Autonomous Compaction Roller : Temporarily convert a non autonomous compaction machine to become autonomous during endurance testing

Abstract: How can a non-autonomous compaction roller be converted to become temporarily autonomous while it performs a 500hours endurance test? Particularlysince the compaction rollers in question is not built to be autonomous and shall not be autonomous after the endurance test is completed. The autonomous system shall also be adaptable to all compaction rollers which Dynapac is developing and shall be moved to another machine when the endurance test is completed. In this thesis a concept is engineered of how the whole autonomous system will work and a prototype is fabricated of how to convert the current manual mechanical steering to be performed by a computer. The steering prototype has been tested on a Dynapac CC4200 double drumasphalt compaction roller and worked as intended. To develop this, anextensive risk analysis is also established andwith it a requirements list of what's needed to be fulfilled when performing autonomous testing of a compaction roller. The work has been done using the method “design thinking” which is a collection of multiple methods to create new concepts and ideas. The final concept resulted in a navigation system which uses GNSS for path planning and limitation of the operation area. It also uses radar to detect foreign objects in its path to prevent a collision. Multiple systems arealso proposed to be used for malfunction detection of the roller, which is a major part of a human operator’sjob when testing out new machines. The test track for the machine was undefined and also hadto be engineeredas part of the concept. It resultedin closing the area of operation with a mesh fence to prevent access to the area from unauthorised personnel and geo-fence to prevent the machine from escaping. Access to the area is only granted to authorized personnel and only when the autonomous rolleris shut off. Due to the machines in question isn’t fully developed, theycan’t be trusted enough to have people inside the area of operation asthe autonomous machineis operating.