A DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLIGENT CONSTRUCTION LIFT-CAR TOOLKIT DEVICE FOR CONSTRUCTION VERTICAL LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT

High-rise construction sites, especially those situated in spatially constrained urban areas, have difficulties in timely delivery of materials. Modern techniques such as Just-in-time delivery, and use of information technology such as Project Management Information System (PMIS), are targeted to improve the efficiency of the logistics. Such IT-driven management techniques can be further benefited from state-of-the-art devices such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags and Ubiquitous Sensor Networks (USN), which has resulted in notable achievements in automated logistics management at the construction sites. Based on those achievements, this research develops USN hardware toolkits for construction lifts, which aims to be automated the vertical material delivery by sensing the material information and routing it automatically to the right place. The gathered information from the sensors can also be used for monitoring the overall status. The developed system will be tested in the actual high-rise construction sites to assess the system's feasibility. The proposed system is being implemented using Zigbee communication modules and RFID sensor networks which will communicate with the intelligent palette system (previously developed by the authors). To support the system, a lift-mountable intelligent toolkit is under development. Its feasibility test will be conducted by applying the implemented system to a test bed and then analyzing efficiency of the system and the toolkit. The collected test data will be provided as a basis of autonomous vertical transport equipment development. From this research, efficient management of the material lift is expected with increased accuracy, as well as better management of overall construction schedule benefited from the system. Further research will be expected to develop a smart construction lift, which will eliminate the need for human supervision, thus enabling a real 'autonomous' operation of the system.