EPB shield tunnel-boring machine automation using the autonomous-vehicle framework

摘要

Advances made in self-driving vehicles and automated drilling during the past decade suggest that tunnel-boring machine (TBM) tunneling is headed toward autonomous operation. Automated drilling, primarily adopted in blast-hole drilling for mining, involves driverless surface drill rigs that self-navigate to a predetermined X-Y location and drill at a preset angle (typically vertical) to a target depth. Remote operators oversee the drill rigs and perform some of the operations (de Wardt et al, 2012; de Wardt et al, 2016; Rogers et al, 2019). In current practice, autonomy is limited to auto-positioning of drill rigs, drill-rod handling and drilling fault detection. The main motivation behind automated drilling has been worker safety and workforce shortage in remote area operations. Improvements in production and drilling accuracy have been reported (Kinik et al, 2014; Jacobs, 2015; Lopes et al, 2018). To the authors' knowledge, the drilling process itself has not become intelligent in terms of learning how to drill more efficiently.