An incremental approach to the advanced teleoperation of an earthwork equipment

This paper describes the results of the activities carried out in the system requirements and specification definition phases of the ESPRIT funded project EP 6068 ATHENA (Advanced Teleoperation for earthwork Equipment Navigation). The aim of the ATHENA project is the automation of the operations performed currently by human drivers of earthwork equipment working within waste disposal site. The objective is to operate the vehicle without having a driver on-board by providing the vehicle itself with basic autonomous capabilities, and the control station with advanced teleoperation features. This goal is achieved through the incremental automation of a compactor selected within the class of earthwork equipment. The advanced control and guidance system includes teleoperation as well as reflex-based risks avoidance, semi-autonomous navigation, task planning and correlated sensor data processing.