Driving on the moon

The Unmanned Lunar Expedition Simulator is a small 3D (OpenGL) game in which you control an unmanned moon vehicle. It is a two-player game that may be played either against the computer or against another player on the internet. There are two game modes: a racing game and a death-match game.

The game uses rigid-body-dynamics for control of vehicle movement. It has a particle system based gun, 3D audio, and an online high-score list.

The simulator is built around a pseudo-realistic modeling concept which allows an extremely flat learning curve for the aspiring remote astronauts. Currently the simulator allows for training vehicle handling under extreme conditions as well as mission training by means of a simulated scientific lunar expedition. All this is 'bullshit' of course, but it is still a nice little application worth a download.

»»» Download: Unmanned Lunar Expedition Simulator

How you control an excavator arm

Now we go into the details and find the scientific world...

Modeling and controlling an excavator's arm

Authors: Daqing Zhang, Qinghua He, Peng Hao, HaiTao Zhang

22nd International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction ISARC 2005 – September 11-14, 2005, Ferrara (Italy)

Controlling of excavator’s arm is an important and basic task in autonomous research of hydraulic excavator at present, but the behavior of the excavator’s arm is dominated by the nonlinear dynamics of the hydraulic actuators. To find a feasible way to control excavator's arm and realize autonomous excavation, firstly, Full kinematic and dynamic models of the excavator arm, regarded as a planar manipulator with three degrees (boom, dipper and bucket) of freedom...



The experimental robotic excavator


Further information:

»»» www.baufachinformation.de

»»» free PDF download