Towards Fully Integrated Autonomous Excavation: Autonomous Excavator for Precise Earth Cutting and Onboard Landscape Inspection

Autonomous excavator systems (AESs) can alleviate the issues caused by the shortage of skilled labor forces and increasing labor costs. For autonomous excavation, real-time landscape estimation, excavation path generation, control, and precise landscape inspection are all essential. In this article, we propose and experimentally validate an integrated AES that incorporates all these elements. Specifically, unlike previous research, we introduce a sensor arrangement capable of sufficiently covering the regions of interest (ROIs) regardless of the inclination of the target landscape, a motion planning method that satisfies geometric and physical constraints, and a precise postexcavation inspection module using onboard sensors only. The proposed methodology was experimentally validated using a real 30-ton hydraulic excavator. It successfully performed a cutting task on an upward slope with 45° inclination and achieved a centimeter-level accuracy through autonomous repetitive excavation; also, the proposed postexcavation inspection method demonstrated subcentimeter precision within seconds using onboard sensors only.