The project is sponsored by Trimble LOADRITE. Trimble is an established world leader in Navigation and Measurement Systems, with over 6000 employees in more than 30 countries. Based in Auckland, Trimble Loadrite focuses on creating technological solutions to improve the productivity and efficiency of heavy equipment operations such as quarries, mines, waste management and construction. This project aims to develop new ways of combining GPS, accelerometer, gyroscope and other measurement systems in order to track low-speed vehicle movements affordably and effectively.
The accurate tracking of short-distance movements of vehicles in quarries is important for sensing what operation the vehicle is undertaking; the tracking of wheel loader movements during the loading of trucks can be used to evaluate the efficiency of the operation, while the tracking of haul truck movements can be used to determine dumping location and allow stockpile levels to be automatically monitored. To do this accurately a low cost GPS alone is not sufficient, as it struggles to determine the direction of short movements. This is particularly true when there are velocity reversals such as the truck backing up to a stockpile, or a wheel loader backing out from a stockpile and then driving forward to dump into a truck.
Undergraduate
Input from additional sensors will be combined with the GPS information to more accurately track short movements by addressing the following posed questions:
How can tracking be successfully augmented using existing products?
What types of sensor fusion can be used?
Which additional sensors can give the best improvement in tracking?
What trade-offs are there between tracking accuracy and cost?
Pre-requisites: MECHENG312 and MECHENG322
Lab allocations have not been finalised