AS the construction of the city’s new convention and exhibition venue is in full swing, a reporter from Bao’an Daily paid a visit to the site, unraveling the cutting-edge technologies that underpin a construction area equivalent to six national stadiums.

Li Mingxi, deputy general manager of the project’s first phase, said the complex is expected to be the world’s largest convention and exhibition center upon its completion.

According to Li, the first phase of the project involves the construction of 16 standard exhibition halls, two multifunctional exhibition halls, one super large exhibition hall, two entry halls, a central corridor and 11 supporting buildings, totaling a floor area of 1.58 million square meters.

With such a large construction area, it takes an entire morning just to do a rudimentary inspection of the construction progress, said Li. However, the adoption of a drone into the process has greatly improved efficiency.

Yang Xiaoyi, technical director of the project, explained that the drone has a fixed cruise route and takes only 23 minutes to complete an inspection of the whole construction site, which enables staffers to control and adjust the construction plan in real time.

In addition, the images that the drone takes during different flights can be used to measure any topographic changes that take place at the site. If equipped with an infrared thermal imager, the drone can also quickly detect temperature changes and cracks and leakages in the structures, which can improve the quality of the construction.

To ensure construction safety, each tower crane is installed with an anti-collision system and a real-time monitoring device, both of which dynamically monitor and record each tower crane’s position, lifting weight, audible and visual alarms, and other lifting information.

At the same time, staffers can log onto the terminal monitoring platform through mobile phones and computers to view the information in real time.

In the office area of the construction site, a LED screen is hardly noticeable. According to Yang, the smart cloud platform behind the LED screen is like the “brain center” of the project, as staffers can access the images of more than 200 cameras and the aerial drone through the computer terminal at any time.

Moreover, each steel member used in the project has a unique QR code. Workers can immediately receive detailed information such as serial number, material, specifications and the manufacturer of each steel member on a mobile phone by scanning the code.

According to Shi Ruming, general manager of the project, more than 100 new and high-tech technologies with independent intellectual property rights have been applied over the course of the center’s construction.(Zhang Yu)