Robust High Precision Navigation of Construction Machine

Construction machines for profiling are guided by a reference wire to control the vertical and horizontal position. Some applications, for example the manufacturing of concrete basement for railways of high speed trains, require position accuracy up to 5 mm. High efforts are necessary to survey and set out the strings, which handicaps the logistic and is in danger to be displaced. This paper presents a solution for the substitution of the mechanical wire with the combination of an automatic tracking theodolite and an orientation sensor unit to determine position, inclination and azimuth angles. To reach the accuracy, the tilt sensor demands high performance in the dynamics and the robustness against vibration effects. The sensor fusion of accelerometers and gyros is based on Kalman Filter Technique.