Excavator 3D integrated laser and radio positioning guidance system

Abstract

An excavator 3D integrated laser and radio positioning guidance system (Ex_3D_ILRPGS) comprising: a mobile radio positioning system receiver configured to obtain 2D horizontal coordinates of the excavator, a bucket-to-machine-body positioning system configured to obtain coordinates of the boom, the stick and the bucket of the excavator, a laser detector configured to receive at least one laser beam and configured to provide a local vertical coordinate with a substantially high accuracy, and an on-board navigational system configured to receive and to integrate the 2D horizontal coordinates of the excavator obtained by the mobile radio positioning system receiver, the coordinates of the boom, the stick and the bucket of the excavator obtained by the bucket-to-machine-body positioning system, and the local vertical coordinate obtained by the laser detector, and configured to guide the cutting edge of the bucket of the excavator with substantially high vertical accuracy.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD[0001]The current invention relates to position tracking and machine control systems, and, more specifically, to a combination of laser systems and radio positioning systems configured to complement each other in order to optimize the tracking and machine control capabilities of prior art systems.BACKGROUND ART[0002]In recent times there have been advances in the area of radio ranging or pseudolite machine control systems. However, the radio ranging or pseudolite machine control systems have limited, up to centimeter accuracy.[0003]For example, Trimble introduced a family of machine control systems including the GCS300 with a single elevation control, the GCS400 having a dual elevation control, the GCS500 with a cross slope control, the GCS600 having a cross slope and elevation control, and finally, the GCS900 that provides a full 3D control up to centimeter accuracy. In another example, Trimble also introduced the SiteVision HEX machine control systems. Trimble's ver...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0031]In one embodiment, the method of the present invention comprises: (A) obtaining 3D coordinates of the excavator by using the mobile radio positioning system receiver; (B) determining the position coordinates of the boom, the stick and the bucket of the excavator relative to the machine body by using the bucket-to-machine-body positioning system; (C) obtaining a local vertical coordinate with a substantially high accuracy by using the laser detector configured to receive at least one laser beam from a laser transmitter; (D) receiving and integrating 3D coordinates of the excavator obtained by the mobile radio positioning system receiver, the position coordinates of the boom, the stick and the bucket of the excavator relative to the machine body obtained by the bucket-to-machine-body positioning system, and the local vertical coordinate obtained by the laser detector by using an on-board navigational system in order to improve vertical accuracy of the mobile radio positioning system receiver; and (E) guiding the cutting edge of the bucket of the excavator with improved vertical accuracy by using the on-board navigational system.

[0032]Yet, one more aspect of the present invention is directed to a method of operating an excavator with improved vertical accuracy by using the Ex—3D_ILRPGS system and by assigning weight functions to different measurements.

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Problems solved by technology

However, the radio ranging or pseudolite machine con

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