Patent ID: 11867006
Assignee: EPIROC DRILLING SOLUTIONS, LLC
Field: Civil engineering (Other fields)
Classification: CPC E | IPC E

Claim 18:
19. An apparatus for changing drilling tools for a drilling rig, wherein the drilling rig comprises a drill tower supporting a drill pipe; the apparatus for changing drilling tools comprising:
a drilling tool changer assembly moveable between a storage position and an exchange position;
the drilling tool changer assembly supporting a rotatable carousel assembly;
the rotatable carousel assembly having a plurality of bit adaptors for holding drilling tools;
the rotatable carousel assembly being selectively rotatable to bring a selected drilling tool into coaxial alignment with the drill pipe when the drilling tool changer assembly supporting the rotatable carousel assembly is moved into the exchange position; and
a control system operatively coupled to the drilling rig to selectively remove a drilling tool from the drill pipe and attach the selected drilling tool to the drill pipe via an automatic or semi-automatic process;
wherein the control system comprises an interface for selecting between an automatic process or a semi-automatic process; and
wherein when the semi-automatic process is selected, the control system receives input via the interface to identify which steps of the process to perform automatically.