Mass Estimation of On-road Construction Equipment Based on Modelling Operational Parameters

Earthmoving operations are considered as one of the main activities in construction industry. These operations involve processing and moving soils and rocks to destination using earthmoving equipment like trucks and haulers. The measurement of the mass of materials carried by equipment in each trip has always been one of the main challenges in this field. Currently, different metric and volumetric methods including weighbridges, load volume scanners (LVS) and strain gauges are used to estimate payload of vehicles which are costly, time consuming and labor intensive. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to develop an automated weight and payload measurement model for on-road construction vehicles based on operational and engine parameters. Acceleration, speed and road slope are investigated as operational factors and engine load is considered as engine attribute to estimate vehicles’ weight. Experimentations were conducted on a broad range of in-use construction equipment to collect real-world field data of investigated parameters. GPS-aided inertial navigation system (GPS-INS) and engine data logger instruments were used for field data collection. Further, the weight estimation model is developed through performing ordinary least square (OLS) and multivariable linear regression (MLR) analyses on the collected field data using SPSS Software. The model validation process is finally conducted through comparing the weight estimated by model with the real vehicle’s weight.