Komatsu prepares to develop automation technology for construction and mining machinery
With the declining production age population in Japan, Komatsu intends to invest in the development of unmanned construction machinery that can improve the efficiency of field work.
Komatsu, a Japanese construction machinery supplier, will develop driving and operation unmanned construction machinery. At present, there are some construction machinery which can be used for soil preparation and excavation operation in the market, but the basic operation of driving on the project site still needs to be completed by people. Komatsu will invest in the development of self driving vehicles and robots and other start-ups ZMP, in order to absorb related technologies to promote the realization of the new generation of construction machinery practical application.
As an entrepreneurial enterprise, ZMP company has advantages in image recognition and sensor technology, and is working with Nagoya University to start road tests, etc., to promote the development of automatic driving vehicles. Komatsu's contribution to ZMP is considered to be hundreds of millions of yen, with a ratio of less than 5%. Komatsu will work with ZMP in the construction machinery and mining machinery automatic driving and unmanned technology research and development and other aspects of cooperation. Through the combination of Komatsu's long-term accumulation of engineering machinery control experience, the development of unmanned and operating construction machinery.
Komatsu has been actively using the global positioning system (GPS) and sensors, etc., is committed to the development of unmanned and automatic operation of the machine. In 2008, Komatsu developed an unmanned operating system for super large dump trucks that run efficiently on fixed lines of mines. In the 2013~2014 year, bulldozers and excavators were introduced, which needed drivers, but also realized soil preparation and excavation. Even novice operators can perform complex tasks.
Compared with the mine, there are many changes in the construction route, such as the complexity of the route. If the unmanned construction machinery because of the huge cost of development and the formation of higher prices, it will be difficult to show the cost reduction effect in construction projects. So far, only the automation of the operation has been realized.
Komatsu's unmanned dump trucks and automatic construction machinery use GPS positioning information to control them. And ZMP is not dependent on the GPS, the use of cameras and sensors to grasp the surrounding situation has a technical advantage. The two sides will improve product strength through cooperation.
In addition to the automatic construction machinery, Komatsu has also launched since February to use unmanned helicopter and cloud computing and other IT technology to improve the construction site production efficiency and safety of new services. The related development of Komatsu is due to the great earthquake in East Japan, the reconstruction of Japan's disaster areas and the renewal of aging infrastructure, and so on. On the other hand, due to the aging of the population and other reasons, the shortage of labor force is becoming increasingly serious.
In the future, Komatsu will continue to develop the construction and mining machinery automation technology, and social development, in order to achieve higher requirements.
