Digitising tunnelling works for the MRT SSP Line
Gamuda’s digitising efforts continue.
Our Underground team working on the MRT SSP Line has recently set up the Tunnelling Centralised Control and Communications Centre (TC4), a control room tied to online data acquisition and analytics systems that give real time feeds of our Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) and allow direct communication with our TBM controllers.
Located at Bandar Malaysia North (BMN) site, this is the first control centre of its kind for the MRT project.
In March this year, we launched our first TBM for the MRT SSP Line.
When all 12 TBMs for the MRT SSP Line have been launched, the BMN TC4 will serve as the central command centre for south-bound machines.
A second TC4 is being constructed at Titiwangsa site for north-bound machines.
But at any one point, all activities of all 12 TBMs can be viewed at either centre – and also on mobile devices.
MMC Gamuda KVMRT General Manager – Tunnel Ng Hau Wei explains the benefits of this digital adoption:
“TC4 helps managers to see everything from a single source and improves the overall efficiency of monitoring and supervision since quicker access to real time data expedites decision-making.”
The data collected on movement, speed, position and other technicalities also allows engineers and managers to study the TBMs’ performance, reduces downtime and underground intervention, which is often a risky activity.
“As the next step, we will be integrating all the different software into a single platform so that we can achieve data centralisation.”
Data centralisation in turn will mean we can easily find trends to analyse and predict what will happen next.
Most industries have already adopted this predictive analysis method as a way forward.
Our Underground team will also work towards automating various sub-systems, starting with the steering and navigation – meaning the idea of a self-driving TBM may just be realised sooner than later.