Excavation by way of an unmanned vehicle

A system mountable on an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) for controlling execution of an excavation task, comprising:

• a scanning device configured to repeatedly scan an area surrounding the UGV, to thereby provide scanning output data providing information about distances between objects in the area and the UGV in a multiplicity of directions;
• an inertial navigation system (INS) providing INS-data indicative of a current location and orientation of the UGV relative to a previous location and orientation;
• at least one processor configured to:
• obtain scanning output data generated by the scanning device;
• generate based on the scanning output data, a map representing at least a part of the area, the map being relative to a location of the UGV, and comprises cells, each cell is classified to a class selected from a group comprising traversable and non-traversable, and characterized by dimensions equal or larger than an accumulated drift value of the INS over a predefined distance related to the size of the map;
• receive INS data from the INS;
• and
• update a location of the UGV relative to the cells based on the INS-data;
• execute an excavation sequence comprising:
• moving a sensor-equipped digging implement for executing an excavation operation;
• receiving data indicative of current terrain topography from the sensor;
• updating the map according to the data indicative of current terrain topography;
• calculating an excavation operation according to a difference between the map and a target map indicative of a desired result of the excavation task.

A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable storage medium retaining program instructions, which program instructions when read by a processor, cause the processor to perform a method executing an excavation task by an excavation vehicle, comprising:

• obtaining scanning output data generated by a scanning device operating onboard the excavation vehicle for repeatedly scanning an area surrounding the vehicle, to thereby generate the scanning output data;
• maintaining, based on the scanning output data, a map representing at least a part of the area, the map being relative to a location of the vehicle and comprises cells characterized by a size larger than an accumulated drift value of an INS onboard the vehicle over a predefined distance;
• receiving from the INS, INS data indicative of a current location and orientation of the vehicle relative to a previous location and orientation;
• and
• updating a location of the vehicle relative to the cells in the map based on the INS data;
• according to data from the scanning device, maintaining a map representing current terrain;
• executing an excavation sequence comprising:
• moving a sensor-equipped digging implement for executing an excavation operation;
• receiving data indicative of current terrain topography from the sensor;
• updating the map according to the data indicative of current terrain topography;
• and
• calculating an excavation operation according to a difference between the map and a target map indicative of a desired result of the excavation.