AUTONOMOUS LOADING OF ROCKS BY USE OF INTELLIGENT LOADERS WITH A VISION SYSTEM - A CONCEPT OF AUTONOMOUS LOADING AND PATH GENERATION

摘要

A wheel loader is the major vehicle that has been used for scooping, carrying and loading of crushed ores in open pit mines. This paper describes a path generation method for autonomous control of the wheel loader. From the viewpoint of stability of movement and easy control to move along the designed path, smoothness and simple calculation of command value are necessary for the path. In order to satisfy these conditions, a path generation method using a clothoid curve is proposed. A clothoid curve has a continuous changing curvature that is proportional to the length of the curve, and provides continuous changing of steering angle. Furthermore, the interpolation between the start and end point of the loader is proposed, which consists of clothoid curve segment and straight line segment. V-shape curve including backward path and forward path is also generated with considering the avoidance of rapid turning.