Obstacle detection and safeguarding for a high-speed autonomous hydraulic excavator
Patrick C. Leger, Patrick Rowe, John E. Bares, S. Boehmke, Anthony Stentz · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1999
Hydraulic excavators are large, powerful machines which are often operated in high-production settings. Successful automation of excavators for mass excavation tasks require safeguarding algorithms which do not negatively impact productivity. We present a two-level sensor-based safeguarding approach which utilizes obstacle detection to prevent collisions and motion detection to halt operation when unanticipated vehicles or people approach the excavator.