ICON Technologies are working with Belpile to develop custom distributed instrumentation systems to monitor dynamic piling parameters including depth, flow rate, RPM and similar for in-situ piling operations. In-situ piling involves forming the pile in-ground by the controlled pumping of concrete into a borehole. Operators need to monitor and control the rate at which the pile is formed to ensure mechanical integrity.
A typical piling operation may combine the operation of multiple drills and concrete pumps at physically separated locations. The system monitors flow rate at the concrete pump, and depth, RPM, torque and a number of other parameters at the drill. The relative positioning of the drills and pumps is site dependent, and the overall site environment is unsuited to a fully wired monitoring system.
The system combines a drill-mounted National Instruments CompactRIO PAC controller for local I/O at the drill, with National Instruments WSN wireless I/O nodes to monitor flow rate at the concrete pumps. The WSN nodes connect into the system via a WSN Gateway interface installed in the CompactRIO Controller. The system can include (optional) WSN relay nodes to ensure reliable connectivity on sites with difficult geometry and/or high levels of mobile plant traffic which could interfere with line-of-site wireless connectivity.
National Instruments CompactRIO PAC Chassis, Controller and I/O Modules, National Instruments Wireless Sensor Network I/O modules
