Caterpillar Inc.

Caterpillar Global Mining Equipment LLC

Cameron T Lane

William James Tate

Michael D Staub

Karl P Schneider

Michael D Braunstein

Keith A Kabrick

Michael D Hudson

Joseph Edward Tabor

Stefan Jacob Wulf

Tom N Brooks

Andrew Seungyul Yun

Sanjeev Bharani

Igor Strashny

Darryl Victor Collins

Thomas Frank Doherty

Kris Edward Seitz

Frederick Beach

Thomas N Brooks, Jr

Mary Jill Trumper

Andrew D Hill

Douglas J Lockhart

Greg Davis

An electric machine and sitewide control system and method that use a trolley power system at a worksite is disclosed. The trolley power system allows electric machines at the worksite to draw power from the trolley power system to concurrently operate to perform tasks and recharge their batteries. This allows the batteries on electric machines to be smaller than they would otherwise be, since a fully charged battery is not needed when operational power can be drawn from the trolley power system. The trolley power system is segmented, such that if one segment is faulted, the other segments can operate to provide power to electric machines at the worksite. Additionally, a sitewide controller initiates operational changes, such as a change in speed, for the electric machines at the worksite to compensate for one or more faulted segments.

Power systems and controls for electric machines

A machine includes a display component that is configured to receive, from a controller of the machine, braking capacity information associated with one or more braking systems of the machine and braking utilization information associated with the one or more braking systems of the machine. The display component is configured to display, based on the braking capacity information, one or more current braking capacities of the one or more braking systems and a total current braking capacity of the one or more braking systems of the machine. The display component is configured to display, based on the braking utilization information, a current braking utilization of the machine. The controller is configured to determine the braking capacity information based on machine data associated with operation of the machine, and to determine the braking utilization information based on the machine data and worksite information associated with a worksite of the machine.

Providing braking capacity information associated with one or more braking systems of a machine

A system can assign a machine to dispense material at designated areas along a route at a worksite. For example, the machine can be an electric water truck on a mine site, and the electric water truck can be assigned to spray water at areas along a route to control dust on the mine site. The system can verify that the machine is carrying enough material to dispense along the assigned route. The system can also verify that the battery of the machine is charged to a level sufficient to power travel of the machine through the assigned route and to power operations to dispense the material, based at least in part on a changing amount and/or weight of the material as the machine progresses along the route.

Battery management for electric material- dispensing machine

Systems and methods are disclosed for managing task assignments for a fleet of haul trucks at a mine site. An assignment engine may: receive state data for a haul truck including haul weight data and second state data for the mine site that is indicative of a plurality of available tasks and associated task material weight data; assign a task to the haul truck by inputting the state data into a trained reinforcement-learning model, wherein: the model has been trained to learn an assignment policy that optimizes a reward function, such that the learned policy accounts for vehicle performance variance due to changing vehicle haul weight and/or road conditions; and cause the at least one haul truck to be operated according to the at least one task assignment.

Systems and methods for managing assignments of tasks for mining equipment using machine learning

Systems and methods are disclosed for managing task assignments for a plurality of work machines at a site. An assignment engine may: receive first state data for a work machine including historical data, operating condition, and location data, and second state data for the site including characteristic data for materials and a plurality of available tasks; predict performance data and energy consumption data of the work machine for a task; select a task for the work machine by inputting first state data and second state data into a trained reinforcement-learning model, wherein: the model has been trained to learn an assignment policy that optimizes a reward function such that the learned policy selects a task for at least one work machine from the plurality of tasks available at the site; and cause the at least one work machine to be operated according to the at least one task assignment.

Systems and methods for managing assignments of tasks for work machines using machine learning

A brake controller of a machine can be configured to determine brake power associated with braking operations, such as operations to slow the machine or maintain a speed of the machine. The brake controller can allocate the brake power among systems such as a battery system, a resistive grid, auxiliary systems, a mechanical brake system, and/or other systems, based on a defined priority order of the systems. For example, the brake controller can prioritize using a regenerative brake system to charge a battery system during a braking operation up to a currently-available capacity of the battery system, and allocating any remaining brake power to a lower-priority system. The mechanical brake system can be the lowest-priority system, such that use of the mechanical brake system can be avoided unless an amount of brake power exceeds capacities of higher-priority systems to consume the brake power.

Brake control system for battery-powered machine

A control system is programmed for monitoring the health and charge of batteries used to power a battery electric machine (BEM) or other heavy equipment and determining when maintenance, service, or replacement should be performed for the batteries as a function of data related to travel route segments over which the BEM or other heavy equipment is operated. The control system is programmed to receive historical information mapping the performance and energy consumption of a BEM or other heavy equipment, such as battery state-of-charge, power usage, battery state-of-health, and number of charge cycles for a battery supplying power to the BEM or other heavy equipment operating over a travel route segment, and instruct an operator to replace or perform maintenance on the batteries if the difference between present and historical performance exceeds a threshold level.

Machine and battery system prognostics

A system can plan a route for a machine, such as an electric vehicle or other mobile machine, from a current location of the machine to a maintenance station where a service operation is to be performed on the machine. The service operation can be associated with a target state of charge (SoC) for a battery of the machine. The system can plan the route such that an expected energy consumption level, associated with traversal of the route by the machine, causes the SoC of the battery to satisfy the target SoC when the machine arrives at the maintenance station. The system can also dynamically adjust the route, charges of the battery, and/or machine operations performed along the route, during travel to cause the SoC of the battery to satisfy the target SoC when the machine arrives at the maintenance station.

Battery management for machine service operations

Operating a machine includes supplying electric power from a fuel cell to a power bus connected to an electric motor and an energy storage device in a machine operated at a work site, and determining an expected efficiency gain condition based on at least one of terrain data of the work site or machine activity data of the machine. Operating a machine further includes prognostically limiting a power output of the fuel cell based on the determining an expected efficiency gain condition, and charging the energy storage device during occurrence of the expected efficiency gain condition using at least one of a regenerative energy device or the fuel cell. The energy storage device may be discharged during prognostically limiting a power output of the fuel cell so as to share a load demand of the power bus between the fuel cell and the energy storage device. Related apparatus and control logic is also disclosed.

Prognostic limitation to fuel cell power output for improved efficiency in mobile machine

A system for efficient machine control may include feedback devices for identifying operating conditions of a work machine and a controller for controlling a primary system and an auxiliary system. The controller may calculate a total energy loss by adding a primary system energy loss based on power requests from the primary system to an auxiliary system energy loss based on support requests from the auxiliary system. The controller may adjust a setting of the auxiliary system, repeat the calculating of the total energy loss, and compare the result to a previously calculated total energy loss until further adjustment of the setting fails to reduce the total energy loss. The controller may then send control requests to the auxiliary system based on the setting used when the total energy loss failed to reduce.

Efficient machine auxiliary control

The disclosure relates, in one aspect, to a friction brake cooling system for a machine. The cooling system includes at least one pump connected to at least one reservoir containing cooling fluid. A controller is configured to divert a cooling fluid flow through a valve to a first friction brake system and to a second friction brake system based on the use of the systems. In another aspect, the disclosure relates to a method of cooling a first friction brake system and a second friction brake system including diverting a flow of brake cooling fluid to the systems based on the use of the systems.

Brake cooling fluid diverter for an off-highway machine

An electric drive machine includes an axle assembly having a central axle housing. An electric drive motor, having a motor housing, is oriented along an axis and disposed within the central axle housing. An air cooling system includes a blower fluidly connected to and positioned upstream of an opening of the central axle housing. An airflow path through the central axle housing includes an upstream segment and a downstream segment. The upstream segment extends from the opening to an airflow deflector, and is configured for airflow in a first direction along an axial path. The downstream segment extends from the airflow deflector to the motor housing, and is configured for airflow in a second direction, which is opposite the first direction, along a helical path.

Air cooling system including airflow deflector for electric drive machine

An electric drive machine includes an internal combustion engine remotely coupled to an electrical power generator, which is electrically connected to an electrical components system. The electrical components system is electrically connected to a pair of electric drive motors that are configured to drive wheels of the electric drive machine. A cooling system includes a blower fluidly connected to, and positioned downstream of, the electrical components system. The blower is fluidly connected to, and positioned upstream of, the electrical power generator and the pair of electric drive motors.

Air cooling system for electric drive machine

The control system may have an electric motor and a traction device connected to an output of the motor. The control system may also have a decelerator and a controller. The controller may be in communication with the motor and the decelerator. The controller may be configured to determine a creep torque and apply the creep torque to the traction device when the decelerator is actuated.

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Decatur, IL, United States of America

Cameron T Lane