Data processing: vehicles – navigation – and relative location – Vehicle control – guidance – operation – or indication – Automatic route guidance vehicle
Reexamination Certificate
2000-10-24
2002-11-19
Beaulieu, Yonel (Department: 3661)
Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location
Vehicle control, guidance, operation, or indication
Automatic route guidance vehicle
C701S050000, C701S023000, C701S117000, C340S989000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06484078
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle control system for managing vehicles travelling toward a worksite.
2. Description of the Related Art
In order to improve the efficiency of mining operations in a large scale mining area, the loaders (excavator, wheel loader), dump trucks, and so forth are made large in size. In other words, instead of running a plurality of dump trucks with a plurality of operators, attempts are being made to run a small number of dump trucks with a small number of operators by making the dump trucks larger. These dump trucks have reached the 200 t capacity class.
Particularly in recent years, unmanned dump trucks (unmanned vehicles) have come to be widely used with the dissemination of position measuring devices such as GPS (global positioning system) and human labor has been correspondingly reduced. In other words, a position measuring device such as GPS is deployed on the unmanned vehicle, compares the position measured with this position measurement device to the positions in the stored course data, and controls the vehicle so that these positions agree. The unmanned vehicle thereby travels along a predetermined course.
At the level to which unmanned vehicles were initially introduced, the unmanned vehicles performed work to transport ore from a predetermined loader to a predetermined earth removal site.
In a mining area, a plurality of loaders at a plurality of loading sites and a plurality of earth removal devices at a plurality of earth removal sites (hoppers for crushing and refining the ore and stockyards as temporary holding sites) are operating at the same time. For this reason, when any of the plurality of loaders and earth removal devices become unable to work temporarily for reasons such as a failure, it becomes necessary to provide orders for changing the travel route to the unmanned vehicles headed thereto. The change in the travel route is necessary in order to eliminate wasteful waiting time for the unmanned vehicles.
For example, a fleet
1
(group of unmanned vehicles) engaged in transport operations from an excavator A to a hopper B and a fleet
2
engaged in transport operations from an excavator C to a hopper D are working in parallel at the same time. Under these conditions, when the operator of the excavator A takes a break, it would be desirable for the unmanned vehicles in fleet
1
to shift to fleet
2
, travel the travel route of fleet
2
, and continue the transport operations without interruption.
A temporary work stoppage for one fleet and a loss of working efficiency often occur in cases other than when an operator takes a break. For example, a loader may engage in road maintenance at the loading site, making embankments for safety purposes, or making roads for the loader itself to travel upon during breaks from loading operations. In these cases as well, the operations for one fleet may be temporarily halted, causing reduced efficiency. Furthermore, the movement of a loader within the loading site, failure of a hopper, overflow, obstacles on the route traveled by the unmanned vehicles, and reductions in travel speeds of the unmanned vehicles due to quagmires on the travel route can temporarily halt work by a fleet and cause reduced efficiency.
In cases where there is a risk of reducing the efficiency of a fleet
1
in this way, the unmanned vehicles scheduled to perform work in the fleet
1
must be moved to another fleet
2
, caused to take the travel route of the fleet
2
, and sent to those loading sites and earth removal sites.
In the conventional art, a system is constituted wherein the travel route is changed once the unmanned vehicles have first traveled to a predetermined location. For example, the excavator A for fleet
1
temporarily stops work. The unmanned vehicles in fleet
1
continue to travel along the fleet
1
travel route and reach a predetermined location (for example, the entrance to the site where the excavator A is present). Then, at this predetermined location, the unmanned vehicles received instructions to “change to the fleet
2
travel route” from a monitor station. According to these orders, the unmanned vehicles travel the fleet
2
travel route to the loading site (excavator C) for the fleet
2
.
This type of technology is noted in the following reports.
For example, the Japanese Patent application Laid-Open No. 7-20939 (conventional art A) includes an invention wherein an unmanned transport vehicle traveling indoors is caused to move to and wait at a predetermined location (position of control information transmission device) on the transport path. At this waiting location, data for a changed transport path is provided to the unmanned transport vehicle.
Also, the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-181888 (conventional art B) includes an invention wherein a mobile machine is caused to travel to and wait at a mining site, and at this mining site, the mobile machine is provided orders for its next movements (movement to reentry path) depending on the current situation in the mining site (failure of loader or hopper).
Furthermore, in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 8-263138 (conventional art C), an unmanned dump truck is caused to follow a travel course to a loading site and stop at the entry to the loading site. While stopped at this location, the vehicle generates data for a course from that position corresponding to the position of the loading machine and provides this course data to the unmanned vehicle.
This conventional art A, B, and C applies to cases wherein an excavator A temporarily stops work for a fleet
1
. In this case, the unmanned vehicles in the fleet
1
must travel on the travel route for the fleet
1
and arrive at the entry for the loading site where the excavator A, that has temporarily stopped work, is located. It is then necessary for the unmanned vehicles to stop at the entry to the loading site and wait at this location for instructions from a monitor station. Then, after receiving the instructions changing the travel route from the monitor station, the unmanned vehicles must shift to the other fleet
2
, follow the travel route for fleet
2
, and go to the loading site (excavator C) for the fleet
2
.
In this conventional art, it is not possible to change the travel route unless the unmanned vehicles have traveled to and stopped at a predetermined location. For this reason, the unmanned vehicles operate to no purpose and working efficiency is greatly reduced.
The present invention was made in view of these facts. It is a first object of the present invention to eliminate wasteful activity of the vehicles and to improve efficiency by making it possible to promptly change the travel route at the time when it becomes necessary to change the travel route of a vehicle.
The unmanned vehicles receive data for the scheduled travel route from the monitor station and travel along this scheduled travel route.
At the monitoring station, however, the decision is made whether it is necessary to change the initially provided travel route according to monitoring results. In this case, travel instructions are provided by the monitor station to the unmanned vehicle and instruct the unmanned vehicle to turn off at an intersection with the scheduled travel route and to follow the changed travel route. When the current position of the unmanned vehicle is sufficiently distant from the intersection, there is leeway for traveling and for performing navigation control and the unmanned vehicle can turn off at the intersection without leaving the travel route. However, when the current position of the unmanned vehicle is close to the intersection, there is no leeway for traveling and navigation control. For this reason there is a risk of the unmanned vehicle leaving the travel route near the intersection. Departure from the travel route (road surface leveled on one of two lanes for going back and forth) may bring about collisions with other vehicles, while increasing the risk of the vehicle overturning on the shou
Beaulieu Yonel
Gibson Eric M
Komatsu Ltd.
Varndell & Varndell PLLC
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