Hitachi Construction Machinery developed a real-time digital twin platform that reproduces construction sites in a virtual world from data collected in real-time, in cooperation with aptpod and Unicast. Utilising this platform will enable Hitachi Construction Machinery to collect various types of construction-related data for the operation of autonomous construction machinery from a remote location via the Internet.
In recent years, labour shortages have become an issue in the construction industry due to the decreasing birth rate and an ageing population. Customers have high expectations that autonomous construction machinery will become one solution to that problem. Hitachi Construction Machinery aims for construction sites in which people and machinery work safely together by mutually sharing information about the people, machinery, and site environment. Specifically, people would be alerted to pay attention, and construction machinery would be controlled based on information collected by the machinery and sensing systems to carry out highly productive construction while guiding the overall site in a safe direction.
To create this type of construction, Hitachi Construction Machinery developed the “ZCORE” system platform for autonomous construction machinery in August 2020. In addition, the company invested in and signed a business alliance agreement with aptpod in May 2023 to promote the development of a digital twin system that visualises an entire construction site and autonomously operates construction machinery.
This platform can reproduce real-time real-world construction sites in the virtual world, including various information such as the location and operational information of construction machinery, the location and biometric information of workers, terrain changes due to the progress of work, and other construction site conditions. This will enable adjustments to be made to the work details of individuals and the control of multiple pieces of construction machinery working on-site with low latency on the Internet from a remote location to construction sites where people and machinery coexist with a high degree of safety.
In the development of this platform, Hitachi Construction Machinery collaborated with aptpod to use their high-speed IoT platform as well as Unicast, who developed the software to convert LiDAR information about the terrain into 3D data to enable the construction of a highly real-time digital twin.
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