Topcon Positioning Group has announced a new option for Caterpillar Next Gen excavator users to leverage Topcon 3D machine control functionality together with Cat Assist features. As a result of new compatibility of the Topcon 3D Excavator System with Caterpillar factory-installed NGH sensors, customers will experience simplified installation of the Topcon aftermarket system into Caterpillar’s existing 2D excavator systems, in coordination with Topcon and Caterpillar dealers.
“With increased pressure for productivity and accuracy, and the industry’s need for skilled operators, the solution is timely,” said Jamie Williamson, Topcon executive vice president. “The customer will have the benefit of Topcon 3D Excavator System and Caterpillar Assist features working together. Once the user is acquainted with the combined system, it will be easy to be a more productive operator.”
The Topcon system is designed to provide real-time, dynamic, on-screen bucket location and design views, resulting in the operator cutting grade faster and more accurately. The operator can create, cut and check designs directly from the cab. Together with Caterpillar boom and bucket automation, operators can deliver quality work all day long with less fatigue, according to Topcon.
Caterpillar’s Cat Command system enables operators, including disabled veterans, to control machines in dangerous environments from the safety of a remote command center. (Photo: Caterpillar)
Caterpillar, the world’s largest manufacturer of construction equipment, has invested in the development of autonomous vehicles for more than 30 years and has the world’s largest autonomous fleet of haul trucks.
Its Cat Command suite of remote and semi-autonomous products for the construction industry helps increase safety, machine utilization and productivity for hauling, loading, excavating, drilling and dozing operations. They include onboard electronic and vision systems that allow machines to be controlled without anyone in the cab.
Options include
The line-of-sight Cat Command Console, which is supported by a shoulder harness
The Cat Command Station, which can be located onsite, for line-of-sight operation, or offsite
The semi-autonomous Cat Command for Compaction technology, which automates soil compaction to help deliver consistent results.
Over time, the company expects most of its machines to become compatible with its Cat Command technology.
Here are a few examples of how construction companies are using Caterpillar technology:
Cargo Barges. Associated Terminals, which transloads dry bulk and general cargo in the Port of South Louisiana, uses Cat Command to remotely control its small wheel loaders and excavators, keeping its personnel off the barges.
“It gives me a lot of peace of mind knowing that when we are doing our jobs, digging in these cargo holds in the vessels, my friend and co-worker is not operating the machine in the hold,” said Thomas Ramagos, a production manager for the company.
Fleet Management. Beverly Companies is a landscaping, snow removal and topsoil contractor in Chicago that owns equipment ranging from bulldozers to lawnmowers. The company uses my.cat.com and other Caterpillar fleet-management tools to track all its equipment in one place, help reduce machine downtime, manage repairs and maintenance, and order parts.
Civil Contracting. Saiia Construction Company, a civil contractor in Birmingham, Alabama, uses Cat Command to increase the safety of its employees, said Frank Montgomery, the company’s president. The material with which it deals is sometimes unpredictable, and rain events can change conditions significantly, explained Superintendent Clint Kennedy.
A remotely controlled front loader operates inside a barge. (Photo: Caterpillar)
Cat Command enables employees to work from an office trailer, rather than having to trudge through mud and muck to get to a piece of equipment. The controls in the seat are almost identical to the ones in the cab, Kennedy pointed out. Another employee can stand behind the chair and coach the operator.
High-quality cameras on site enable the operator to view the whole job site, while four on the machine enable the operator to distinguish brown dirt from red dirt and rocks from sand.
Caterpillar machines also collect massive amounts of data and transmit them over the air to the company, where they are analyzed and used in business applications.
Customers can access these data via my.cat.com and a mobile app to better understand and manage their vehicle fleets and operations, reduce fuel consumption, and improve productivity and safety. They can also access equipment locations, engine hours, parts and service records, and inspection reports.
According to Caterpillar, it had one million connected assets at the end of 2019, almost twice as many as three years earlier, and almost all its new construction machines are equipped with these connectivity systems. The Cat Productivity web-based suite of solutions works with Caterpillar machines of any age and brand. Of course, newer machines will provide richer data and more accurate results.
After years of testing and hype, not a lot of companies can say there are real applications for autonomous technology. However, at this year’s virtual CES 2021 trade show, both Caterpillar and John Deere, two companies known for their tractors and heavy equipment, showcased autonomous machines that are being used worldwide in farming and mining projects.
Photo: Caterpillar
Deerfield, Ill.-based Caterpillar, a first-time exhibitor at CES this year, said it has been involved in autonomy and use of GPS for more than two decades. “We were an early adopter of GPS when there were few satellites in the sky,” said Denise Johnson, company group president, resource industries. “We have 350 autonomous trucks operating 24-7 on three continents.”
The company’s autonomous vehicles, in addition to other technology, are being used around the clock in the Kearl Oil Sands project in Alberta, Canada.
“We are using autonomy primarily in mining operations in harsh environments. These [vehicles] are operating 24-7, with no loss time incidents,” said Bill Dears, Caterpillar worldwide sales and marketing manager. “We also track people underground with cameras and radar.”
In addition to production enhancement, safety is a factor in mining operations because of operator fatigue — something that is precluded by autonomous mining equipment, Dears said.
Agriculture uses variety of sensors, including GNSS
To Moline, Ill.-based John Deere, exhibiting at the trade show for the third time, agriculture is a high-tech industry that uses GPS, self-driving tractors, artificial intelligence and a multitude of sensors. The company rolled out its first self-driving tractors nearly 20 years ago, said Jahmy Hindman, John Deere CTO.
Photo: John Deere
The company won the CES Innovation Award for one of its tractor and combine product lines. “Both our planter and tractor have GPS and antennas to know where to drive and where exactly fertilizer [is to be placed],” Hindman said. “These tractors are self-propelled, with accuracy augmented with [real-time kinematic] sub-inch accuracy for the planters in a field.”
Among other requirements, Hindman said that tractors have to drive in a straight line, plant the required amount seeds and position them at the right depth. “When a tractor drives in a very straight line, the burden is off of the farmer. The yields increase—this is the way we see the progression of automation,” he said. “We are excited about 5G and its lower latency and high bandwidth. It opens up a lot of opportunity.”
Organizers roll out Indy Autonomous Challenge race car
At the virtual CES, representatives from the Indy Autonomous Challenge unveiled the Dallara IL-15 race car that will be used in a head-to-head race around the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Oct. 23.
The Indy Autonomous Challenge, organized by Energy Systems Network and Indianapolis Motor Speedway, pits 500 university students, developing autonomous vehicle technology, against each other for a $1.5 million prize.
Logo: Indy Autonomous Challenge
Organizers say the speeds are estimated to be as much as 200 mph around the 2.5-mile track, for 20 laps, which enables researchers to evaluate how autonomous vehicle technology works in extreme conditions. They say that the goal of the race is to advance the implementation of autonomous vehicles and advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), much like the 2005 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenge.
The race track has been the scene of much innovation throughout the years, said Doug Boles, Indianapolis Motor Speedway president. “Firestone tests tire technology there and that data transfers to our cars. One of the first conversations we had with Roger Penske [after Penske Entertainment bought the speedway] was about the autonomous challenge,” he said.
IAC sponsors include ADLINK, Ansys, Aptiv, AutonomouStuff, Bridgestone, CU-ICAR, Dallara, Indiana Economic Development Corp., Microsoft, New Eagle, PWR, RTI, Schaeffler and Valvoline.
Mobileye plans to test autonomous fleets in four cities
Intel subsidiary Mobileye plans to launch autonomous vehicle fleet testing in Detroit, Paris, Shanghai and Toyko. The announcement, made at CES by CEO Amnon Shashua, said that the company also plans to test in New York City, pending regulatory approval.
The company also plans to use in-house-built lidar sensors, while continuing to champion its camera-based testing. “We are using crowd-sourced data through the Cloud to build high-definition maps at scale,” Shashua said. “Thousands of product vehicles are sending us data.”
Shashua addressed a moderator’s question that cameras alone cannot be the technology of choice for autonomous vehicles. “The camera first is crucial from a technology and business point of view. We have to find out what is acceptable failure for Level 4 autonomy. Camera-only is ideal, but pushing the envelope for driver-assistance systems,” he said. “Consumer AV will take place in the 2025 timeframe. [Eventually], we can build lidar and radar to the same performance levels as camera systems. Lidar and radar can be added later for redundancy, but only for Level 4.”
Shashua said getting to Level 4 could take a decade, but that would be unsustainable unless there are government-funded projects to keep companies afloat. “By 2025, a subsystem will be good enough for consumers. Regulation is critical and sometimes it’s difficult to leap to a consumer level,” he said.
Not everyone believes what Mobileye is testing constitutes “driverless” status. To Alain Kornhauser Princeton University professor and transportation program director, who was head of the university’s team during the 2005 DARPA Challenge, not many companies are capable of full driverless capability.
“Unfortunately, I still see all of this as simply ‘eye candy’ to sell something that actually has no intention of delivering what it is implying. I still claim that the business case is zero, doesn’t exist, for personally-owned autonomous vehicles,” Kornhauser said in his Smart Driving Cars weekly newsletter. “Mobileye is nowhere close to being able to operate safely on most roads, let alone all roads. Thus, the consumer market has zero opportunity to scale.”
Kornhauser said that driverless testing is being conducted only in one place, Phoenix, by Waymo. “Neither Tesla nor Mobileye are driverless anywhere. They both require on-board human driver supervision,” he said. “That’s why they are only self-driving [tests].”
In other CES news:
GM CEO Mary Barra unveiled a single-seat electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) concept aircraft. The aircraft will be developed for future use as an air taxi. Barra briefly mentioned that the company’s Super Cruise self-driving technology will be integrated into 22 car models in a few years. The company also rolled out an electric vehicle for deliveries that can travel 250 miles on a charge and a motorized pallet for deliveries that can be tracked.
Photo: Mercedes-Benz
The Mercedes-Benz’ MBUX Hyperscreen, rolled out at CES, evaluates map data, surroundings and provides information about landmarks along a route, said Sajjad Khan, company CTO and member of the board of management. The new map feature, called Mercedes Travel Knowledge, allows a passenger or driver to ask a question as they drive by a landmark (“hey, Mercedes, what can you tell me about this building?”). The MBUX Hyperscreen is available in the new S-Class cars.
HERE Technologies introduced a mapping-as-a-service platform at CES. The platform is targeted to businesses wanting to create custom map datasets for advanced analytics and services, the company said. Some use cases include industrial yard mapping, leveraging probe data from private vehicle fleets in order to create or update a map.• A virtual CES is hard to get used to. After more than 20 years of covering the massive trade show in person, covering press conferences and conducting interviews online was sometimes a challenge. Sometimes the press conferences did not have question-and-answer sessions, or canned answers given to executives by public relations people. This doesn’t happen much during an in-person interview. In addition, trying to chat with “booth” personnel online was cumbersome and often those requests for information were ignored.
As part of an ongoing commitment to transform the way mines manage their business, Caterpillar Inc. and Trimble are extending their collaboration to bring mining customers improved operational decision-making capabilities.
The collaboration will leverage Caterpillar Global Mining’s industry expertise and combine its in-pit operational execution system, Cat MineStar, with Trimble’s portfolio of technology-enabled mining information solutions.
This expanded collaboration in mining will include product integration and development, marketing, distribution and support of Trimble Connected Mine solutions.
The companies have signed an agreement that outlines areas for increased engagement to begin in early 2017. Caterpillar Global Mining is anticipated to become the primary sales, marketing, distribution and support channel for Trimble’s Connected Mine platform.
In addition, Cat MineStar and Trimble’s Connected Mine platform will be integrated and collaboratively developed. The expanded Caterpillar-Trimble collaboration will enhance both companies’ efforts to serve global customers with technologies and services across a mine?s entire operation and equipment fleet, regardless of brand, language or location.
“Caterpillar and Trimble have enjoyed a very successful relationship for decades and we are pleased to be working more closely to better leverage the products and capabilities in both companies for our mining customers,” said Tom Bluth, Caterpillar vice president with responsibility for the Surface Mining & Technology Division. “Whether it’s the mining pit supervisor or a corporate operational analytics teams, Caterpillar Global Mining continues to go beyond the iron by providing the technologies and expertise to help customers improve productivity and lower their cost per ton.”
“This collaboration demonstrates our mutual commitment to provide mine professionals with complete visibility from the mine to the mill,” said Bryn Fosburgh, vice president at Trimble. “As a result, mine operations can leverage accurate production, fleet and spatial data to optimize their workflow and control costs.”
Cat MineStar is a mining operational execution system purpose built to help miners boost productivity, enhance safety and improve equipment availability, regardless of equipment manufacturer. The system consists of five capability sets: Fleet, Terrain, Detect, Health & Command, which can be configured to suit the unique needs and capabilities of any mine, both surface and underground.
Cat MineStar has been a critical part of the digital transformation in mining since 1996 when it was first introduced. Today it is installed at more than 200 mine sites around the world. Utilizing improved interoperability, the Cat MineStar platform is uniquely positioned to help customers connect data and decision-making across the mining value chain, from the mine plan to plant processing or from an individual machine to across an enterprise.
Trimble Connected Mine provides an integrated and complete view of mine data to improve and accelerate operational and strategic decision making. Visual Intelligence is an optional module that enables the 3D visualization of Trimble Connected Mine data.
With a proven track record of enterprise-level implementations in some of the largest mines worldwide, Trimble is transforming the way mines work by combining mining expertise, spatial technology, business analytics, visualization and decision support tools to enable mining companies to fully optimize their resources for safe, productive and profitable mining.
Collaborating Since 1996. Caterpillar and Trimble have been collaborating in mining since 1996, when the two companies jointly developed a best-in-class machine control and guidance product, known today in the marketplace as Terrain. Today, Terrain is a leading guidance system for mining, with many of the world’s largest mining companies improving their productivity through use of this technology.
The companies’ first collaboration evolved into a joint venture in 2002 with the formation of Caterpillar Trimble Control Technologies (CTCT). Today CTCT develops machine control and guidance products for both the mining and construction industries, for any make or model of equipment regardless of manufacturer. Trimble positioning technologies, such as GPS and inertial navigation systems, are also used in many of Caterpillar’s semi-autonomous and autonomous systems.
