Unmanned rolling compaction system for rockfill materials

The compaction quality of earth-rock dams is mainly controlled by compaction parameters (the number of compaction passes, compaction trajectory, vibration frequency, lift thickness, and driving speed) during construction. However, relying on the operator to implement control of the compaction parameters can result in unrolled, cross-rolling, and repeated-rolling problems between adjacent work faces. Additionally, existing compaction quality control methods cannot satisfy the requirements of construction operations under all weather and extreme conditions. This paper presents an unmanned rolling compaction system for rockfill materials during construction, including an in situ unmanned roller that is based on automatic driving technology, a real-time kinematic global positioning satellite system, a wireless communication system, and a real-time remote monitoring centre based on the client/server mode. The control effect and advantages of the proposed system were proven by a case study on the Qianping Project in China. Consequently, it was demonstrated that the proposed system is considerably automatic, accurate, efficient, and reliable for avoiding the influence of human factors and, ultimately, improving the compaction quality and efficiency of earth-rock dams.