Mohammad Saad Billah1, Jay A. Farrell2
10:50 - 11:10 | Mon 19 Aug | Lau, 6-209 | MoA2.2
This paper presents a method to manage and visualize the point cloud generated by LIDARs mounted on a Bucket Wheel Reclaimer (BWR). BWR's are widely used for stacking and reclaiming bulk materials in stockyards. Currently BWR systems are either manually operated, remotely operated or semiautomated using the point cloud data. Accurate and real-time management and visualization of point cloud is of crucial importance. Automatic extraction of surface features is also a pre-requisite for fully autonomous BWR control. The software solution described herein continuously manages the point cloud in real-time as the sensors stream data. It also displays the current stockpile on an interactive interface that allows the user to see the surface from different view-points, interrogate the coordinates of any surface location, and computes the BWR entry and exit point for semi-automated operation. The software is tested using experimental data from a stockyard environment.