A 3D surface modeling system for intelligent excavation system

The purpose of this study is to develop a mobile 3D work environment recognition system for civil earthwork. A mobile 3D laser scanner system and software have been developed in this research. This study is a part of Intelligent Excavation System (IES) project that develops an autonomous earthwork system. Work environment data acquisition and recognition is the first stage of the project. In order to optimize and automate the 3D scanning process, Mobile 3D Imaging System was designed, and an actual earthwork environment was scanned and processed using the developed system. The paper describes (1) the selection of the most appropriate scanner for the construction field, (2) development of vehicle mounting station for the scanner, (3) development of the customized scanner controller software, and (4) development of automated mesh creation and registration of multiple scan data.