MACHINE CONTROL Reducing the Links from purely hydraulic steering to drive-by-wire. This trend makes for more simplified and often less costly processes for adding implement control and automatics, but may also be key in implementing autonomy. In recent years, a new technology has been implemented for GNSS smart antennas (rovers), like those that surveyors and grade checkers use, which tightly couples IMUs and movement of the GNSS antenna for calibration-free tilt compensation. Examples include the Trimble R12i (for surveying) and R780 (for construction), Leica GS19 T, and many more — few high-precision rovers made today lack tilt compensation. The observed acceleration and direction of the antenna adds orientation to the tilt angle (from the onboard tilt sensors), so the position of the tip of the survey rod can be computed precisely and in real time. At the Bauma construction trade fair held in November 2022 in Munich, Germany, Trimble gave participants a peek at something new: putting a tilt-compensating GNSS smart antenna out on the stick of an excavator. “With current systems, every time you hit one of those joints on an excavator, you need to understand what it is doing, calculating angles along the way,” Kirk said. “By mounting a tilt-compensated GNSS receiver on the stick, this becomes a lot easier to do.” Such innovations dovetail well with another trend in construction equipment: a move The Path Toward Automation “One of the big changes in the industry is understanding what tasks operators are trying to do, so that we can help them do those tasks,” said Kirk. “We want to help people be more productive. We know autonomy is a thing. We’re actively working on autonomy; it’s going to be a while. In the interim, we want to make sure that we are providing value to the manual operators for the tasks that we can’t do autonomously.” Key foundational components of what would go into autonomous systems are already in place. “With automatics, you already have implement control, and in some implementations, you even have steering,” Kirk said. “What is missing in terms of the mechanics is speed control — that may be the easy part.” Adding the crucial situational awareness, other sensors for feedback, and the brains for automation is what might take a lot of time to work out. ¨ by MARCH 2023 | WWW.GPSWORLD.COM GPS WORLD 31
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