"Oh my god! I made a hole in the earth." Said Mark, a researcher at the Zoomlion North American R & D Center in Wisconsin, USA.
When Mark said this, he sat in the simulated cockpit, pushed the joystick by hand, and stepped on the accelerator. Unlike the usual operation, there is no physical excavator in front of him. The machinery controlled by him is in Changsha, China. He saw the bucket digging towards the ground in real time through WeChat. At that moment, he said this on WeChat to Dai Qunliang, the project leader of the Zoomlion Earthwork Machinery Company in Changsha.
The excavator is in Changsha and the operator is in the United States. The time difference between the issuing of the operation command and the feedback of the operation result is only 200 milliseconds. Medical data shows that 200 milliseconds is about the time the human eye blinks.
Remote operation needs to overcome three challenges
In October last year, Zoomlion's first experiment was based on 5G technology-based excavators operating across oceans and long distances.
"That experiment was to explore the way for the public debut of this technology at the US International Construction Machinery Exhibition. The experiment basically achieved the desired design effect and purpose." On April 15, Dai Qunliang said in an interview with reporters.
"Showing 5G remote operation at the US International Construction Machinery Exhibition mainly faces three challenges. First, it is farther away. Previously, some companies successfully used 5G technology to remotely operate the excavator in Busan, South Korea in Munich, about 8,000 kilometers away. This time The American International Construction Machinery Exhibition held in Las Vegas is 12,000 kilometers away from Changsha. The second is that the operating experience is open to all visitors and the operating environment is more complicated. The most important thing is that the promotion of 5G technology in the United States lags behind that in China. Increased the uncertainty of information transmission. "Dai Qunliang recalled.
In solving key issues, the technical staff of Zoomlion and the network engineers of the North American R & D Center agreed on a set of remote network signal transmission solutions: dedicated line export, transoceanic relay, and 5G import.
Network technical engineers opened a 10-megabit dedicated line in Las Vegas, and took the core network to ensure the bandwidth of signal transmission. After the signal is transmitted from North America, it is connected to the domestic 5G network through the signal relay station, which ensures the high speed and low delay of the remote transmission of video signals and control signals.
"The pace of 5G commercial exploration has gone faster in China." Dai Qunliang introduced that they installed 5G modules on the excavator. The signal transferred from the core network connects the 5G signal with the excavator through CPE to open up the signal transmission channel. In terms of equipment control, technicians set up a simulation cabin in Las Vegas. The actions and commands issued by the experiencers are collected by the controller installed on the simulation cabin, and then sent to the end of the excavator. The CPE on the end of the excavator transmits the network signal to the controller installed on the machine through 5G, and the command signal drives the operation of the excavator.
5G remote control excavator technology is maturing
"At the US International Construction Machinery Exhibition, our remote operation experience of the world's longest distance excavator based on 5G technology is open to the public for 4 hours a day, attracting many exhibitors, especially professional operators." Dai Qunliang introduced To experience the high speed and low latency of remote control, Zoomlion has installed 5 cameras in the fuselage of the excavator in Changsha to capture the moving images of the excavator. A large display screen is installed in the simulation cabin in Las Vegas for the experiencer to view the execution status of his commands. "In three days, many professional pilots experienced digging, stacking, and dumping in the simulation cabin. Many pilots felt like they were controlling a big toy."
In June 2018, at the Mobile World Congress in Shanghai, China Mobile announced that it will start 5G scale trials. At that time, there was a remote operation console in the exhibition hall of China Mobile. The display screen showed a four-angle view of an unmanned excavator as far away as Henan. The staff operated the handle, and the excavator thousands of miles away made actions in real time. Dai Qunliang said that this scene started a comprehensive development of 5G remote control excavators in the industry.
The reporter learned that after more than a year of research and development,
The 5G remote control excavator technology is more mature, and there are quite a lot of scene application needs, such as mines, steel refining, and military disaster relief. However, the current bottleneck of full commercial use is the stability of 5G signal transmission. In addition, since it has not been used in a harsh operating environment, its security has yet to be verified.
