Caterpillar Trimble Control Technologies LLC

Chad Curtis Apple

Alan Sharp

Jason Grier Lindsay Hill

Stephen A Miller

James Robert McKaskill

Helen C Cutler

Gary Lynn Cain

Bruce Wayne Enix

Novel tools and techniques for controlling heavy equipment vehicles, such as tractors, graders, road-forming machines, and the like. Some techniques allow a control system of a heavy equipment vehicle to transition from receiving position data from one positioning device to receiving data from another without ceasing operation and/or while limiting any resulting discontinuity in a manipulated ground surface to within acceptable tolerances.

Enhanced control of construction equipment

Novel tools and techniques for controlling road-forming machines, such as paving machines, graders, and the like. Some techniques allow a control system of a road-forming machine to transition from receiving position data from one positioning device to receiving data from another without ceasing operation and/or while limiting any resulting discontinuity in the formed road surface to within acceptable tolerances.

Enhanced control of road construction equipment

A method of determining the heading of an excavator at a worksite uses a magnetic field sensor, mounted on the excavator, inclinometers that provide an indication of the pitch and roll of the excavator, a gyroscopic sensor that senses the rotational rate of the excavator about the Z axis of the magnetic field sensor, and a processor circuit, having an associated memory. A calibration table of data is created and stored using the gyroscopic sensor as the excavator is rotated at a uniform velocity. The sensed indications of the magnetic field from the coordinate reference frame of the sensor are transformed to the local level plane coordinate reference frame using the outputs from the inclinometers.

Method of operating a magnetic compass on a machine

Growing community of inventors

Troy, OH, United States of America

Chad Curtis Apple