Doosan is this week demonstrating the use of 5G communications technology to remotely control an excavator in South Korea from a trade show booth in Germany.
The demonstration of what is now possible takes place on the Doosan stand at the Bauma construction machinery trade fair in Munich this week.
Doosan is claiming to be the first manufacturer to use 5G technology for remote control of construction machinery. It has coined the term ‘teleoperation’ to describe the operation of construction equipment from a remote station.
The teleoperation system is being marketed for operations in dangerous applications such as industrial waste disposal, involving hazardous, toxic or radioactive substances.
At Bauma, the machine being operated is a Doosan DX380LC-5 40 tonne crawler excavator located more than 8500 km away in Incheon in South Korea.
The technology has been developed with LG U+, a South Korean telecommunications and data services company. The Bauma demonstration is believed to be the first use of remote control for an excavator across such a large distance using 5G telecommunications technology. With 10 times faster bandwidth and 10 times lower latency than the 4G network, 5G overcomes inherent problems of time delay in the operator’s live video streaming that are seen with 4G.
Special features incorporated include a low-latency video transmission module with fast video transfer (with encoding and decoding), an important factor in reducing the time delay. LG U+ has also introduced new modules providing low latency image processing to further minimize the time delay. Another factor in creating more effective remote control is the use of electrohydraulic technology in the DX380LC-5 excavator.
