A simulation study of sensor data fusion using UKF for bucket wheel reclaimer localization

Bucket Wheel Reclaimers (BWRs) normally travel on a rail among stockpiles to perform stacking and reclaiming operations. Currently, the position accuracy of the bucket wheel at the end of boom measured by the onboard encoder system is limited to 30cm. To maintain such accuracy, calibrated points have to be placed along the rail, which is inefficient and costly. This paper proposes a simulation study using Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) algorithm to fuse DGPS and encoder data for BWR localization. The results obtained indicate that the errors in positional accuracy are better than 15cm and UKF is an objective technology that can be applied to localize such large scaled machine.