Controlling Autonomous Machines at Construction Sites with Heterogeneous Moving Objects by Model Predictive Control

This study examines how to properly control each autonomous machine at a construction site where human-driven construction machines, an autonomous excavator, and an autonomous truck are coexisting. We proposed to utilize Model Predictive Control (MPC) to control two different control targets, an excavator and a truck, using the same method in a unified manner. By taking advantage of the MPC's ability to handle constraint conditions explicitly, we proposed a control method that allows each moving object to operate safely without contact. In order to control each autonomous machine with MPC, the future behaviors of machines other than itself are needed. In this study, a simple but effective model was used to make predictions for human-operated construction machinery. On the other hand, for autonomous machines, we proposed a method to achieve efficient cooperative behavior by utilizing the calculation results of the MPC of other machine. The effectiveness of the proposed method was confirmed by numerical simulations.