New Capability for Remote Controlled Excavation

Remote controlled operation of construction equipment has been state-of-the-art for some years. The availability of remote controls which have been designed and developed for general use on commercial machines is a recent development that is the subject of this paper. The John Deere teleoperated excavator represents a new capability that is now available to the construction industry for use on construction sites that preclude the on-site presence of human operators. This paper will describe the basic machine, the controls, vision system and integration of the remote control adjunct to the operational system. Much of the development of the initial capability was done with the cooperation of Vectran Corporation of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.