Macdonald, Dettwiler and Associates Corporation

Ainsworth Inc.

Robert Ward

Timothy D Barfoot

Raja Mukherji

Joshua A Marshall

James M Law

Leif A Bloomquist

The present invention provides a guidance, navigation, and control method and system for an underground mining vehicle that allow said vehicle to be taught a route by a human operator and then have it automatically drive the route with no human intervention. The method works in three steps: teaching, route profiling, and playback. In the teaching step the vehicle is manually driven by a operator along a route which can consist of an arbitrary sequence of maneuvers including tramming forwards, switching directions, tramming backwards, turning, or pausing movement. During this phase raw data from vehicle-mounted sensors including odometric sensors and rangefinders are logged to a file throughout teaching for later processing. During the (offline) route profiling step, the raw data in the log file are processed into a route profile, and a profile of desired speed as a function of distance along the path.

Guidance, navigation, and control system for a vehicle

A guidance, navigation, and control method and system for an underground mining vehicle wherein an operator directly or indirectly guides the vehicle along a route as vehicle-mounted sensors including odometric sensors and rangefinders log motion data to a file which data is processed into a route profile including a vehicle path, a sequence of submaps along the path, and a profile of desired speed as a function of distance along the path. Thereafter the vehicle automatically repeats the route as represented by the route profile without an operator using the sensors and the maps to determine vehicle location.

An apparatus and method for a control unit which allows for autonomous, manual and tele-operation of mining vehicles. The control unit has a robust system design to withstand the harsh environment of underground mines. The control unit allows a tele-operator, in a remote tele-operator station, to use image and operational data, joysticks and foot pedals to remotely control the mining vehicle. In another aspect, the control unit provides safety features such as supervising its operation for operational errors and providing status, warning and error information to the tele-operator station.

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Aurora, Canada

Robert Ward