Robotic Technologies for Outdoor Industrial Vehicles

The commercial industries of agriculture, mining, construction, and material handling employ a wide variety of mobile machines, including tractors, combines, Load-Haul-Dump vehicles, trucks, paving machines, fork trucks, and many more. Automation of these vehicles promises to improve productivity, reduce operational costs, and increase safety. Since the vehicles typically operate in difficult environments, under all weather conditions, and in the presence of people and other obstacles, reliable automation faces severe technical challenges. Furthermore, the viable technology solutions are constrained by cost considerations. Fortunately, due to the limited application domain, repetitive nature, and the utility of partial automation for most tasks, robotics technologies can have a profound impact on industrial vehicles. In this paper, we describe a technical approach developed at Carnegie Mellon University for automating mobile machines in several applications, including mass excavation, mining, and agriculture. The approach is introduced via case studies, and the results are presented.