Equipment World

July 2016

Equipment World Digital Magazine

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W hen GPS/GNSS made its first debut in the con- struction world, dozers and motor graders were the machines of choice to use this earthmoving technology. With precise satellite data and 3D topo plans, operators could skim the last few centimeters of a site with full confidence that their blades were right on target. In the past couple of years, though, some manufacturers also began to outfit their excavators with GPS/GNSS technology. And con- tractors are finding a wide range of uses for excavator machine control in addition to great safety benefits. How it works GPS/GNSS on dozers and motor graders measure the position of the blade's cutting edge by putting a receiver antenna on the blade (al- though some newer dozer systems have done away with the antenna masts and use small inertial mea- surement units [IMUs] mounted to the body of the machine.) With excavators, the receiver antennas are mounted on the back of the machine, on or near the counterweight. The exact location of the cutting edge of the bucket is determined by angle sensors on the stick, boom and bucket cylinders and calibrating the distance be- tween the antenna and the bucket. As with dozer and grader ap- plications, excavator GPS/GNSS systems get their corrected RTK (real-time kinetic) positioning data EquipmentWorld.com | July 2016 49 GPS/GNSS 101 | by Tom Jackson | TJackson@randallreilly.com Part 2 of a 4-part series Excavators, unlike dozers, use GPS/GNSS antenna mounted on the counterweight. During the calibration process, the distance from the antenna to the bucket is measured and then angle sensors on the boom and bucket calculate the exact position of the cutting edge. A new and surprisingly useful evolution of this technology GPS for excavators

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