Electric cable laying machine system

Abstract

The invention provides an electrically-driven cable laying machine system. The electrically-driven cable laying machine system comprises a plurality of driving wheel modules, a plurality of tachometer wheel modules, a controller and a plurality of cable guiding mechanisms. The driving wheel module controls a cable to move according to a driving instruction sent by the controller and comprises a first driving wheel, a second driving wheel, a connecting mechanism and an electric cylinder, and the first driving wheel and the second driving wheel are connected with the end of a telescopic rod in the electric cylinder through the connecting mechanism; the electric cylinder controls the telescopic length of a telescopic rod in the electric cylinder based on the driving instruction so as to change the spacing distance between the first driving wheel and the second driving wheel; the tachometer wheel module is used for measuring the moving speed and the moving direction of the cable; the controller receives or responds to a control instruction input by a user, and determines a driving instruction according to the control instruction, the moving speed and the moving direction; the cable guiding mechanism is used for guiding the cable to move. The cable laying efficiency and the cable laying precision can be improved.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The invention belongs to the technical field of offshore pipeline cable laying, and in particular relates to an electric-driven cable laying machine system. Background Art

[0002] Optical fiber communication has many advantages such as large bandwidth, low latency, and anti-interference, and currently undertakes about 90% of the long-distance communication data traffic. The cable laying machine mainly replaces manpower to efficiently and safely lay and recover marine cables, pipelines and optical cables. It can pull cables, optical fibers, etc. out of the cable warehouse together with the cable warehouse and put them into the sea at a certain speed or tension.

[0003] The cable laying machine has gradually evolved from traditional mechanized operation to partially adopting electric or pneumatic adjustment systems, but there are still some technical bottlenecks, especially in the adaptability of wheel spacing adjustment and cable diameter. The existing technology usually relies on manual or preset mechanical adjustment methods to adjust the wheel spacing, lacks the ability to automatically adapt to changes in cable diameter, and has a low degree of intelligence, resulting in some problems in the cable laying process that cannot be effectively solved.

[0004] Specifically, most of the current cable laying machines rely on mechanical devices or servo motors to adjust the wheel spacing, but this adjustment method is usually manual or based on a preset fixed mode. When laying cables of different diameters, adjusting the wheel spacing often requires manual intervention or manual setting. Since the diameter of the cable is usually variable and diverse, the existing system cannot accurately adjust in real time and automatically according to the change of the cable diameter. Therefore, the cable laying machine often cannot achieve the optimal wheel spacing setting when processing cables of different specifications, affecting the accuracy and efficiency of cable laying; most of the current cable laying machines use traditional control methods with a low level of intelligence. The existing cable laying machine control system is usually based on simple sensors and controllers, which cannot perceive and analyze the real-time status of the cable (such as diameter, flexibility, etc.) in real time, and lacks advanced intelligent algorithms for adaptive adjustment. This low-intelligence control method not only limits the adaptability of the cable laying machine in complex environments, but also reduces the overall efficiency and accuracy of the equipment. Summary of the invention

[0005] The technical problem to be solved by the present invention is to provide an electric-driven cable laying machine system to improve the cable laying efficiency and accuracy.

[0006] The present invention provides an electric-driven cable laying machine system, which includes a plurality of driving wheel modules, a plurality of speed measuring wheel modules, a controller and a plurality of cable guiding mechanisms;

[0007] A driving wheel module receives or responds to a driving instruction sent by a controller to control the movement of the cable, and includes a first driving wheel, a second driving wheel, a connecting mechanism, and an electric cylinder. The first driving wheel and the second driving wheel are both connected to the end of the telescopic rod inside the electric cylinder through the connecting mechanism. The electric cylinder controls the telescopic length of the telescopic rod inside the electric cylinder based on the driving instruction to change the interval distance between the first driving wheel and the second driving wheel. The first driving wheel and the second driving wheel are both built-in with a driving motor and an encoder. The encoder encodes the driving instruction into a torque adjustment signal and a steering control signal. The driving motor controls the rotation speed and rotation direction of the first driving wheel and the second driving wheel according to the torque adjustment signal and the steering control signal; the driving instruction is used to indicate the rotation direction, rotation speed, and interval distance of the first driving wheel and the second driving wheel;

[0008] The tachometer wheel module is used to measure the moving speed and direction of the cable;

[0009] A controller receives or responds to a control instruction input by a user, and determines a drive instruction according to the control instruction, a moving speed, and a moving direction; the control instruction is used to indicate a desired moving speed, a desired moving direction, and a cable diameter of the cable;

[0010] The cable guide mechanism is used to guide the movement of the cable.

[0011] Optionally, the controller is connected to each speed measuring wheel module and each driving wheel module via optical fiber communication.

[0012] Optionally, the built-in drive motor, electric cylinder, and speed measuring wheel module are connected in series to form a fiber optic closed loop with the controller.

[0013] Optionally, the electric-drive cable laying machine system further includes a power supply, a rectifier and a circuit breaker switch;

[0014] The driving motor and the electric cylinder are respectively connected in series with the circuit breaker switch and then connected in parallel to one end of the rectifier, and the other end of the rectifier is connected to the power supply.

[0015] Optionally, the driving instruction is determined according to the control instruction, the moving speed and the moving direction, including:

[0016] Calculate the speed difference between the expected moving speed and the moving speed, input the speed difference into a pre-configured speed regulator, and obtain the speed of the driving wheel;

[0017] Calculate the telescopic length of the telescopic tube inside the electric cylinder according to the cable diameter;

[0018] Obtaining the input current polarity of the driving motor corresponding to the desired moving direction;

[0019] The rotation speed, extension length and input current polarity are used as driving instructions.

[0020] Optionally, the first driving wheel and the second driving wheel are arranged opposite to each other, and the first driving wheel and the second driving wheel have the same rotation speed and opposite rotation directions.

[0021] Optionally, the drive wheels are tires.

[0022] Optionally, the electric-driven cable laying machine system is also redundantly provided with at least one optical fiber closed loop.

[0023] The beneficial effects of the present invention are:

[0024] The electric-driven cable laying machine system provided by the present invention can change the spacing distance between the first driving wheel and the second driving wheel by controlling the telescopic length of the electric cylinder telescopic rod, and can adapt to changes in cable diameter without complicated adjustments, which is beneficial to improving cable laying efficiency and accuracy; compared with the hydraulic cable laying machine, the electric-driven cable laying machine system is based on electric drive and has a shorter response time, which is beneficial to improving cable laying efficiency; the electric-driven cable laying machine system has a simple structure. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0025] Figure 1 This is a schematic structural diagram of an electric-driven cable laying machine system in one embodiment of the present application;

[0026] Figure 2 This is a schematic structural diagram of a driving wheel module in one embodiment of the present application;

[0027] Figure 3 This is a schematic diagram of the structure of a water-cooled wheel-side motor in one embodiment of the present application;

[0028] Figure 4 This is a schematic diagram of the structure of a water-cooled wheel-side motor cooling system in one embodiment of the present application;

[0029] Figure 5 Schematic diagram of a circuit of an electric-driven cable laying machine system in one embodiment of the present application. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0030] In view of the technical problems of low cable laying efficiency and poor cable laying accuracy in the prior art, the present invention provides an electric-driven cable laying machine system; the electric-driven cable laying machine system can change the spacing distance between the first drive wheel and the second drive wheel by controlling the telescopic length of the electric cylinder telescopic rod, and can adapt to changes in cable diameter without complicated adjustments, which is beneficial to improving the cable laying efficiency and accuracy; compared with the hydraulic cable laying machine, the electric-driven cable laying machine system is based on electric drive and has a shorter response time, which is beneficial to improving the cable laying efficiency; the electric-driven cable laying machine system has a simple structure.

[0031] The electric-driven cable laying machine provided by the present invention is described in detail below.

[0032] like Figure 1As shown, the electric-driven cable laying machine provided by the present invention includes a plurality of driving wheel modules 101 , a plurality of speed measuring wheel modules 102 and a controller 103 , and also includes a power supply 104 , a rectifier 105 , a plurality of circuit breaker switches 106 and a plurality of cable guiding mechanisms 107 .

[0033] Specifically, the driving wheel module 101 receives or responds to the driving instruction sent by the controller 103 to control the movement of the cable, such as Figure 2 As shown, the driving wheel module includes a first driving wheel 201, a second driving wheel 202, a connecting mechanism 203 and an electric cylinder 204. The first driving wheel 201 and the second driving wheel 202 are both connected to the end of the telescopic rod 205 inside the electric cylinder 204 through the connecting mechanism 203. The electric cylinder 204 controls the telescopic length of its internal telescopic rod based on the driving instruction to change the interval between the first driving wheel 201 and the second driving wheel 202. The first driving wheel 201 and the second driving wheel 202 are both built-in driving motors and encoders. The encoder encodes the driving instruction into a torque adjustment signal and a steering control signal. The driving motor controls the rotation speed and rotation direction of the first driving wheel 201 and the second driving wheel 202 according to the torque adjustment signal and the steering control signal. The driving instruction is used to indicate the rotation direction, rotation speed and interval distance of the first driving wheel 201 and the second driving wheel 202. The first driving wheel 201 and the second driving wheel 202 are arranged opposite to each other, and the first driving wheel 201 and the second driving wheel 202 have the same rotation speed and opposite rotation direction. In an embodiment of the present invention, the driving wheel is a tire.

[0034] In some embodiments of the present invention, the electric cylinder is a servo electric cylinder.

[0035] It should be noted that, in another embodiment of the present invention, the drive motors of the first drive wheel and the second drive wheel of each drive wheel module can be configured as water-cooled wheel-side motors, as shown in FIG. Figure 3As shown. Among them, 31 represents an input voltage sensor, which is used to measure and monitor the input DC bus voltage; 32 represents an input current sensor, which is used to measure and monitor the input bus current; 33 represents an inverter control unit, which is used to receive the driving instructions of the controller and convert the input DC into a driving power supply for controlling the motor body; 34 represents an output current sensor, which is used to measure and monitor the output current; 35 represents the motor body, which realizes the conversion of electrical energy to mechanical energy; 36 represents an output encoder, which is installed on the motor rotor and measures the motor output speed; 37 represents an integrated reducer, which reduces the speed of the integrated wheel-side motor, improves the output torque, and realizes the transmission of low-speed and high-torque; 38 represents an output voltage sensor, which measures and monitors the output voltage of the inverter unit; 39 represents an underwater wheel-side motor body controller, which has a dual optical fiber interface and an on-site analog measurement port, and can measure tire pressure, input current, input voltage, output current, output voltage, motor winding temperature, water cooling circuit water temperature and speed encoding signals, communicates with the upper control through the dual optical fiber interface, uploads the monitoring signal, and accepts the controller settings and operation commands, converts the operation commands into the drive instructions of the inverter unit, and realizes the control of the motor speed and torque. The water-cooled wheel-side motor is provided with water inlet and outlet, the outer shell is cooled by water, the inverter unit is installed on the cooling baseplate radiator, and the external cooling water cools the baseplate.

[0036] Since there are multiple drive modules, the cooling water inlets of the water-cooled motors (M1, M2, ..., Mn) of each wheel pair in each drive module can be connected in series to reduce wiring, and the inlet and outlet water pressure and flow rate can be detected in the external water cooling unit. Figure 4 As shown, the water outlet and return water inlet of the independent water cooling unit are connected to the reversing valve, and the outlet of the reversing valve is respectively connected in series with the inlet and outlet of the water-cooled motor to form a loop, and the outlet of the reversing valve is connected back to the reversing valve through the outlet of the last motor. Usually, during operation, the motor that is first connected to the water inlet of the reversing valve has the best cooling effect, and the last motor has the worst cooling effect. The water-cooling unit of the present invention changes the direction of the water cooling circuit of the cooling unit through the reversing valve according to the inlet temperature, the recovery temperature and the temperature value of each motor, so as to balance the cooling effect of the motors near the farthest end and the nearest end, realize the best configuration of the cooling capacity of the water-cooling unit, and make full use of the performance of the cooling unit.

[0037] The speed measuring wheel module 102 is used to measure the moving speed and moving direction of the cable. The speed measuring wheel pair is separated and connected by a servo electric cylinder, and the number of speed measuring wheels is set according to the number of electric channel modules.

[0038] Specifically, a plurality of sensors (including speed sensors, infrared sensors, etc.) may be pre-installed on the tachometer wheel module 102 to monitor the moving speed and moving direction of the cable in real time. In an embodiment of the present invention, each tachometer wheel module includes an upper tachometer wheel and a lower tachometer wheel, and an electric cylinder is disposed between the upper tachometer wheel and the lower tachometer wheel. The electric cylinder controls the distance between the upper tachometer wheel and the lower tachometer wheel by controlling the length change of the telescopic rod to adapt to the diameter of the cable, which is conducive to more accurate testing of the moving speed of the cable.

[0039] The controller 103 receives or responds to a control instruction input by a user, and determines a driving instruction according to the control instruction, the moving speed, and the moving direction.

[0040] In an embodiment of the present invention, the control instruction is used to indicate the desired moving speed, the desired moving direction and the diameter of the cable.

[0041] The following describes a process of determining a driving instruction according to a control instruction, a moving speed, and a moving direction, which specifically includes steps A to D.

[0042] Step A, calculate the speed difference between the expected moving speed and the moving speed, input the speed difference into a pre-configured speed regulator, obtain the rotation speed of the driving wheel, and execute step B.

[0043] In some embodiments of the present invention, the speed regulator is a PID controller.

[0044] Step B, calculate the telescopic length of the telescopic tube inside the electric cylinder according to the cable diameter, and execute step C.

[0045] Since the diameter of the cable may change during the cabling process, the interval of the driving wheels needs to be adjusted according to the change in the cable diameter to avoid cable stalling and reduced accuracy. In some embodiments of the present invention, the cable diameter can be obtained by an inductive sensor or a camera.

[0046] Step C, obtaining the input current polarity of the driving motor corresponding to the desired moving direction, and executing step D.

[0047] It should be noted that when the polarity of the input current changes, the direction of the drive motor changes accordingly.

[0048] Step D, using the rotation speed, telescopic length, and input current polarity as driving instructions.

[0049] In another embodiment of the present invention, the driving instruction can also be constructed by detecting the tension of the cable. For example, the controller 103 can detect the tension of the cable through an additionally configured tension meter system, and subtract it from the preset tension instruction to obtain the tension difference, and obtain the speed instruction of the driving motor through the tension regulator, and the driving motor is closed-loop controlled according to the speed instruction and its own motor encoder.

[0050] The rectifier 105 is used to convert the wide range AC power supply 104 into DC power and distribute it to each drive motor without reactive power loss and high efficiency.

[0051] The relay switch 106 is used for back-end device access and line protection, and can greatly reduce the cable requirements from the rectifier 105 to the power supply 104 of each drive motor.

[0052] The cable guide mechanism 107 is used to guide the movement of the cable. The cable guide mechanism is opened and closed by the servo cylinder. The number of the cable guide mechanisms is set according to the layout. The larger value of 3 and n / 4 is preferred, where n represents the number of drive modules.

[0053] The connection method of each module in the electric drive cable laying machine system provided by the present invention is described below.

[0054] In an embodiment of the present invention, the controller is connected to the tachometer wheel module and the driving wheel module through optical fiber communication. The built-in driving motor, electric cylinder, and tachometer wheel module are connected in series to form an optical fiber closed loop with the controller. In order to improve the robustness of the system, in an embodiment of the present invention, the electric-driven cable laying machine system also redundantly sets at least one optical fiber closed loop. In this way, any equipment failure will not affect the closure of the optical fiber loop. At the same time, the optical fiber loop can be redundant with any optical fiber disconnection, which has high reliability and simple structure. It should be noted that in order to realize the optical fiber signal transmission between different modules, an optical fiber switch is also provided. The two ends of the optical fiber loop are respectively connected to the optical fiber switch and then to the controller.

[0055] For example, Figure 5As shown, U0 is a rectifier, which converts the wide range of AC ship power into DC power and distributes it to each wheel pair motor, without reactive power loss and high efficiency. The circuit breaker switches QF0, QF1, QF2, ..., QFm, QF1-1, QF1-2, ..., QFn-2, QFd-1, ..., QFd-m, QFc-1, ... QFc-t are arranged in the junction box near the drive wheel, which are used for back-end equipment access and line protection respectively, which can greatly reduce the demand for power cables from the rectifier to each motor. The drive motors U1-1, U1-2, ... and Un-2 are respectively the drive motors of the first drive wheel in drive module 1, the drive motors of the second drive wheel in drive module 1 and the drive motors of the second drive wheel in drive module n. They are provided with DC source by the centralized rectifier power distribution, and after internal conversion, according to the speed closed loop, drive the integrated motor to achieve forward and reverse rotation. U1, U2, ..., Un are n electric cylinders that control the spacing between the first and second drive wheels. The number n is the same as the number of wheel pair motor groups. The centralized rectifier provides a DC source uniformly, and the inverter drives the servo motor to drive the electric cylinder to extend and retract. The opening and closing degree (separation distance) of each first and second drive wheel is controlled by controlling the extension and retraction. Ud-1, ..., Ud-m are electric cylinders that control the separation and connection of m cable guide mechanisms. The centralized rectifier provides a DC source uniformly. The extension and retraction are controlled to control the opening and closing degree of the cable guide mechanisms respectively, and the cable position is controlled to be flush with each wheel pair, which is convenient for the wheel pair to clamp the cable. Uc-1, ..., Uc-t are electric cylinders that control the separation and connection of the upper and lower speed measuring wheels in t speed measuring wheel modules. The centralized rectifier provides a DC source uniformly. The extension and retraction are controlled to control the opening and closing degree between the upper and lower speed measuring wheels respectively, and the cable is clamped, thereby measuring the speed of the cable passing through and calculating the length of the cable passing through. The motor units U1-1, U1-2, ... Un-2 of the wheelset group, the electric cylinder units U1, U2, ... Un of the cable guide mechanism, the electric cylinder units Ud-1, ..., Ud-m and the speed measuring wheelset electric cylinders Uc-1, ..., Uc-t are connected in series through a double-loop optical fiber, and the ends are respectively connected to the optical fiber switch S1, and then to the controller C1. Controller C1 is the central controller of the all-electric linear cable laying machine, which coordinates and controls the motors of each wheelset and comprehensively controls the wheelset separation and combination electric cylinders and the cable guide structure separation and combination electric cylinders. In the series optical fiber ring network, the failure of any device will not affect the connection of the ring network. At the same time, the ring network can redundantly disconnect any optical fiber, which has high reliability and simple structure.

[0056] The drive motor, the electric cylinder, the circuit breaker switch, the rectifier and the power supply are electrically connected. Specifically, the drive motor and the electric cylinder are respectively connected in series with the circuit breaker switch and then connected in parallel to one end of the rectifier, and the other end of the rectifier is connected to the power supply.

[0057] The electric drive cable laying machine system provided in this application has the following advantages:

[0058] 1) A fully electric-driven linear cable laying machine is provided, which adopts a tire-type linear cable laying machine and wheelset with highly integrated wheel-side motors, electric cylinders and drive motors, and has the characteristics of simple structure, compact layout, high efficiency, less wiring, simple maintenance, etc., which improves the reliability of the system;

[0059] 2) Based on the optical fiber ring network control, the drive motor, electric cylinder, rectifier and controller in the cabling machine form a control ring network, which can realize common network communication, reduce wiring, improve reliability, and have line redundancy function;

[0060] 3) The rectifier and common DC bus motor-electric drive integrated motor system has a high power factor and good power quality control. The AC three-phase power line is replaced with a DC two-wire short-distance connection, which reduces the demand for cables. Furthermore, the motor-electric drive integrated wheel-side motor has no need for a long-distance frequency conversion cabinet and can be configured with a nearby circuit breaker protection, which greatly shortens the line.

[0061] A person skilled in the art should understand that the discussion of any of the above embodiments is merely illustrative and is not intended to imply that the scope of protection of the present application is limited to these examples. In line with the concept of the present application, the technical features in the above embodiments or different embodiments may be combined, the steps may be implemented in any order, and there are many other variations of different aspects of one or more embodiments of the present application as described above, which are not provided in detail for the sake of simplicity.

[0062] One or more embodiments of the present application are intended to cover all such substitutions, modifications and variations that fall within the broad scope of the present application. Therefore, any omissions, modifications, equivalent substitutions, improvements, etc. made within the spirit and principles of one or more embodiments of the present application should be included in the protection scope of the present application.

Claims

1. An electric-driven cable laying machine system, characterized in that: It includes several driving wheel modules, several speed measuring wheel modules, a controller and several cable guide mechanisms; The driving wheel module receives or responds to the driving instruction sent by the controller to control the movement of the cable, and includes a first driving wheel, a second driving wheel, a connecting mechanism, and an electric cylinder. The first driving wheel and the second driving wheel are both connected to the end of the telescopic rod inside the electric cylinder through the connecting mechanism. The electric cylinder controls the telescopic length of the telescopic rod inside the electric cylinder based on the driving instruction to change the interval between the first driving wheel and the second driving wheel. The first driving wheel and the second driving wheel are both built-in with a driving motor and an encoder. The encoder encodes the driving instruction into a torque adjustment signal and a steering control signal. The driving motor controls the rotation speed and rotation direction of the first driving wheel and the second driving wheel according to the torque adjustment signal and the steering control signal; the driving instruction is used to indicate the rotation direction, rotation speed and the interval between the first driving wheel and the second driving wheel; The speed measuring wheel module is used to measure the moving speed and moving direction of the cable; The controller receives or responds to a control instruction input by a user, and determines the driving instruction according to the control instruction, the moving speed and the moving direction; The control instructions are used to indicate the expected moving speed, expected moving direction and cable diameter of the cable; The cable guiding mechanism is used to guide the movement of the cable.

2. The electric-driven cable laying machine system according to claim 1, characterized in that: The controller is connected to each of the speed measuring wheel modules and each of the driving wheel modules via optical fiber communication.

3. The electric-driven cable laying machine system according to claim 2, characterized in that: The built-in driving motor, the electric cylinder, and the speed measuring wheel module are connected in series to form an optical fiber closed loop with the controller.

4. The electric-driven cable laying machine system according to claim 3, characterized in that: The electric-driven cable laying machine system also includes a power supply, a rectifier and a circuit breaker switch; The driving motor and the electric cylinder are respectively connected in series with the circuit breaker switch and then connected in parallel to one end of the rectifier, and the other end of the rectifier is connected to the power supply.

5. The electric-driven cable laying machine system according to claim 4, characterized in that: Determining the driving instruction according to the control instruction, the moving speed, and the moving direction includes: Calculating a speed difference between the expected moving speed and the moving speed, and inputting the speed difference into a pre-configured speed regulator to obtain a rotation speed of the driving wheel; Calculating the telescopic length of the telescopic tube inside the electric cylinder according to the cable diameter; Obtaining the input current polarity of the driving motor corresponding to the desired moving direction; The rotation speed, the extension length, and the input current polarity are used as the driving instructions.

6. The electric-driven cable laying machine system according to claim 1, characterized in that: The first driving wheel and the second driving wheel are arranged opposite to each other; The first driving wheel and the second driving wheel rotate at the same speed and in opposite directions.

7. The electric-driven cable laying machine system according to claim 1, characterized in that: The driving wheel is a tire.

8. The electric-driven cable laying machine system according to claim 3, characterized in that: The electrically driven cabling machine system is also provided with at least one of the optical fiber closed loops in a redundant manner.

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