Autonomy on-demand! Autonomous testing of human-driven compaction roller

• Post by: Alessandro Bertoni
• 12th June 2018
• 2 Comments

Can we transform a compaction roller to become temporary autonomous for executing a specific task? And can we do it in a cheap and flexible way? That´s the challenge that Jojje Sundblad and Sebastian Tuma Fischer, master thesis students in Mechanical Engineering at BTH, have faced in collaboration with our research partner Dynapac.

Endurance tests of compaction rollers take about 500 hours and require nowadays the presence of a driver conducting repetitive and physically tiring tasks. In their work Jojje and Sebastian have analyzed risks and technologies for developing a device capable to turn the machine in autonomous mode to run the 500 hours test in a controlled environment, reducing the cost for testing, operators stress and increasing the safety of the task.

“During the last 6 months we went through the whole process from identifying potential risks and suitable technologies, develop a concept, prototype it and test in at the partner company site” says Jojje and Sebastian “We are very satisfied of our solution and happy to have successfully test it in close collaboration with Dynapac”. The prototype in action is available in the video below.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsKM0YfTadc[/embedyt]

 

Dynapac is a research partner of BTH and Product Development Research Lab in the frame of the MD3S research profile.