REMOTE OPERATION Ӏ TOWER CRANES
The tower crane operators’ job is isolated and uncomfortable. Technology is about to radically improve it. Julian Champkin reports.
In the centre of Birmingham a Potain MR225 top slewing (luffing jib) tower crane of 14-tonne capacity is building a 33-storey student accommodation block. It is constructing the hybrid precast and in-situ concrete frame; it is installing the unitised curtain wall façade, of some 2,600 floor-to-floor height external wall panels which are factory manufactured and delivered to site fully complete with brickwork and windows; it is also distributing internal fit-out materials, such as pre-fabricated bathroom pods. The crane is on hire from
Radius Group to Northampton, UK-based construction company Winvic, and work is progressing smoothly. There does seem to be something missing, though. If you look up, possibly through
binoculars, at the crane operating cabin, some 70-odd metres above ground at the top of the tower below the boom, the operator appears to be absent. The cabin is empty. Lifting, moving, lowering of loads nevertheless continues. The operator has not gone
on an extended tea-break. They are, in fact, hard at work – only not in the usual place. Instead the operator is in a cockpit on the ground. Even so they can see exactly what they are doing – and can do so possibly better than if they were in their normal sky-high cabin.
A bank of monitors surrounds the operator, fed by cameras mounted on the crane. Crane control levers are at hand and operate the crane remotely from the operator's rather-more- comfortable new place of work. And they have not had to spend time, and effort, climbing 33 wind
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Crown Place Birmingham student accommodation under construction
and rain-exposed storeys to reach the crane cabin. The tower crane is being operated remotely from ground level. It is the first time such a system has been used in the UK. It promises to transform work, and working conditions, throughout the sector.
SKYLINE COCKPIT The new system is called Skyline Cockpit. It has been developed by Israeli company Skyline Cranes and Technologies, owners of Israel’s largest crane fleet, in collaboration with Winvic and lifting solutions provider the Radius Group. Since the summer Radius has
Winvic’s David Elson
been offering demonstration days for the technology at its
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