennas, the position can be determined by trilateration. If the radio contact to the antennas in the angled, steel ship’s belly is too weak, the position is estimated by means of the motion and acceleration sensors of a mobile terminal and dead reckoning navigation. “This enables us to achieve a sufficient positional accuracy with a reasonable installation effort,” explains Hartmann.
The system successfully tested at the Meyer shipyard in Papenburg is completely digital. Security employees photograph defects, risks or construction progress in the ship’s parts and record them as a work process on a smartphone using a mobile app developed by the cooperation partner Vomatec. The system simultaneously captures the position information and links it with the required work process. Both information packets are transmitted in real time via mobile radio or WLAN, uploaded as “event” on a server and can be processed immediately.
In a defined area of around 1200 square meters of a cruise ship under construction, Hartmann has already carried out various application scenarios at his Meyer Werft shipyard. Beyond the shipbuilding industry, civil engineering or aircraft construction are other possible fields of application.
The project SchiV 3.0 was funded by the German Federal Government. In addition to KIT, the consortium partners were Meyer Werft GmbH and Co. KG and Vomatec Innovations GmbH.
Related articles:
Has indoor navigation lost its way?
SiRFusion enables accurate indoor location without new infrastructure
Big in Japan! Geomagnetic indoor positioning
If you enjoyed this article, you will like the following ones: don't miss them by subscribing to :
