Digging motion planning for excavators to reduce soil spillage

Abstract When soil spillage occurs during excavation due to the use of excavators, it must be cleaned up, leading to a decline in labor productivity and a negative impact on the working environment. In this study, we aimed to reduce the amount of soil spillage generated when using automated excavators operating without human intervention. The excavation process consists of penetrating, dragging, and scooping operations, and it was observed that soil spillage occurred most frequently during the scooping operation. Therefore, a method to optimize the excavation operation with the goal of reducing soil spillage was proposed. In the scooping operation, we proposed a back motion that moves the bucket towards the front of the excavator. The proposed excavation operation reduced the amount of soil spillage, as confirmed through physical simulation experiments and experiments using an actual excavator.