We suggest that planning for automated earthmoving operations such as digging a foundation or leveling a mound of soil, be treated at multiple levels. In a system that we have developed, a coarse-level planner is used to tessellate the volume to be excavated into smaller pieces that are sequenced in order to complete the task efficiently. Each of the smaller volumes is treated with a refined pl...

Hydraulic machines used in a number of applications are highly non-linear systems. Besides the dynamic coupling between the different links, there are significant actuator non-linearities due to the inherent properties of the hydraulic system. Automation of such machines requires the robotic machine to be atleast as productive as a manually operated machine, which in turn make the case for perf...

A goal has been set to make a contribution to society in challenging global warming, especially to reduce the emissions of CO2, by developing a hybrid system that drives the swing device of a hydraulic excavator by electric drive, to significantly reduce fuel consumption. Reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases are not making satisfactory progress and regulation of the construction industry...

Hybrid excavator control strategy based on rules optimizes the specific fuel consumption only to determine engine operating point in the perspective of qualitative analysis, it is not sufficient to reduce the excavator fuel consumption because of ignoring the affect of engine power output. In this paper, an instantaneous minimum fuel consumption control strategy for hybrid power-train is propos...

In the process of automating an earthmoving machine, we have developed a model of soil-tool interaction that predicts resistive forces experienced at the tool during digging. The predicted forces can be used to model the closed loop behavior of a controller that servoes the joints of the excavator so as to fill the bucket. In this paper, we extend the state of the art in two ways. First, we pre...

Two applications for the use of a laser-scanning device are currently under investigation at Lancaster University. Lancaster University Computerised Intelligent Excavator (LUCIE) is an autonomous excavator which navigates using GPS and compass readings. Work is currently concentrating on navigational safety, for which the rotoscan sensor is employed for obstacle detection, and for possible self...

The era of heavy equipment industry in Indonesia was begun the mid-1990s, by first company, PT. United Tractors Tbk. This company have started sales and rental throughout Indonesia, which well-known is Hydraulic Excavator. It used to excavate, rotate, move, load, mobilize demobilize objects. Since excavator always site’s daily operation, number failures high, then rate excavator’s physical avai...

Time-varying sliding mode controller(TVSMC) with fuzzy algorithm for an unmanned automatic excavator system is proposed in this paper. Proposed control system is induced from dynamics of 3-link excavator that is boom, arm and bucket. To design the proposed control system, the main structure of controller is based on sliding mode controller(SMC) with time varying sliding surface. In case of TVSM...

In this paper, we develop an algorithm for avoidance of earth obstacles using model-reference impedance control for autonomous excavator. There have been many research in the past regarding autonomous excavation, which were only concerned about position control, force control and path generation. However in order to apply the control system or algorithm to the actual autonomous excavation, it i...