3 ms·
I have two friends who work on this for Rio and the level of tech is amazing. Even the manned trucks have their routes all planned by computer. Some algorithm
by suprjami 13y ago
I have two friends who work on this for Rio and the level of tech is amazing.
Even the manned trucks have their routes all planned by computer. Some algorithm decides the most efficient way to move trucks around. Sometimes a driver will get a seemingly nonsensical instruction to deposit his load in a location other than the one closest to him, but when you query the computer about it, it's got a valid reason why that's a better idea for efficiency and it's always right.
The precision in the GPS trackers in phenomenal. Short range scanners pick up GPS tags on all corners of a bin, a robotic delivery system can place a gigantic item with mere centimetres of accuracy.
The human really is the weakest link in the entire system.
It's unsurprising the military want this. I remember being an outside contractor for PermoDrive in the early 2000s. They were just a small company from a small rural Australian town who developed a system which enabled trucks to store braking energy and later use it as forward momentum, reducing fuel costs by some large amount. Once they had a working prototype, the US military swooped in and bought the company.
- lacero 13y agoThis reminds me of programming the lego nxt robot to move foam blocks for a college robotics class. Amazing what algorithms can do with the right hardware!
- femto 13y agoIt's possibly not GPS achieving the centimetre accuracy, but a localised system, such as locata [1]. [1] http://locata.com/ http://locata.com/
- jacques_chester 13y agoI think they use local calibration. You have a GPS receiver at a known, surveyed point onsite. You compare the GPS placement to the actual location of the receiver, then use that difference for calculations being performed on other receivers.
- zeckalpha 13y agoThe military could be achieving that accuracy, though.
- jpalomaki 13y agoWikipedia article [1] states that differential GPS can provide up to 10cm accuracy. Differential GPS works by having a local GPS receiver station which location is well known. This station is comparing the location determined from the GPS signal to its known location, calculates necessary corrections and sends the information to other GPS receivers. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_GPS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_GPS
- Game_Ender 13y agoYou are incorrect. It's quite possible to achieve sub 10 cm level accuracy with an RTK based GPS system [1]. The problem is that you have to install base stations to gather the corrections and then have the radio towers to distribute them. Since mining sites are fixed locations, it's pretty straight forward to setup up the needed infrastructure for an RTK system. [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Time_Kinematic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Time_Kinematic