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US start-up company Built Robotics claims its RPD 35 autonomous robotic pile driving system is three to five times faster than manual pile driving platforms.
Built Robotics has launched the RPD 35, a fully autonomous robotic pile driver that integrates survey data, pile layout, pile driving and inspection. The company claims it is the first in the world capable of performing large-scale solar foundations up to five times faster than standard installation methods.
Built Robotics claims that the RPD 35 can install around 300 piles per day with a two-person crew, which is a marked improvement in efficiency compared to the 100 units per day that a conventional crew typically installs.
The RPD 35 adds four components to a standard excavator, which work together to facilitate the self-driving process of pile driving. Steel arms extend from both sides of the excavator and support two baskets that together hold nearly 200 piles. A custom-designed hammer assembly, located at the end of the excavators arm, drives the piles into the ground, impacting them up to 500 times per minute with 4,000 pounds per 0.12 feet. On average, the unit can place a single pile in 73 seconds.
The Exosystem (CPU) manages the entire operation, driving the piles with subcentimeter precision. Liquid-cooled Intel Xeon processor and Nvidia graphics processing units power the Exosystem vision system.
The computers design is resistant to shock and vibration, as well as water and dust ingress, despite being mounted outside the excavator and exposed to potentially harsh conditions on the job site. The Built Robotics website indicates that the Exosystem computer is compatible with most late-model mid-size excavators, ranging from 15 to 50 tons.
The company says it has been involved in more than 2 GW of solar installations since 2018. Deployment of the first RPD 35 units is planned for Q4 2023. |
