Image: Wirtgen Group (HAMM)

Autonomous Roller

Wirtgen groupEarthmoving, Road Construction & Paving

Self-driving compaction roller that completes a programmed route using GNSS positioning

3
Deployments: 2
Companies that ran it

How it works on your site

HAMM's Autonomous Roller is a prototype self-driving compaction roller, a large wheeled machine that completes a programmed route without a driver and builds on the GNSS positioning of HAMM's shipping HCQ Navigator. Its target subtasks are compaction of soil and asphalt, compaction in a rolling train, aggregate base placement and subgrade preparation. All running on HAMM's own control system has been on closed test tracks at Tirschenreuth, with over 20,000 operating hours logged since 2014; the one real-site pilot, on Norway's E39 in 2019, used Semcon's autonomy system on a HAMM H25i with a safety operator in the cab.

Earthmoving

Compaction

On closed test tracks, HAMM's prototypes complete a specified program without a driver, drive themselves to refueling points and park when the program ends. A shadowing-roller version follows a simulated road paver, holding lanes and speed windows, braking to avoid over-compaction and changing compaction lanes precisely to prevent deformation. The positioning base is the HCQ Navigator, HAMM's shipping GNSS system that shows on current HAMM compactors where an area was compacted and how often.

Road Construction & Paving

Compaction (Rolling Train)

In a rolling train the roller works behind the paver, and HAMM's shadowing roller does that on the test track: it follows a simulated road paver with no driver. For two rollers on the same ground, HAMM designed a collision monitoring system around a second test track where both drive at once. On a real paving train the roller drivers stay in the cab, which HAMM states holds until surroundings monitoring is precise enough for driverless work.

Subgrade Preparation

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Video from Wirtgen group
Image: Wirtgen Group (HAMM)

Field outcomes

Image: Wirtgen Group (HAMM)

Leonhard Weiss GmbH & Co. KG used two HAMM H 20i C P padfoot rollers with dozer blades, one of them remote-controllable, for over two years to backfill and compact the Wilhelmsglück quarry, including the area in front of a 35 m break-off edge.

Wilhelmsgluck Quarry Remote-Controlled Compaction, Germany

Autonomous RollerLeonhard Weiss GmbH & Co. KG

Who has run it

3 deployments · 2 companies · 2 countries

Will it work on your site

Control interface: Not stated for the autonomous rollerVision: roller manager supervising a fleet, perhaps from an office
BIM/CAD requirements: Not statedFuture needs: "suitable interfaces and planning tools"
Fleet management: Envisioned, not demonstratedTwo rollers run simultaneously on second test track
Operating weight: 9000 kg

As the maker states it.