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US 12,351,171 B2Granted
Autonomous machine operation using vibration analysis
AssigneeCaterpillar SARL
InventorNathan Adams
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Operating an autonomous machine using analysis of machine vibration while it is operational. Accelerometers are used to measure the machines vibrations while it is being operated. If the vibrations exceed a predetermined acceleration a controller adjust the velocity of the machine to prevent/reduce further vibrations.
Claims16
An autonomous machine, the autonomous machine being fully autonomous and operating in an off-road environment, comprising:
- a tractor unit including one or more tractor accelerometers configured to measure acceleration of the tractor unit along three perpendicular axes of the tractor unit;
- a trailer unit including one or more trailer accelerometers configured to measure acceleration of the trailer unit along three perpendicular axes of the trailer unit;
- a velocity sensor configured to measure a velocity of the autonomous machine;
- and
- a controller for:
- receiving acceleration data from the one or more trailer accelerometers and the one or more tractor accelerometers, wherein the acceleration data includes a component of acceleration of the tractor unit along the three perpendicular axes of the tractor unit and includes a component of acceleration of the trailer unit along the three perpendicular axes of the trailer unit;
- receiving velocity data from the velocity sensor;
- determining whether one or more components of the acceleration of the tractor unit and one or more components of the acceleration of the trailer unit exceed a predetermined maximum acceleration threshold;
- reducing the velocity of the autonomous machine if one or more of the components of acceleration of the trailer unit or one or more components of acceleration of the tractor unit exceed the predetermined maximum acceleration threshold, wherein velocity is reduced until each of the one or more components of acceleration of the tractor unit and each of the one or more components of acceleration of the trailer unit is below the predetermined maximum acceleration threshold;
- and
- increasing the velocity of the autonomous machine towards and up to a predetermined maximum velocity threshold for the autonomous machine.
8 more elements
A method of controlling an autonomous machine of the type comprising a tractor unit and a trailer unit and being fully autonomous, operating in an off-road environment, the method comprising the steps of:
- measuring three components of a vibration acceleration of the tractor unit via one or more tractor accelerometers on the tractor unit;
- measuring three components of a vibration acceleration of the trailer unit via one or more trailer accelerometers on the trailer unit;
- measuring a velocity of the autonomous machine;
- comparing each component of the vibration acceleration of the tractor unit with a predetermined maximum vibration acceleration threshold;
- comparing each component of the vibration acceleration of the trailer unit with the predetermined maximum vibration acceleration threshold;
- in the event that one or more of the components of the vibration acceleration of the tractor unit and one or more of the components of the vibration acceleration of the trailer unit exceeds the predetermined maximum vibration acceleration threshold, reducing the velocity of the autonomous machine until each component of the vibration acceleration of the tractor unit and each component of the vibration acceleration of the trailer unit is below the predetermined maximum vibration acceleration threshold;
- and
- increasing the velocity of the autonomous machine towards and up to a predetermined maximum velocity threshold;
- wherein, the three components of the vibration acceleration of the tractor unit and the three components of the vibration acceleration of the trailer unit each include an x-axis component, a y-axis component, and a z-axis component.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.