Construction machine management system, and construction machine

#The present invention relates to a construction machine capable of transmitting location information to a base station, and to a management system using this construction machine.

#Systems for managing traveling conditions of vehicles such as cars, dump trucks etc. have been disclosed in, for example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. H4-174387 and Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. H4-174388. With the systems disclosed in these patent publications, location information of individual vehicles is detected using a GPS satellite, and that location information is regularly transmitted to a base station. However, it is not always necessary to keep current location information at the base station, depending on the intended use for the location information. By transmitting the information regularly as described above, it is uneconomical because transmission costs may be increased needlessly.

#The systems disclosed in the above publications are for managing traveling time of a vehicle such as a car or dump truck using traveled distance of the vehicles, but a construction machine such as a hydraulic excavator etc, is generally transported to a site located remote from the site where the management system resides, and is used at that remote location. Upon completion of work, it is common to leave the construction machine behind at that remote location because it is too troublesome to collect the machine using a transport vehicle. Under these conditions, management of the construction machine by a manager is compromised, which places a mental strain on the manager.

#FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a management system of an embodiment of the present invention.

#FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure for a hydraulic excavator of a first embodiment.

#FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure for a base station of the first embodiment.

#-First Embodiment-

#An embodiment of a management system according to the present invention will now be described by applying it to a hydraulic excavator, using FIG. 1 to FIG. 3.

#FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a system of the present invention. GPS control units 11 mounted separately in each hydraulic excavator 10 receive radio signals from a plurality of GPS satellites 21 and calculate location information for each hydraulic excavator 10 (in which they are mounted). The calculated location information is input to a main control unit 12. The location information here is, for example, geographical information (latitude and longitude). A transmission actuation switch SW1 provided in the operator's cabin and a fault detector 13 for detecting faults with the hydraulic excavator 10 are also connected to the main control unit 12. The transmission actuation switch SW1 is a switch actuated by the operator when wishing to transmit location information. The fault detector 13 detects various faults of the hydraulic excavator 10 for each type of hydraulic excavator, and inputs the detection result to the main control unit 12. There are various contents for the faults, for example, sensor voltage abnormality of respective sensors, engine speed abnormality, engine oil pressure abnormality, battery charge abnormality, cooling water temperature abnormality, abnormality of boom raising operation amount, abnormality of traveling operation amount, etc.