Autonomous machines enhanced

New strategic partnerships have been established to improve the precision, navigation and teleoperations of autonomous off-highway machines.

Supplier of mobile and industrial hydraulics and electric powertrain systems Danfoss Power Solutions say that it has partnered with Swift Navigation, Bonsai Robotics and HARD-LINE to expand its autonomous machine development platform.

The company plans to integrate the solutions into its PLUS+1 Autonomy software, to enhance autonomous machines with Swift Navigation’s high-precision positioning service, Bonsai Robotics’ camera-based vision systems, and HARD-LINE’s teleoperations solution.

“Autonomous off-highway machines are becoming more sophisticated. As we advance towards Level 4 and even Level 5 autonomy, high-precision navigation, and remote control beyond line of sight will become requirements,” said Danfoss Power Solutions head of Autonomy Peter Bleday.

PLUS+1 Autonomy is a software platform designed to reduce development time and facilitate rapid vehicle prototyping to help original-equipment manufacturers get autonomous and semi-autonomous off-highway machines to market faster. Danfoss also offers engineering services and ruggedised hardware, to support full machine development.

Swift Navigation's Skylark precise positioning service offers decimeter-level accuracy from the cloud to PLUS+1 Autonomy, eliminating the need for additional ground infrastructure. It is specifically suited for industries such as construction, agriculture and other applications that demand high-precision global navigation satellite system, or GNSS, capabilities.

“Accurate machine control and autonomy rely heavily on precise positioning. Skylark's exceptional reliability and extensive coverage make it the ideal solution for these applications,” said Swift Navigation executive VP: industrial Brad Sherrard.

Bonsai Robotics specialises in camera-based vision systems for adverse conditions such as heavy dust, debris, vibration, and lack of global positioning systems, or GPS. The system uses cameras instead of traditional positioning systems, enabling greater accuracy at low cost when navigating tough conditions, including narrow rows of trees, vines or crops.

“Bonsai’s partnership with Danfoss has allowed us to rapidly integrate with several vehicle form factors in order to add vision-based autonomy and Visionsteer driver augmentation to equipment operating in some of the most challenging conditions,” said Bonsai Robotics founder and CEO Tyler Niday. “The beauty of PLUS+1 drive-by-wire systems is that an autonomous perception system can drive the PLUS+1 equipped vehicles through CAN bus messages in the same way that a human would use manual controls.”

HARD-LINE offers teleoperation services that enable monitoring and control of machines over the Internet. The service complements Danfoss’ radio-based remote-control solutions, which allow operators to remotely control machines within line of sight. Teleoperations are important for operators supervising multiple autonomous machines. If a machine stops owing to an unknown obstacle, the operator can log in to the system, navigate around the obstacle then resume autonomous operation without needing to be close to the machine. 

“We feel that HARD-LINE’s teleoperation solution is ideal for giving autonomy providers the flexibility to remotely intervene when required during the autonomy process," said HARD-LINE VP: US operations Chad Rhude.