KDDI, Obayashi and NEC use 5G in Successful Remote Control of Construction Machinery

Jan 28, 2019 13:47 JST

Source: NEC Corporation

- Realizing safer and faster disaster recovery of social infrastructure -

TOKYO, Jan 28, 2019 - (JCN Newswire) - KDDI, Obayashi and NEC today announced that they had successfully carried out a joint field trial in which a next-generation 5G mobile communication system was used to remotely control construction machnery in a concerted manner. The trial was carried out at the Aigawa Dam construction site in Ibaraki, Osaka from December 3 to 14.

Existing remote control systems using Wi-Fi incur a time lag between the movement of machinery and the transmission of images, fatiguing operators and reducing efficiency compared with onboard operations. Minimizing this time lag is required in order to realize a remote operability equivalent to onboard operations, particularly when two or more construction machines are used, and operators must discern distances between the machines.

The trial applied key features of 5G communications, such as high speed, high capacity and low-latency communications to remotely control two construction machines, a backhoe and a crawler loader, and successfully transport sand. Four cameras, three 2K forward cameras and one omnidirectional camera, were installed on each machine to transmit images and sound data in real time 5G. The trial demonstrated that remote control can function at an equivalence to onboard operations.

Given that fiber-optic lines are most often unavailable at disaster sites, the 5G base station and the remote control room, separated by about 750 meters, were connected through a wireless entrance network(1). This was used for 5G backhaul and for transmitting images from four overhead cameras. An in-vehicle 5G base station was introduced by installing a remote control room in a mobile trailer, demonstrating that a remote control environment can be immediately built at disaster-hit areas, and recovery works carried on swiftly and safely.

Meanwhile, an interactive voice control system was introduced in ICT construction for the first time in Japan, and construction machinery using a 5G system was successfully operated remotely only by a voice control system. The experiment confirms that, as a result, the system enables a single operator to operate two construction machines simultaneously, which compensates for the lack of skilled construction workers and contributes to greatly improving work efficiencies.

KDDI, Obayashi, and NEC were successful in an earlier joint field experiment in remote construction using 5G and 4K 3D monitoring(2) for the first time in Japan in Feb. 2018. The companies aim to realize advanced construction technology utilizing 5G through a series of field experiments.

This field experiment was carried out as part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications' 5G Integrated Verification Trial 2018.

The roles of each company:
1. KDDI - Promotion of the 5G Integrated Verification Trial
2. Obayashi Corporation - Development and testing of a remote control system of construction machinery
3. NEC - Development and testing of a communicator device using a 28 GHz massive-element antenna; - Provision of iPASOLINK EX Advanced, 80GHz band high-speed wireless transmission system

(1) "iPASOLINK EX Advanced" 80GHz band high-speed wireless transmission system to cover 10Gbps transmission
(2) KDDI, Obayashi and NEC use 5G and 4K 3D monitoring to remotely control construction machinery

Contact:

NEC
Seiichiro Toda        
s-toda@cj.jp.nec.com
+81-3-3798-6511

Source: NEC Corporation
Sectors: Telecoms, 5G, Wireless, Apps

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