How to Retrofit Remote Control

Retrofitting firms have machines on job sites now, with more pilots on the way.

Automation in off-highway equipment has gone beyond Australian, South American, and American Southwest mining to conventional job sites in familiar places such as California, Florida, and Canada.

And the use of autonomous and remote-control equipment is only going to spread.

North America is one of the major off-highway automation hubs, with several pilots in place and a degree of commercial adoption that has attracted autonomous solution providers, startups, and suppliers to cater to customer bases in mining, and urban construction.

With a total off-highway equipment volume (in operation) of approximately 7.9 million units, the United States holds strong potential to become a global leader in terms of the autonomous equipment market.

Although the U.S. stakeholders across all off-highway application areas (including construction, mining, and agriculture) are expected to ramp up the adoption of autonomous solutions, Canada is expected to become a key target market for autonomous mining solutions.

Here in the U.S., much of the latest action that has reached jobs sites has come from companies that retrofit existing equipment.

Companies such as Teleo, Built Robotics, and Safe AI have developed brand-agnostic systems that allow remote control or autonomous operation of dozers, excavators, pile drivers, and ADTs, to name a few. There doesn’t seem to be much of a limit to machine categories or size.