September 2020

The Maturation of Crane Cameras in Construction

Construction technology has come a long way and it’s important to understand how you can leverage that technology on your jobsite today.

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You’re probably hearing about “crane cameras” more and more these days. As GC’s are leveraging this tech in several different ways, let’s take a look at what these cameras are exactly and how they’re being used in construction.

One of the earliest use cases for crane cameras was the mounting of cameras on the jib or trolley aimed straight down focused on the load. Real-time video is then displayed in the crane cab providing situational awareness to the operator. HoistCam is one of the leaders in this area.

We are now seeing other use-cases and approaches being taken. Versatile Natures is using a camera (and other sensors) mounted on the hook-block, to provide a more dynamic view of the load/actions. Their system also uses sensors to provide various productivity statistics to the team such as number of picks over time.

Another use case that has become very popular is to use the height and viewpoint that the crane provides as an additional way to capture real-time imagery of the complete jobsite. This imagery supports project teams with a variety of use cases in productivity, safety, quality assurance and coordination.

Crane cameras can be mounted on the tower, jib, or trolley, provided they are solar/battery powered and wireless so that no complex wiring is required.

Sensera Systems’ construction cameras are very well suited for this use case. Compact and weighing less than 10 lbs, they can be easily mounted on about any crane location to provide a birds-eye view of the complete job site. High resolution images and real-time streaming video are provided to the entire project team simultaneously.

When deploying crane cameras it’s important that the system be rugged, lightweight, completely solar/battery powered and reliable. You don’t want to be making too many trips up the crane!

When crane cameras are mounted on the moving part of the crane (jib, trolley) they can capture images from multiple viewpoints and support advanced applications such as Reconstruct’s 2D3D RMap™ & Visual Command Center™ which brings together reality capture, drawings and models and schedule.

Click here to learn more about the solutions available from Sensera Systems or read more about construction technology through our Articles & eBooks.

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