Lase Slab Yard Management
LASE equips full automatic slab crane with laser measurement technology
At the company ArcelorMittal – plant Gent in Belgium – a slab crane was fully automated in the year 2008/2009. With the crane it is possible to take up 5 slabs at the same time. Despite the warehouse management system and the position measurement the necessity was present, to measure the stacks and the slabs for the crane- and trolley drive to allow a safe pick up- and set down process. With a laser measuring system, consisting of 4 x 2D laser scanner and one LASE PC, the stacks and slabs are perfectly measured.
Task in detail The requirement regarding the measuring system is divided in four subtasks: 1. Slabs- and stacks width measurement and position measurement 2. Slabs- and stacks length measurement and position measurement 3. Stacks
Slabs- and stacks width, -length and -level measurement and position measurement Four LD OEM 1000 laser scanner are fixed at the trolley. Two laser scanners are measuring the position of the slab in trolley drive direction and two laser scanners are measuring the slab position in crane drive direction. When the crane reaches the nominal position (centre of the stockyard) the measuring system receives the order to measure the slabs. As result the slab width, -length, height and the divergency from the center position in crane- and trolley drive direction are displayed. The crane can be after-driven accordingly.
Collision protection The collision protection is supported by the measuring system in that way, that the height of the neighbouring stacks – which are also in the scan area of the laser scanner – are measured. ArcelorMittal compares this data with the data of the stacks in the data base of the warehouse management system.
Software The LASE CEWS Application Framework takes the data of the four laser scanner and processes the information of the stack- and slab positions and outputs the compressed measuring result
