1D AND 3D SYSTEMS IN MACHINE AUTOMATION

Over the past 15 years, kinematic measurements in the area of Engineering Geod- esy have seen a significant upturn. Around 1990 the first automatic tracking total station Geo- dimeter 4000 (Hennes, 1992)) was developed, also around this time the first GPS receivers became commercially available. After a short period it became clear that terrestrial and global surveying instruments could be used for tracking the trajectory of a moving object (Stempfhuber, 2001). During this period the first machine control systems began to be used on construction sites. In the middle of the 90's various companies attempted to control the kinematic processes for paving and finishing operations (e.g. stringless 3D slipform paving www.wirtgen.de/de/darchiv/). In the following years the first prototypes of such a control sys- tem upgraded the conventional "stringline" method with "stringless technology". Today there is a large range of potential markets for new machine automation applications, which will lead to the development of a range of new products in the tunnelling, construction, mining and agricultural industries. The use of machine automation in these applications will alter the workflow of data collection, data processing, creating designs, uploading and trans- forming data, controlling machines without stringlines, checking the as-constructed output of the operation and documenting these results. This needs a completely different approach to that which is currently used today. 1. Definition of Machine Automation By combining kinematic measurement systems such as total stations, rotation lasers and receivers, slope sensors and Global Positioning Systems (GPS), many new applications in the area of Engineering Geodesy are feasible. This coupled with the use of machine control systems for precision farming in the agricultual industry have enabled a high growth potential in the market of more than 10% a year. The term "Machine Automation" is now synonymous with various construction applications including those used on motor graders, dozers, excavators, trimmers, profilers, compactors, and aspalt and concrete pavers. These applications in the field of construction may comprised 1D or 2D guidance systems (e.g. machine left or right, plate or bucket up and down are considered 1D control systems), 1D plus slope control systems, semi-automatic or fully automated 3D control systems merge all of these applications. To structure these various machine automation groups the following definitions can be made: