Patent ID: 7695071
Filing Date: 2010-04-13
Classification: E21C

Abstract:
1. An excavator, comprising: a boom; a cutter head, mounted on the boom, for excavating in situ material; a body, wherein the boom is mounted on the body; a plurality of grippers operable to apply pressure against opposing surfaces of an excavation to hold the body in a selected position and orientation, and a control system operable to effect operation of the excavator both (a) in a manual mode in which an operator controls operation of the boom and/or cutter head and the plurality of grippers and (b) an automatic mode in which the control system controls operation of the boom and/or cutter head and the plurality of grippers, wherein the control system comprises a task supervisor, the task supervisor is configured as an engine that invokes at least one of a plurality of state machines to perform a selected unit operation and wherein the plurality of state machines correspond to a plurality of: a mining state in which in situ material is excavated, a walking state in which the excavator is repositioned for the mining state, a boom sweep state in which the boom is moved, a steering state in which an orientation of the excavator is changed, and a self-test state in which a configuration of the excavator is compared against a predetermined configuration.