SAE International, formerly the Society of Automotive Engineers, is known for providing a common framework for describing the different levels of autonomy for passenger cars. At level 1, the vehicle uses technologies like adaptive cruise control and lane keep assist, while level 5 systems point to a future where it can operate with no manual intervention. In construction, National Highways is setting out to bring suppliers on the same page with a similar system that will be necessary if connected and autonomous plant (CAP) technology is to reach full automation.
The move serves as a recent extension to a 2020 National Highways report, Connected and Autonomous Plant Roadmap to 2035. It sets out proposals to achieve widespread automation, but also pointed out that the introduction of CAP technology lacks a unified approach.
Muneer Akhtar, lead manager at National Highways, pictured above, says: “National Highways and i3P took this leadership role because a supplier may not have been willing to use a roadmap developed by another supplier. We developed the roadmap for the industry, so if there is anything that needs changing, they can tell us, because our supply chain is not dedicated to one particular supplier.”
Against this backdrop, the new CAP levels (see box, p12) will mean that construction clients can communicate expectations to suppliers, and manufacturers can describe the capability of their products using the same language. It allows companies to assign level 0 (no automation) to level 4 (full automation) to the different stages of a machine’s information processing chain:
Observe: acquire data from surrounding environmentUnderstand: process data to determine situationDecide: determine action to be implementedAct: carry out selected actionResponsibility and fallback: who or what ensures the task is being carried out in a safe manner and who or what ensures the plant continues to operate or fail in a safe manner when the plant suffers a component failure.Akhtar adds: “Now we can say, this the model that you should be adopting, as opposed 10 to 30 different models from different companies. So, our input was to drive it forward and get everybody buying it and taking it back to their individual companies.”
However, he admits that the interpretation of this system is subjective for the moment. “What the team and I did was provide OUDAR [an acronym of the above steps] to a handful of international OEMs who self-assessed; the test subjects were very critical of their own products. In my view, they provided a tough individual assessment and wanted to be confident they were robust in challenge from industry.”
Akhtar predicts that as the CAP levels mature over time, there will be a benchmark to provide guidance that can be reviewed to support the industry.
The machines adopting this technology are currently at the semi-autonomous stage. Caterpillar applied the CAP levels to Cat Command, an operator-assisted technology that automates the soil compaction process. The results were: observe level 2, understand level 2, decide level 3, act level 3 and responsibility level 1.
Bomag has also applied the same scoring system to the Robomag autonomous tandem roller, pictured above: observe level 0, understand level 2, decide level 3, act level 4 and responsibility level 2.
However, Akhtar believes that a full transition could be realised in part via more sensors and data capture. “The journey is similar to connected and autonomous vehicles (CAV) in that sensors in the car capture all the data in real time, and over time the vehicle can start making intelligent decisions with or without the driver.”
As part of the work, National Highways is supporting infrastructure designers to consider designing in a way that machines automatically can capture, understand and interpret drawings. This will provide build design and built drawings that will support National Highways in maintenance, operations and decommissioning. The work will help ensure designers are aware of the requirements to enable machines to interpret data.
MAKING A STATEMENT
Alongside the CAP levels, National Highways, i3P, TRL (Transport Research Laboratory) and Costain put together commitment statements to accelerate the adoption of CAP within the infrastructure sector. The statements relate to different parties involved in the delivery of automated technologies, including:
- Project conception stage: all i3P sites at the pre-development consent order review stage will investigate the possibilities for early installation of permanent communications network connectivity (4G/5G). The network will remain in use for the asset life to improve end user experience.
- Design managers: all design managers shall work with their design and construction teams to agree on the formats of data transfer for automated direct feeds of the design into the machine and other automated technology.
- Construction machines and tools: all construction machines on i3P member sites must provide core telematic data to assist the site teams with key data points to monitor and benchmark machine productivity.
- All software providers will make available a common data transfer format to accelerate connectivity of technology across design, construction and maintenance phases.
- Engineers and land surveyors are to define the method of data capture for the start-up of the site to assist digital delivery and CAP adoption on site.
More broadly, the Department for Transport has set up a working group in which National Highways, Costain and Skanska will develop CAP standards. This work is expected to facilitate a dialogue across the supply chain, supported by the levels to put autonomous machines to work safely on sites.
Embley considers the CAP standards essential when it comes to data sharing and ensuring people work together. “The DfT has set up a working group to test standards, which is important because while the roadmap is great in terms of being able to focus on activities, data transfer is the missing link between the ambition, client, designer, constructor and supply chain. So it’s about how to form a standard that is going to be sufficient to transfer data across all those different disciplines.”
Looking ahead, the technology could also have more far-reaching benefits, as Akhtar claims that workers in the UK could potentially operate a plant in the US or Australia. “This could create jobs for those with disabilities. For example, someone with a walking impediment would find it difficult to work in construction because surfaces are completely uneven. With this technology, someone with a walking stick could come into an office and operate a plant up to 1,000 miles away.”
Additionally, a staged introduction of CAP technologies from 2020 to 2035 could lead to productivity improvements of up to £200 billion by 2040. “We can realise these efficiencies between now and 2040, but we have to adopt CAP now as opposed to two or three years because in the construction space this is a long time. We need to take the step now and lay the foundations.”
The journey toward full automation may be some way off, but the CAP levels provide an understanding of where we are and how far we have left to go.
BOX: SHARING IDEAS
The development of the CAP levels is only one facet of the journey toward full automation. The roadmap also contains outputs from questionnaires and workshops which sought the views of more than 75 organisations such as Caterpillar, Tarmac, University College London and Costain on actions to overcome a range of challenges, including research, development and demonstration and communications.
Costain innovation director Tim Embley says members were able to attend workshops to understand some of the key areas of the roadmap via the i3P platform, which allows users to share graphs and webinars.
“Essentially, it can be classified into an outreach activity, which is a large-scale, online interaction where we have used digital whiteboards to get that intelligence,” Embley explains. “We have also had conferences at trade shows where we have shared the work we are doing with specific audiences along with roundtables.”
One such workshop tasked members to come up with words that spring to mind when imagining CAP in the future, with responses including ‘efficiency’, ‘safety’ and ‘connectivity’.
Akhtar adds: “Connectivity is one of the challenges for semi- and full automation. If we can get connectivity on site for the construction plant, we have laid the foundation for CAVs because they are going to potentially rely on internet connections.”
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