Communication or Telecom Tower Safety Monitoring Solution with Inclinometers and Sensors

The penetration rate of modern telecommunications services will reach 97% by 2024. Communication facilities have gradually become an inseparable part of human production and life. With the rapid development of wireless communication technology, the construction of communication towers is becoming more and more important, and efforts to ensure the safe operation of communication towers are particularly important.

I. The Background of Communication Tower Industry

In real life, there are many uncertain factors that may damage communication facilities, such as crustal movement, bad weather, aging oxidation, potential man-made damage, etc., which will bring certain safety hazards to the tower, and even cause the tower to tilt and collapse. As the accidents will make the production and life suffer an incalculable loss, so it is necessary to monitor the communication tower omnidirectionally.

At present, the maintenance of traditional communication towers mainly relies on regular inspections and human observations. These are very necessary security measures, but the limitations are too large to achieve comprehensive, timely and accurate observations. In particular, it is difficult to manually measure certain parameters, and it is not easy to find problems in time, which cannot meet the needs of real-time monitoring of the tower. In particular, the demand for communication signals is increasing. Once the communication tower is tilted and collapsed, it will have a huge impact on personnel and communication security. Therefore, real-time security monitoring for communication towers is imperative.

This program adopts a professional automated remote monitoring system to realize remote wireless intelligent information monitoring of communication tower facilities, and collect and remotely transmit various early warning information, thereby realizing real-time security monitoring of communication facilities and reducing losses. Shanghai Vigor Technology Development Co., Ltd. uses the IoT-based tower monitoring technology to effectively avoid the shortcomings of current maintenance methods. Through remote monitoring of communication tower facilities, various on-site data can be collected and centrally managed and scientifically predicted, providing effective support for effective maintenance and improved operational efficiency.

II. Significances of Communication Tower Safety Automatic Monitoring

Engineering measurement plays a fundamental role in the construction of communication towers, and is the eye of electronic communication engineering, providing guarantee for engineering construction planning, construction and ensuring the smooth and safe operation of the project. There are several main reasons for health monitoring:

(1) Guarantee the safety of communication tower operation

The intelligent sensors can be used to monitor the tilt angle and settlement of the communication tower in real time, so that the safety and reliability of the communication tower can be known in time; the inclination and settlement development trend of the tower body can be judged according to the relevant monitoring data, and the practical situation can be provided to the operation department. Based on the actual basis, the warning information will be sent to the person in charge of the operation in a timely manner, so as to avoid the deformation, inclination and even tower collapse of the communication tower caused by the phenomenon of tilting, settlement and cracking of the tower body under the influence of the natural environment and external conditions.

(2) Extend the service life of the communication tower

The monitored data can provide technical support for the operation department to find fault points of the tower body, formulate reasonable, proactive and preventive maintenance measures, remind the operation and maintenance personnel to strengthen the foundation, guide the maintenance of relevant personnel, and effectively reduce the maintenance cost of the communication tower, so as to maximize the service life of the communication tower.

(3) Accumulating communication tower design and construction experience

The geological underlying structure traversed by the communication tower project is complex and variable, the river bed topography changes rapidly, the riverbed erosion depth is large, and the design and construction experience is relatively insufficient. Long-term comprehensive safety monitoring of the communication tower can accumulate engineering design experience and provide basic data support for improving the overall level of communication tower design, construction and operation.

III. Technical Principle of Communication Tower Automatic Safety Monitoring

The communication tower safety automatic monitoring system mainly uses modern sensing technology, GPS technology, computer technology, and modern network communication technology to reflect the tilt and settlement of the communication tower in real time under different weather or environment.

According to the real-time analysis of monitored data, the data analysis results provide various reports and graphs for the daily management of the central station, and then provide decision-making basis and reference for communication tower monitoring and early warning analysis, in order to achieve early warning and alarm function via short message, E-mail or sound in the shortest time.

IV. Details of Communication Tower Security Monitoring

(1) Tilt and Deformation Monitoring of Communication Tower

The tilt sensor is mounted on the lower part of the tower body through the mounting bracket, and the tilting and deformation of the communication tower can be transmitted to the tilt sensor through the mounting bracket. The tilt sensor has a built-in high-performance MEMS low-g acceleration sensor with impact resistance of 2000g. Through nonlinear compensation, horizontal axis error compensation, filtering technology, etc., it directly outputs the analog signal proportional to the actual tilt temperature, the ASCII code data of angle, and sets the switching signal of the twist point comparison.

The SST400 high precision digital inclinometer is an intelligent tilt measurement product that uses Vigor Technology's proprietary automatic test technology to test, calibrate and compensate the temperature drift characteristics, nonlinearity, horizontal axis error, quadrature error, and spatial position of sensitive axes. Simulated life test and temperature cycling under various angular rate and angular acceleration shock conditions are also performed, and more rigorous tests, corrections and compensations can be made according to special needs. The product uses the MEMS accelerometer principle and incorporates proprietary vibration suppression technology to adjust the vibration suppression capability online based on field conditions.

(2) Dynamic Tow-Axis Attitude Monitoring of Commination Tower Top

Vigor Technology dynamic tilt sensor can provide dynamic roll and pitch angle measurement of high refreshing rate for moving objects. The dynamic tilt sensor is mounted on the top of the tower body through the mounting bracket. The dynamic two-axis attitude of the communication tower top can be transmitted to the tilt sensor through the mounting bracket. The dynamic tilt sensor uses advanced inertial navigation technology to accurately measure the dynamic roll and pitch of the carrier without the aid of GPS.

Vigor Technology SST810 Gyroscope Inclinometer has powerful field capability, built-in three-axis accelerometer and three-axis gyroscope for drift-free dynamic tilt measurement without any external assistance.

(3) Vibration Monitoring of Communication Tower

The vibration sensor is an advanced vibration measurement product with built-in FFT real-time analysis function. It can quickly and effectively detect the amplitude and vibration frequency of the measured carrier in the three axial directions of X/Y/Z, and help users understand and master the vibration of the tested carrier in real time.

Vigor Technology SSA100 vibration sensor has a built-in high-speed processing chip that can acquire, process and analyze raw vibration acceleration signals and frequency signals in real time that the entire data processing process takes only 1ms. At the same time, the horizontal axis error of the SSA100 vibration sensor is only ≤±1.5%FS, and the horizontal axis error selection of ≤±1%, ≤±0.5%, ≤±0.1% can be provided according to the user's requirements, and it has higher actual measurement accuracy than similar vibration sensors (the horizontal axis error is generally about 3%). The conclusions analyzed on the basis of the monitoring data can assist the operation department to find the tower fault point, make reasonable, proactive and preventive maintenance measures to provide technical support, implement effective operation and maintenance dispatching work, greatly reduce operation and maintenance costs, and maximize the service life of communication towers.

(4) Wind Speed Monitoring of Communication Tower Top

The wind speed sensor is a photoelectric type anemometer with high response, low threshold and constant temperature cup. The converter is composed of a toothed disc attached to the shaft of the anemometer. The toothed disc is disposed between the arc tube of the photocoupler and the phototransistor that the toothed disc can rotate with the axis, and the optocoupler is mounted on the printed circuit board. The turntable has a plurality of teeth. When the toothed disc rotates with the shaft, the light beam emitted by the LED of the light-emitting tube is cut by the tooth on the toothed disc, and the phototransistor generates a pulse output. Each tooth shows a low level (ie, 0 state) when the beam is blocked, and the axis rotates one turn, and the beam is cut multiple times to output a high-low pulse signal (the output frequency signal is proportional to the wind speed), and the intelligent data acquisition instrument acquires this pulse signal in real time and uploads it to the platform.

(5) Wind Direction Monitoring of Communication Tower Top

The wind direction sensor uses a precision conductive plastic potentiometer. When the wind direction changes, the tail rotates through the shaft to drive the potentiometer shaft to rotate, thereby generating a varying resistance signal output at the active end of the potentiometer.

V. Key Installation Technology

(1) Geometric centerline-based mounting alignment technology in the same communication tower;
(2) Uniform alignment installation technology for different communication towers;
(3) Optimal installation point analysis technology based on CAE analysis of tower structure;
(4) Settlement observation layout technology based on different geological environments and conditions.