Shared Control Policies and Task Learning for Hydraulic Earth-Moving Machinery

This thesis develops a shared control design framework for improving operator efficiency and performance on hydraulic excavation tasks. The framework is based on blended shared control (BSC), a technique whereby the operator’s command input is continually augmented by an assistive controller. Designing a BSC control scheme is subdivided here into four key components. Task learning utilizes nonparametric inverse reinforcement learning to identify the underlying goal structure of a task as a sequence of subgoals directly from the demonstration data of an experienced operator. These subgoals may be distinct points in the actuator space or distributions overthe space, from which the operator draws a subgoal location during the task. The remaining three steps are executed on-line during each update of the BSC controller. In real-time, the subgoal prediction step involves utilizing the subgoal decomposition from the learning process in order to predict the current subgoal of the operator. Novel deterministic and probabilistic prediction methods are developed and evaluated for their ease of implementation and performance against manually labeled trial data. The control generation component involves computing polynomial trajectories to the predicted subgoal location or mean of the subgoal distribution, and computing a control input which tracks those trajectories. Finally, the blending law synthesizes both inputs through a weighted averaging of the human and control input, using a blending parameter which can be static or dynamic. In the latter case, mapping probabilistic quantities such as the maximum a posteriori probability or statistical entropy to the value of the dynamic blending parameter may yield a more intelligent control assistance, scaling the intervention according to the confidence of the prediction. A reduced-scale (1/12) fully hydraulic excavator model was instrumented for BSC experimentation, equipped with absolute position feedback of each hydraulic actuator. Experiments were conducted using a standard operator control interface and a common earthmoving task: loading a truck from a pile. Under BSC, operators experienced an 18% improvement in mean digging efficiency, defined as mass of material moved per cycle time. Effects of BSC vary with regard to pure cycle time, although most operators experienced a reduced mean cycle time

In Situ Soil Property Estimation for Autonomous Earthmoving Using Physics-Infused Neural Networks

A novel, learning-based method for in situ estimation of soil properties using a physics-infused neural network (PINN) is presented. The network is trained to produce estimates of soil cohesion, angle of internal friction, soil-tool friction, soil failure angle, and residual depth of cut which are then passed through an earthmoving model based on the fundamental equation of earthmoving (FEE) to produce an estimated force. The network ingests a short history of kinematic observations along with past control commands and predicts interaction forces accurately with average error of less than 2kN, 13% of the measured force. To validate the approach, an earthmoving simulation of a bladed vehicle is developed using Vortex Studio, enabling comparison of the estimated parameters to pseudo-ground-truth values which is challenging in real-world experiments. The proposed approach is shown to enable accurate estimation of interaction forces and produces meaningful parameter estimates even when the model and the environmental physics deviate substantially.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, to be published in proceedings of 16th European-African Regional Conference of the International Society for Terrain-Vehicle Systems (ISTVS

SPECIFIČNA POTROŠNJA ENERGIJE KOPANJA MATERIJALA BAGEROM PRI DOBIVANJU TEHNIČKO-GRAĐEVNOGA KAMENA

A hydraulic excavator is widely used in crushed stone quarries to perform many different operations. Previous research on material handling by excavators is most often based on laboratory testing and observation of soil materials and the digging forces in them. These results are very difficult to transfer to fieldwork during the quarrying process. Therefore, in this work, the energy consumption of an excavator while working in typical materials for a crushed stone quarry was investigated. The field measurements were performed on overburden, blasted rock material, boulders, and two different crushed materials. Energy consumption was observed only during the portion of the cycle in which the bucket digs the material. In this way, the energy consumption was mainly related to the properties of the material. The highest energy consumption was found for blasted rock material, lower in overburden, and the lowest for boulders and crushed materials. These results are important for organizing an optimal distribution of machines according to the work tasks in the quarry and ultimately for energy savings.Hidraulični bager ima široku primjenu u obavljanju različitih poslova na kamenolomima tehničko-građevnoga kamena. Dosadašnja istraživanja rada bagera u različitim materijalima najčešće su bazirana na laboratorijskim ispitivanjima provedenim na uzorcima tla te na promatranju sila kopanja u njima. Takve rezultate vrlo je teško primijeniti na realan rad bagera u kamenolomu. U sklopu ovoga istraživanja provedeno je ispitivanje potrošnje energije prilikom rada bagera na tipičnim materijalima u kamenolomu. Terenska mjerenja izvedena su na otkrivci, odminiranoj stijenskoj masi, blokovima i dvjema različitim frakcijama drobljenoga materijala. Potrošnja energije promatrana je samo tijekom dijela ciklusa u kojemu lopata kopa materijal. Na taj način potrošnja energije najviše ovisi o svojstvima materijala. Najveća potrošnja energije izmjerena je pri radu u odminiranoj stijenskoj masi, nešto niža u otkrivci, zatim u blokovima te najniža u drobljenome materijalu. Ovi rezultati važni su za organizaciju optimalne raspodjele strojeva po radnim zadatcima u kamenolomu te u konačnici za uštedu energije

Mining Safety and Sustainability I

Safety and sustainability are becoming ever bigger challenges for the mining industry with the increasing depth of mining. It is of great significance to reduce the disaster risk of mining accidents, enhance the safety of mining operations, and improve the efficiency and sustainability of development of mineral resource. This book provides a platform to present new research and recent advances in the safety and sustainability of mining. More specifically, Mining Safety and Sustainability presents recent theoretical and experimental studies with a focus on safety mining, green mining, intelligent mining and mines, sustainable development, risk management of mines, ecological restoration of mines, mining methods and technologies, and damage monitoring and prediction. It will be further helpful to provide theoretical support and technical support for guiding the normative, green, safe, and sustainable development of the mining industry

Dragline excavation simulation, real-time terrain recognition and object detection

The contribution of coal to global energy is expected to remain above 30% through 2030. Draglines are the preferred excavation equipment in most surface coal mines. Recently, studies toward dragline excavation efficiency have focused on two specific areas. The first area is dragline bucket studies, where the goal is to develop new designs which perform better than conventional buckets. Drawbacks in the current approach include operator inconsistencies and the inability to physically test every proposed design. Previous simulation models used Distinct Element Methods (DEM) but they over-predict excavation forces by 300% to 500%. In this study, a DEM-based simulation model has been developed to predict bucket payloads within a 16.55% error. The excavation model includes a novel method for calibrating formation parameters. The method combines DEM-based tri-axial material testing with the XGBoost machine learning algorithm to achieve prediction accuracies of between 80.6% and 95.54%. The second area is dragline vision studies towards efficient dragline operation. Current dragline vision models use image segmentation methods that are neither scalable nor multi-purpose. In this study, a scalable and multi-purpose vision model has been developed for draglines using Convolutional Neural Networks. This vision system achieves an 87.32% detection rate, 80.9% precision and 91.3% recall performance across multiple operation tasks. The main novelty of this research includes the bucket payload prediction accuracy, formation parameter calibration and the vision system accuracy, precision and recall performance toward improving dragline operating efficiencies --Abstract, page iii

Shared Control Policies and Task Learning for Hydraulic Earth-Moving Machinery

This thesis develops a shared control design framework for improving operator efficiency and performance on hydraulic excavation tasks. The framework is based on blended shared control (BSC), a technique whereby the operator’s command input is continually augmented by an assistive controller. Designing a BSC control scheme is subdivided here into four key components. Task learning utilizes nonparametric inverse reinforcement learning to identify the underlying goal structure of a task as a sequence of subgoals directly from the demonstration data of an experienced operator. These subgoals may be distinct points in the actuator space or distributions overthe space, from which the operator draws a subgoal location during the task. The remaining three steps are executed on-line during each update of the BSC controller. In real-time, the subgoal prediction step involves utilizing the subgoal decomposition from the learning process in order to predict the current subgoal of the operator. Novel deterministic and probabilistic prediction methods are developed and evaluated for their ease of implementation and performance against manually labeled trial data. The control generation component involves computing polynomial trajectories to the predicted subgoal location or mean of the subgoal distribution, and computing a control input which tracks those trajectories. Finally, the blending law synthesizes both inputs through a weighted averaging of the human and control input, using a blending parameter which can be static or dynamic. In the latter case, mapping probabilistic quantities such as the maximum a posteriori probability or statistical entropy to the value of the dynamic blending parameter may yield a more intelligent control assistance, scaling the intervention according to the confidence of the prediction. A reduced-scale (1/12) fully hydraulic excavator model was instrumented for BSC experimentation, equipped with absolute position feedback of each hydraulic actuator. Experiments were conducted using a standard operator control interface and a common earthmoving task: loading a truck from a pile. Under BSC, operators experienced an 18% improvement in mean digging efficiency, defined as mass of material moved per cycle time. Effects of BSC vary with regard to pure cycle time, although most operators experienced a reduced mean cycle time

Numerical analysis of traditionally excavated shallow tunnels

openLo scavo di gallerie rappresenta sicuramente una tra le sfide più impegnative che un ingegnere civile possa affrontare. Ciò è dovuto principalmente alla natura tridimensionale di questo problema di interazione terreno-struttura ma anche alle numerose incertezze che possono entrare in gioco nella progettazione. Recentemente, le tecniche di calcolo numeriche, che permettono una più ampia comprensione del problema, hanno subito un notevole sviluppo, diventando una risorsa fondamentale per la progettazione di scavi in sotterraneo. Tuttavia, solo ingegneri con una buona preparazione numerica sono in grado di gestire la modellazione di problemi di interazione terreno-struttura così complessi. Inoltre, tali modelli richiedono una attenta calibrazione dei parametri e una costante validazione con dati di monitoraggio. Lo scopo di questa tesi è quello di analizzare alcune delle principali problematiche legate alla progettazione di gallerie superficiali scavate in tradizionale. Il vantaggio principale dello scavo in traditionale rispetto a quello meccanizzato è legato alla maggiore flessibilità nella scelta dei rivestimenti e delle techniche di rinforzo del cavo e del fronte della galleria. Tuttavia, una maggiore flessibilità progettuale è necessariamente legata ad una profonda conoscenza del comportamento deformativo dell’ammasso, nonché ad un utilizzo consapevole delle tecniche modellazione numerica. Il presente lavoro è principalmente incentrato sulle seguenti tematiche riguardanti la progettazione di gallerie superficiali: - la stabilità di fronti di scavo rinforzati e non rinforzati; - l’applicabilità degli Eurocodici ad una progettazione condotta mediante tecniche di modellazione numerica; - la calibrazione dei parametri del modello numerico e la sua validazione attraverso dati di monitoraggio.Among the problems that civil engineers have to face, the design and verification of an underground construction is one of the most challenging. A tunnel engineer has to tackle with a complex three-dimensional soil-structure interaction problem where many factors and uncertainties come into play. This is the reason why professional experience and engineering judgment usually play a crucial role. In recent years, numerical calculation techniques, which can provide an important basis for a better understanding of the problem, have strongly improved. They have become a fundamental resource for underground construction design, but they also entail some drawbacks: - only engineers with a strong numerical background can handle complex soil-structure interaction problems; - numerical calculations, especially if 3D, can be very time-consuming; - material parameters should be carefully evaluated, according to the particular problem and adopted constitutive law; - numerical models need to be validated with field monitoring data. The goal of this thesis is to investigate the main issues regarding the applicability of numerical analyses to the design and verification of traditionally excavated shallow tunnels. Despite, the remarkable technological improvement in mechanised tunnelling, traditional techniques still represent, in some cases, the most suitable and convenient solution. The principal advantage of traditional techniques is the high flexibility in the choice of supports and reinforcement measures. However, design flexibility implies a deep understanding of the ground response to underground openings as well as a conscious use of numerical models. This work provides a contribution to the numerical design of shallow tunnels by focusing on three principal issues: - stability of reinforced and unreinforced excavation faces; - Eurocodes applicability to a numerically-based design; - parameters calibration and numerical validation through comparison with monitoring data.INGEGNERIA CIVILE, AMBIENTALE, EDILE E ARCHITETTURAPaternesi, AlessandraPaternesi, Alessandr

Computationally efficient simulation in urban mechanised tunnelling based on multi-level BIM models

The design of complex underground infrastructure projects involves various empirical, analytical or numerical models with different levels of complexity. The use of simulation models in current state-of-the-art tunnel design process can be cumbersome when significant manual, time-consuming preparation, analysis and excessive computing resources are required. This paper addresses the challenges connected with minimising the user workload and computational time, as well as enabling real-time computations during the construction. To ensure a seamless workflow during design and to minimise the computation time of the analysis, we propose a novel concept for BIM-based numerical simulations, enabling the modelling of the tunnel advance on different levels of detail in terms of geometrical representation, material modelling and modelling of the advancement process. To ensure computational efficiency, the simulation software has been developed with special emphasis on efficient implementation, including parallelisation strategies on shared and distributed memory systems. For real-time on-demand calculations, simulation based meta models are integrated into the software platform. The components of the BIM-based multi-level simulation concept are described and evaluated in detail by means of representative numerical examples

Robotic autonomous systems for earthmoving equipment operating in volatile conditions and teaming capacity: a survey

Abstract There has been an increasing interest in the application of robotic autonomous systems (RASs) for construction and mining, particularly the use of RAS technologies to respond to the emergent issues for earthmoving equipment operating in volatile environments and for the need of multiplatform cooperation. Researchers and practitioners are in need of techniques and developments to deal with these challenges. To address this topic for earthmoving automation, this paper presents a comprehensive survey of significant contributions and recent advances, as reported in the literature, databases of professional societies, and technical documentation from the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM). In dealing with volatile environments, advances in sensing, communication and software, data analytics, as well as self-driving technologies can be made to work reliably and have drastically increased safety. It is envisaged that an automated earthmoving site within this decade will manifest the collaboration of bulldozers, graders, and excavators to undertake ground-based tasks without operators behind the cabin controls; in some cases, the machines will be without cabins. It is worth for relevant small- and medium-sized enterprises developing their products to meet the market demands in this area. The study also discusses on future directions for research and development to provide green solutions to earthmoving.</jats:p

Elastic wave measurement in rock engineering

Imperial Users onl