Remotely Controlled Excavator System with Enhanced Safety for Built Environments

Remotely operated excavators enhance safety, productivity, and efficiency in construction environments. This paper introduces a new system design aimed at improving the remote control of excavators. The setup utilizes the ROS2 middleware framework on a 5G network, with simplified on-site infrastructure requirements, achieving low latency in communication between master and slave components. Another notable aspect of this system is its safety module, which includes toppling and collision detection. The collision detection is engineered to identify general obstacles rather than specific objects or excavators, using active pose measurement.Results presented in this paper validate the system’s efficacy in network analysis, collision tests, and toppling detection. The proposed design contributes to improved performance and safety standards, providing valuable insights for further research and development in this field.