Mastering the drill head

The tunnelling container houses the control station from which the complete system and in particular the drill head is controlled. A VISAM Industrial Panel PC type VIS-IPPC-9171G was used as the control medium. The industrial computer is equipped with a 17-inch touch screen and, thanks to its robust design with an aluminium front and hardened glass pane, it is ideally equipped for use on the tunnel construction site.

VBASE is used for control and visualization of the machine in cooperation with special control control software for tunnel boring machines. The software duo guides the drill head precisely to its destination via gyro or laser control. VBASE provides the graphical interface that displays all important operating data on the main screen. On further screens the machine operator can make basic settings on the machine and call up additional information. Thanks to the modular system architecture, further different control systems can also be integrated. Since the control of all mts systems is largely identical, the costs for operator retraining when switching to other systems are eliminated. For the worldwide use of the machines, the complete visualization has been designed multilingual and is available in numerous languages. The desired language can be selected and switched at runtime by touching the respective country flag on the touch screen.

Conclusion

Through the use of the latest industrial computer technology and high-end process visualisation, mts enables a cross-system control procedure for its tunnel boring machines. The intuitive, clear and multilingual operation via touch screen prevents operating errors and reduces training costs to a minimum.