The remote-control crane breaking the boundaries of traditional construction

Why do we expect tower crane operators to work at height in cramped, swaying cabs? There is another way. Kristina Smith investigates

It is pretty rare to have a close-up encounter with a tower crane operator on a construction site. “Most people won’t even know you because you arrive before everybody else and you leave after everybody else has gone home,” says Radius tower crane operator Jack Nicholson. It can take 30 or 40 minutes to climb up to a tower crane cab – a little less to come back down again – and once up there, the operator spends hours sitting in a cramped box that sways in the wind.

“It’s definitely a learning curve but I got used to it pretty quickly”

Jack Nicholson, tower crane operator, Radius

Aside from the discomfort, there are safety risks associated with working 100 metres or so up in the air. Falls while climbing up or down are rare in the UK, but several operators have been killed or severely injured in tower crane collapses. And tower crane operators who experience a medical emergency while in their cab are at greater risk of dying than colleagues working at ground level, since extracting them is a major operation. All things considered, it seems rather archaic to be operating tower cranes this way.

This was the exact thought of Aviv Carmel, co-founder and co-chief executive of Skyline Cranes, an Israeli firm that around four years ago began developing a system, Skyline Cockpit, that allows tower cranes to be operated from the ground.

The Skyline Cockpit operator is located at ground level in front of a 160-degree array of screens that mimic the view they would have from the cab. Sensors and cameras are installed on the crane and are connected to the ground control unit via fibre optics.

Although the crane could be controlled by any sort of interface, such as a games console, the seat and controls are set out as they would be in a regular cab – but inside a site cabin or office. “We are going for evolution, not revolution. We need small steps,” says Skyline Cockpit chief executive Zachi Flatto.

Technical challenges

Skyline Cockpit spent two and a half years in the initial development phase. One early technical challenge was removing latency in the system so the controls could work in real time. Flatto says he now demonstrates the technology to potential clients with a regular line: “We can be controlling a crane from New York back at home in Tel Aviv with no latency.”

Another hurdle was perfecting the augmented reality (AR) aspect. A red dot that appears on the operator’s screen to guide them to the anticipated lifting point needed adjusting, so that its positioning remains accurate as the construction site changes.

“One of the key challenges was making sure the hardware was robust enough to cope with the UK environment”

Teddy Holt, operations director, Radius

After these technological kinks were ironed out, the system needed to be tested in a real-life environment. Lifting firm Radius Group is supplying Skyline Cockpit in the UK and installed the system at its yard in Northampton around 18 months ago. “We needed to see it in a very controlled environment to understand how it operated and what the different operating opportunities are,” says Radius operations director Teddy Holt. “One of the key challenges was making sure the hardware was robust enough to cope with the UK environment.” Radius experimented with using both a local wi-fi network and fibre optics and looked at different means of communication between the crane operator and site team.

After training a few operators to use Skyline Cockpit, the next step was to try it on a live site. Radius found a receptive customer in Winvic, which agreed initially to a three-month trial on its Crown Place Birmingham site, a 33-storey student accommodation scheme for Crown Student Living. “For a compact, city centre, high-rise project like Crown Place Birmingham, the health and safety benefits of Skyline Cockpit were a key driver to Winvic’s adoption as well as the wellbeing gains for the operator,” says Winvic senior operations manager David Elson. Winvic has since opted to continue using it beyond the trial period. Radius supplied a Potain MR 225, 14-tonne capacity luffing jib tower crane alongside the Skyline Cockpit system.

Nicholson was heavily involved during the three-month trial period, helping to fine-tune the system. Since the controls can be programmed remotely from Israel, adjustments were made in a matter of minutes, he says. For instance, Nicholson asked to move a button controlling the pan-tilt-zoom camera that allows the operator to get a close-up view of the load being attached. Radius also changed the zoom power of that camera, upping it from 30x to 60x.

“The long-term vision is to be able to turn the cockpit into a command-and-control centre with multiple cranes”

Zachi Flatto, chief executive, Skyline Cockpit

The system can be tailored to different sites and different operators. For example, Winvic asked for an additional camera to be added to the crane in Birmingham looking over the retaining base of the jib so that checking its screws and bolts could be made part of the daily inspection regime. The operator must still climb the tower crane once a week to carry out certain checks, though. Also, any crane fitted with the Skyline Cockpit system can still be operated traditionally if required.

Safety benefits

Nicholson found that he adjusted rapidly to working with Skyline Cockpit. “It’s definitely a learning curve but I got used to it pretty quickly,” he says. Operators are often concerned that it won’t feel like a tower crane, he says, but the shakes and wobbles due to the wind and picking up heavy loads are translated to the driver via the cameras shaking and other visual cues. Sceptics who come to try it out at the Radius yard are almost always pleasantly surprised, he adds. In Nicholson’s view, Skyline Cockpit has benefits beyond improving crane operator safety. For example, the zoom camera allows the operator to check the slinging of the load. “If you’re working with a new slinger or banksman, you can keep an eye on them. That camera makes it so easy,” he says.

Nicholson finds certain operations easier with this set-up. For example, when slewing, there is a better view from the 160-degree screen than there would be looking through the cab window. There is also more information for the operator, such as the direction and speed of wind in relation to a lift, as well as lift radius data. “Due to the height and geometry of the project, over 70 per cent of the project’s lifting operations are ‘blind’ lifts; this is where the operator does not have a line of sight to the load slinging or landing location. Skyline Cockpit’s nine cameras provide the crane operator with a 360-degree sight path, even behind the building which is under construction,” says Elson. “While this extended visual capability doesn’t remove the need for guidance from the trained lifting team, it does provide the crane operator with an advantageous additional oversight of the lifting zone and operation.”

It is also physically easier. “For certain lifts, close in, you have to really bend over, which puts a lot of strain on your lower back. With the screens in front of you, in a comfy chair, you can see what you are doing and it’s physically a lot easier,” explains Nicholson, who is 6 foot 4 inches tall.

Toilet breaks are altogether more pleasant when controlling the crane from the ground and the chance to share breaks with colleagues gives the operator a bit of a mental boost. “You get more camaraderie that way and a bit of a serotonin boost, having a coffee with friends on site and building relationships,” says Nicholson.

Skyline Cockpit also promises productivity benefits. It collects data during operation that can be analysed to optimise how the crane is used – for instance, looking at daily and weekly cycles or improving the way that loads are prepared and slung. Winvic says it has made its operations 10 per cent more efficient by adjusting activity patterns.

The use of AR to direct operators to the lift location also saves time, says Holt. “Early indications show that using Skyline Cockpit can save one minute per lift. If you do 50 to 100 lifts a day, that adds up over the course of a project.”

Skyline Cockpit could also reduce tower crane operator costs, since one driver rather than two would be needed per tower crane, per shift. And with a multiple tower crane site, it would be possible to operate more than one tower crane from the same cockpit if the cranes were only being used for a few tasks on a weekend shift, for example. Flatto claims that Skyline Cockpit, which is paid for via a monthly fee covering the rental of the software and hardware, data analysis, support and training, could lead to significant savings for contractors. “We have done an analysis for England. Typically, there could be a saving of hundreds of thousands of pounds after taking off the price of the system,” he says.

Looking to the future, Holt envisages a time when multiple tower cranes could be operated from a remotely located hub. “Our intention would be to get away from having the cabin on the job site and move to a place where operators work out of an office with continuity of work. Think about the hours of travelling time that would be saved and the reduced carbon footprint.”

That arrangement could open up the tower crane operator role to a wider variety of people, says Holt, such as those that cannot work away from home due to family commitments.

Flatto sees the concept advancing even further. “The long-term vision is to be able to turn the cockpit into a command-and-control centre for a large construction site with multiple cranes and different types of machine being controlled by the cockpit. It would still be supervised by a human, not completely autonomous,” he says.