Publications / 2022 Proceedings of the 39th ISARC, Bogotá, Colombia

An Approach for Estimation of Swing Angle and Digging Depth During Excavation Operation

Amirmasoud Molaei, Marcus Geimer and Antti Kolu
Pages 622-629 (2022 Proceedings of the 39th ISARC, Bogotá, Colombia, ISBN 978-952-69524-2-0, ISSN 2413-5844)
Abstract:

This paper discusses the estimation of the swing angle and digging depth during the excavation operation. The abil-ity to calculate the excavator's productivity is an essential step toward autonomous excavators. The swing angle and digging depth have significant effects on the excavator's pro-ductivity and must be taken into account for the productivity estimation. Two approaches are proposed to estimate these variables. The first method estimates the swing angle using cabin encoder measurements. The local minimum and max-imum points are found, and then Otsu's method is exploited to detect the points that are representative of scooping and dumping positions. The second method utilizes the bucket position to estimate the digging depth. The bucket posi-tion is calculated using Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) measurements and the forward kinematics of the excavator. Otsu's method is used to distinguish the local minimum points that are representative of the digging depth during the opera-tion. Moreover, the algorithms are computationally efficient. Finally, the performance of the proposed methods is studied using real measurements. The results show that the methods can effectively estimate the swing angle and digging depth un-der different working conditions such as various materials, swing angles, and digging depths.

Keywords: Excavator; Swing Angle; Digging Depth; Productivity; Otsu's method