A 3D model based control of an excavator

New technologies facilitate machine control systems, which use data from CAD and 3D measurement systems to automatically control construction machinery, such as an excavator. This paper examines the possibilities of controlling a six degrees of freedom (DOF) excavator with the final objective of controlling the movements of the excavator by using a positioning system such as a GPS in conjunction with a CAD model of the road surface. In comparison with the traditional 4 DOF machine, the excavator was provided with two additional degrees of freedom by applying a 2 DOF Rototilt, an accessory commonly in use. To study this problem, Msc.Adams with Matlab/Simulink was used as a simulation environment. In this paper the path of the bucket is calculated by using the CAD reference of the target plane.