Full belly laugh on this - https://www.equipmentworld.com/tech...2b831b1dbd328e34c1&oly_enc_id=9675D4235256A4S From the article - So now we can hire gamers that haven't left their moms basement since birth to run equipment and it only takes 20 mins to get up and running - solved our labor shortage! I'm sure all the non-marked and unknown underground utilities will be well defined on the virtual reality screen. Technology has its place and is a wonderful thing as we just invested in GPS automation. There are applications for remote and autonomous equipment such as mines and other control environment situations. I've read where compactors will be one of the first autonomous machines on conventional job sites and I think it will work well since compaction is a controlled process in a well defined area. Actually I would love to have one. Take a typical pad fill type job. Dozer operator sets the work area for the roller and dispatches it as the fill goes down where the roller follows the dozer across the lift. However it's the tech types that obviously have never worked on a construction job site trying to automate things they do not understand that won't work. Someone sitting in a cubical miles away running an excavator on a commercial job site in virtual reality is a recipe for disaster.
So what's the difference between a useless operator in a lounge room playing with a computer and a useless operator on a job site? When arse kicking is required you have to get past mummy to deal with the lounge lizard.
The useless operator wouldn't show up at least 2 days out of every 5 in the work week.
20 minuets is about how long it usually takes for me to finally realize I either need to stop be lazy and find the pattern changer or just live with the backhoe pattern
I don't even try to run trackhoe pattern. However I have gotten to the point I can get out of our 279D that is Bobcat/foot steer controls and jump in our other 279D that's joystick without any issues. That only took about a year.
Yeah making the machine move and do a few little things, isn't making it work, doesn't mean knowing what to do at the job site. There is so much more to operating than just making the machine move.
I can't/won't even try to run backhoe pattern ... Lol
Great, so now I can sit in an chair in an air conditioned office cubicle under a florescent light with a TV screen strapped to my face and scratch like a puppy on the desk .... If I wanted an office job I would have gotten one, and the kind of guy who wants to sit in an office isn't going to be much good at the job either. What makes a good operator good isn't his mastery of the machine's controls, but rather his understanding of the job, the guys on the ground, everything else. You can teach any goof how to run the controls in a few minutes, but it takes years to make an operator. By the time he knows what he is doing he has gotten pretty good with the sticks too. Short cutting that process is just going to create operators who think they know what they are doing.
You won't need to watch a screen. There will be a USB 20 connection on the side of your head or a blue tooth connection installed inside your skull. You get to sit in a chair Matrix style and do your work. The vision part won't involve your eyes at all.
Probably not far off John.
As great as GPS is and all the catastrophic production problems that are caused by lack information with GPS autonomous is a disaster waiting to bankrupt companies
Entertaining to see it in tight quarters when 'operator' grabs his coffee to drink, swats at a bug, or someone enters his room and startles him while turning fully around in his swivel chair to see who entered. wiping sweat off his forehead would probably smear out the trench spotter. How about leveling the base ground to 'feel properly 'levelled'? The concerns in my mind outweigh any benefits. Who is greasing, oiling, and feeling any abnormalities during operation etc ?
The largest issue with Autonomous/remote site work is the simple fact that sites are not a basic layout or as simple as digging in virgin soil. For instance. you are merrily digging a trench and as you curl the bucket, something moving under the surface in your periphery vision makes you stop for a second, out you jump with a trusty spade to find a cable/pipe/tree root, at this point all that has happened is YOU have stopped working, in the other reality (IF the desk jockey has even seen the soil move) EVERYTHING autonomous or remote has to stop because a human now has to enter the work area to check out what's going on now think how many times a day this happens on the average site. As skadill mentioned the feeling an op gets through the seat of his pants you can not replicate through virtual reality, there is also machine sympathy how much money does a good op save there, they hear something a little off with the engine note, or a creak from the chassis/boom, a mans wages can soon be swallowed up with an unnecessary engine rebuild or component failure and the rent of another machine while that one is down. The only people pushing these machines forwards are the manufactures who are trying to create a USP and the health and safety idiots that believe that darwinism shouldn't be a thing. There are a few exceptions to the rule but they are few and far between.
Worked with an older fella. Drove us all crazy... whitehat. I talked about some type of mind control for the grader when you are working along curb, and manholes, and don't have enough fingers. One of the guys said yeah, but what happens when the grader goes up the street and kills Ellison?
Not much different for people getting CDL's. They pay the 4K, memorize the walk around. Can barely drive using the clutch raking the crap out of the transmission. Can barely back up even looking back leaning out the left window. The test in this area is given in our yard two to three times a week. It's Rodeo time-Letter Buck. One truck with a 28' trailer is used, each school has the same basic, as many as 6 people testing at one time. The poor power steering pump is just roasting, you can hear it whining by the second person testing, and that clutch it's just praying for the day to end.