A Study on Position Recognition of Bucket Tip for Excavator

The accurate calculation of bucket tip position has a large influence on showing the motion of an excavator on the display device of the excavator and controlling the excavator automatically. It is generally known that Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) sensors are more accurate than accelerometer-based sensors while the boom, arm or bucket moves because additional forces beyond gravity add additional acceleration to the sensors. To prove the accuracy difference between the two types of sensors, a position recognition system using an accelerometer-based sensor and an IMU sensor is implemented on the excavator. The experimental results show that the system using the IMU sensor significantly reduces the position recognition error while bucket moves and additional force beyond gravity exists.