Boppard, 24/10/2022: In 2019 at bauma, BOMAG presented a fully automatic tandem roller in a future study. At the 2022 bauma in Munich, the Boppard, Rhineland-Palatinate-based company will present the ROBOMAG BW 177 machine, the first design study for single drum rollers.
The ROBOMAG BW 177 single drum roller is a technology carrier used to test and develop all the subsystems required on the road to achieving fully autonomous operation. Depending on the construction job or site situation, the machine is intended to be flexibly deployable through manual and autonomous control. ROBOMAG's innovative, slim design ensures the single drum roller can operate even in confined site conditions.
At bauma, the ROBOMAG BW 177 design study will be presented with functional equipment and the Automation Interface: thanks to the close-range remote control, the operator always has the machine in view and can control the heavy machine from a safe distance, even in critical environments, while achieving the desired results. The construction site environment is additionally protected by an obstacle detection system. Both systems – radio remote control and obstacle detection – are now available for conventional Bomag single drum rollers and will be successively launched for various BOMAG single drum roller models after bauma.
This first stage on the road to autonomous driving can be extended by various technologies and stages to a fully autonomous single drum roller, thanks to the Automation Interface, a special software installed in the machine. The ROBOMAG software is already capable of establishing a connection to a remote control. In the second stage, the machine will be controlled by a human operator without visual contact, for example, from the office. This so-called Office Controlled Machine is already technically feasible, and the ROBOMAG single drum roller is ready for it.
The final stage of development is a completely autonomous single drum roller that is controlled by computer only, without human intervention. With the ROBOMAG BW 177 design study and all the necessary safety systems, BOMAG is preparing the complete machine step by step to make it technically possible to connect different types of controls – right up to the fully autonomous single drum roller. The last development stage requires significantly more advanced certified safety technology, such as automatic shutdowns, special camera systems and reliably secured systems that exclude all potential safety risks. Even if the regulatory framework conditions are not yet in place for all development stages of autonomous driving, BOMAG already offers the basis for the future with the ROBOMAG BW 177 and currently, with technologies such as obstacle detection, equipment that is already being used on other BOMAG single drum rollers in series production.
