Doosan first to use 5G for worldwide TeleOperation

Company operates 40-tonne excavator in South Korea from its stand at the bauma show in Munich

AT this week’s bauma 2019 exhibition in Munich in Germany, Doosan have become the first manufacturer to use 5G technology for worldwide ‘TeleOperation’ of construction machines.

Doosan have coined the term TeleOperation to describe the operation of construction equipment from a remote station. At bauma, the company is operating a 40-tonne Doosan DX380LC-5 crawler excavator located more than 8,500km away in Incheon, South Korea, from an operator’s booth on its exhibition stand in Munich.

Co-developed with LG U+, the South Korean telecommunications and data services company, the TeleOperation demonstration on the Doosan stand is the first to remotely control a machine across such a large distance between locations that have a time difference of eight hours, using 5G telecommunications technology.

For TeleOperation to function properly, it is essential to deliver live video streaming at the operator’s station in a reliable way that minimizes time lag in the system for the operator. With its ultra-reliability and low latency (signal delay), the new 5G network overcomes these issues in the Doosan system, providing 10 times faster bandwidth and 10 times lower latency than the 4G network.

Special features incorporated include a low-latency video transmission module with fast video transfer (with encoding and decoding), an important factor in reducing the time delay. LG U+ have also introduced new modules providing low-latency image processing to further minimize the time delay. Another factor in creating more effective remote control is the use of Doosan’s innovative electrohydraulic technology in the DX380LC-5 excavator.

The DX380LC-5 excavator being remotely controlled at bauma is still a standard machine, which allows Doosan to guarantee the performance and the compatibility of third-party attachments and other equipment installed on the machine. It is also possible to carry out both normal operation and TeleOperation with same excavator.

Because the LG U+ platform provides a 5G connection that is 5–10 times faster than current 4G systems, the operator has the same real-time control of the remote excavator and with the same high accuracy.