METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CONTROLLING DIRECTION OF BURIED PIPE PROPULSION MACHINE

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To control the direction of a buried pipe propulsion machine with high accuracy irrespective of an operator's skill. SOLUTION: An observation signal switch 401 selects a signal indicative of the horizontal displacement of the laser beam receiving device of a leading element during construction work along a straight line and selects a signal indicative of the horizontal displacement of an induced magnetic field generator during construction work along a curve. A horizontal state estimator 402 receives an output of the switch 401, a folding angle signal indicative of the relative angle between the front and rear cylinders of the leading element, the amount of correction in the horizontal direction at the current time, and planned line information as inputs, and estimates on-line the horizontal position and attitude of the leading element relative to a planned line on the basis of an observation equation matching a model of the state change of the leading element and the kind of the observation signal selected. A horizontal direction controller 403 calculates the amount of the next correction in the horizontal direction so that a parameter of the estimated horizontal position and attitude converges to zero.