Real time method for determining the spatial pose of electronic mining shovels
Knowing the global pose of mining excavators provides a range of benefits for managing and automating mining operations. A method for globally locating the pose of an electric mining shovel is described. The system takes measurements from an arbitrary number of RTK-GPS antennas mounted on the machine house and a resolver fitted to the machines' swing axis. A Kalman filter is used to produce estimates of the global locations pose.
1. A method of determining the global pose of a mining shovel, the mining shovel including:
a machine shovel carbody substantially static between digging operations;
a machine house that is mounted on the carbody and rotatable about a vertical axis relative to the carbody;
a shovel assembly including a shovel handle and a bucket assembly, the shovel assembly being mounted to the machine house, and movable relative to the machine house;
the method including:
(a) as a first stage computing the location of the mining shovel carbody (c-frame) relative to a local geodetic frame (g-frame) using a global positioning system, an inclinometer, and a swing axis resolver;
(b) as a second stage computing a house pose (h-frame) relative to the c-frame using a global positioning system, an axis inertial sensor and a swing axis resolver;
(c) as a third stage computing a bucket pose (b-frame) relative to the h-frame using crowd and hoist axis resolvers.
2. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein (a) and (b) are carried out using an extended Kalman filter.
3. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein (a) is carried out using an iterative routine until convergence.
4. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the inclinometer is a twin axis inclinometer.
5. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the inertial sensor is a six axis inertial sensor.
6. A method as claimed in claim 2 wherein (a) is carried out using an iterative routine until convergence.
7. A method as claimed in claim 2 wherein the inclinometer is a twin axis inclinometer.
8. A method as claimed in claim 2 wherein the inertial sensor is a six axis inertial sensor.
9. A method as claimed in claim 3 wherein the inertial sensor is a six axis inertial sensor.
10. A method as claimed in claim 4 wherein the inertial sensor is a six axis inertial sensor.
11. A method as claimed in claim 6 wherein the inertial sensor is a six axis inertial sensor.
12. A method as claimed in claim 7 wherein the inertial sensor is a six axis inertial sensor.