Excavation pits—progress estimation and cause of delay identification

Abstract

This work presents a method for automated excavation speed and progress estimation. First, a measure for the progress speed of an excavation pit is taken from the literature and evaluated regarding the possibility of automation. For each possible parameter, an automated extraction algorithm is presented. The used system is an autonomous excavator arm of a backhoe loader where the used hardware and software system is described. An experimental evaluation of the presented approach has been done with the autonomous system for a small trench, including multiple digging cycles. The resulting measurements seem to include some systematic errors which could be identified and suitable sanity checks could be implemented, removing the erroneous measurements. The remaining measurements were used to determine the excavation speed of the autonomous excavator arm and compared to the values of experienced and amateur operators. The resulting speed and the relevant parameters are then sent to a web application called “DiBa” to notice a potential delay. If a measurement is smaller or larger than expected a fault identification is done in the DiBa.