Automation of iron mole for difficult soil

摘要

General speaking, with the small-diameter pipe jacking system which is used for digging directly underground for laying sewage pipes for other underground piping, there is a system available for measuring deviation of the pilot pipe from the planned line. However, in reality, to achieve high precision in various types of soil, the operation and judgement depends greatly on the skill and experience of the operator. The problem here is that the number of experienced operators does not meet the demands for this kind of work. For this reason, an automatic system which makes it possible to carry out precise and stable work which is not affected by the degree of the experience of the operator is very useful for the user. In particular, by installing this on the TP95S iron mole, which represents a large proportion of sales, has made it possible to provide even greater differentiation over competitive machines. However, the TP95S is frequently used in difficult soil, and problems were seen with the algorithm used on the automatic system employed on the TP50S-2 which has already been introduced to the market. To overcome this problem, research and development was carried out concentrated on construction of a higher level of algorithm structure to deal with difficult soil, and the technology has been transferred to the Underground Machinery Division. An automatic system including the algorithm constructed in the Underground Machinery Division has been mounted on the TP40SCL, evaluation tests have been carried out on the jobsite, and commercial use is planned for this year.