Soil parameters estimation for automated excavation

In realising the soil-tool interaction for automated excavation, a novel method of estimating soil parameters in real time is presented. The soil parameters, which describe the strength of the soil, allow a digging control system to perceive the soil resistance when the bucket is in contact with the soil. The Newton Raphson method is employed in the estimation method to minimize the error between measured forces and estimated forces which are computed using Mohr-Coulomb soil model. The proposed estimation method is evaluated using experimental data and through comparison with Parameter Space Intersection Method [1]. The results demonstrate that the proposed estimation method is in good agreement with respect to the graphical intersection-based approach, but it obtains estimation results up to twenty times faster. This study demonstrates that Newton Raphson method is an efficient method for soil-tool interaction identification in automated excavation as it promises an accurate as well as high speed parameter estimation.