Gomaco Corporation has unveiled the "G+Control" 3D stringless guidance platform for its GP-2400 slipform pavers. In municipal curb and gutter construction, setting up and maintaining a taut stringline along miles of roadway is the most time-consuming aspect of the job, costing up to 15% of total project time. Furthermore, transitioning the paver from a standard curb profile to a swale or drainage profile traditionally required the machine to stop while operators manually swapped or adjusted the mold.
The G+Control system eliminates the stringline entirely. The engineering core is a "Multi-Constellation GNSS Rover" paired with a "High-Frequency IMU" mounted on the paver's mold leveling frame. The system receives RTK corrections from a local base station, allowing the paver to follow a 3D digital surface model with a tolerance of ±5 mm in both elevation and alignment.
The breakthrough innovation is the "Dynamic Mold Adjustment" module. The G+Control system interfaces electronically with the paver's hydraulic mold-shift cylinders. When the digital model calls for a transition from a standard 150mm curb to a 300mm wide drainage swale, the system automatically adjusts the mold's offset, crown, and elevation on the fly without stopping the machine. Furthermore, the system features "Crowd-Pressure Feedback." The system monitors the concrete level in the hopper and the hydraulic pressure on the crowd cylinders (which push the concrete out of the mold). If the pressure spikes due to a stiff concrete batch, the system automatically increases the paver's vibration frequency and slightly opens the mold's front gate to prevent tearing the green concrete. This stringless, adaptive technology increases continuous paving distances by 40% and completely eliminates stringline maintenance labor.
