As children, many of us looked wistfully into the cockpits of heavy machinery, wondering just how the series of knobs and levers would do something like operate a bulldozer, crane, or excavator. The nature of these myriad of hydraulic and electronic controls for equipment like this is often inscrutable to adults as well; it takes a considerable amount of training to be able to competently operate most of these machines. But this new controller from MIT may help shorten that training time.
The controller is specifically meant for excavators. In a standard excavator, a pair of joysticks is typically used, with one controlling the swing and the boom and the other controlling the stick and the bucket. Getting used to this combination can take practice, so instead the group of researchers replaced them with a model excavator arm that the operator controls directly with their own arm. The new controller is more intuitive to use as it translates the movements of the model to that of either a real excavator or a training simulation.
The researchers plan to include haptic feedback in future versions, which will hopefully further increase the ease of which new operators can get a feel for using these machines. For those not working towards a new career or an ambitious weekend with rental equipment, there are some other ways of learning how to operate excavators and other pieces of heavy machinery.
