Recently, the two 150t heavy-duty transport vehicles developed by the Mechanical Research and Design Institute of China Railway Science and Industry Group Co., Ltd. under CRHIC have passed the acceptance and delivered at the Three Gorges Hub Metal Structure Maintenance Center. Upon the operation of the Center, the equipment will be applied to transport the gates and ship locks of the power stations to be inspected for the Three Gorges Dam project.

According to the relevant personnel in charge, the new heavy-duty transport vehicle has the following four characteristics:

Intelligent: the equipment is capable of scanning the environment around vehicles through laser radar, draw the outline map and position vehicle location, and also drive automatically based on the pre-set path, with the navigation accuracy being within ±20mm.

Flexible: the equipment performs excellently in steering, supporting seven kinds of steering modes, better adaptability to the site, applicable to the transportation of various members which are featured by high positioning accuracy but large dead load.

Economic: the two vehicles can either operate separately or connected vertically or horizontally by means of mechanical connection or program connection. “Vehicle parallel operation” enables higher transport capacity and reduce the quantity of equipment purchase.

Convenient: the height of the equipment loading platform is adjustable upward or downward in a flexible way, thus facilitating the loading of structural members as convenient as forklift loading.