Radio remote control system operating in respect to operator position

Radio remote control is the use of radio signals to remotely control a system. The effective use of crane manipulation is an important contributor to industrial productivity, production efficiency, and especially workplace safety. Cranes are usually controlled either by cabled control unit or radio remote control units. Radio remote control devices are generally preferred for system safety and application efficiency. Generally, cranes are used to move very heavy materials. Because of these movements of parts within complicated working places, there is possibility to have unintentional accidents and injuries. With currently available hand-held control devices, the commands obtained from actuators are fixed and they always activate the same motors at the same directions. During the crane control, crane operators move together with the payload and therefore they do change their positions in respect to get the best convenient position. When the operators change their position, they must be aware of changing commands to get correct movement of crane trolley and bridge. This thesis has investigated the overhead crane control systems to provide crane trolley and bridge movements in a way that the operator moves the joystick in respect to his/her standing position. For this purpose, a prototype crane and the radio remote control system have been designed. In this design, a 3-axis digital compass was used to determine the position of the crane operator in respect to a reference position. With this position information, the crane control joystick signals were arranged to provide motor turnings in respect to position of the operator. The test results have shown that the designed system operate correctly and successfully from 0° to 360° around the crane, except some small critical positions. Therefore, the designed system is user friendly and provides safe crane working place.