Believe it or not, we’re never really jealous of race car drivers for the actual driving of the race car stuff we’re more jealous of them because of all the other neat things that seem to come their way. Take this video for example. Ryan Newman is a NASCAR racer who is sponsored by Caterpillar and back in November he happened to be at Phoenix International Raceway. The people from Cat came up and set up a trailer, a massive satellite dish and invited him to come on down and see what it was about. They were showing off their Command For Dozing systems which allows huge machines like the 230,000lb D11 dozer to be operated remotely. In this case the machine was in Tuscon 150 miles away from Newman. Using computer screens and cameras, an experienced operator could run the machine just like he was sitting in it.
What in the heck do you need remote operators for? Some mining environments are very dangerous and may present other hazards to the operators as well. Removing the human being from the situation fixes a lot of potential problems and with the Command for Dozing system, the work gets done just like it would have if the dude was sitting in the machine. Pretty incredible stuff and while “remote control” technology is not new, you have to admit that running a fully functional bulldozer from 150 miles away is neat as hell.
Caterpillar is a pretty incredible company when you look at how they began, how they have evolved, and how they are now one of themes globally successful corporations that exists. It isn’t just about building the equipment anymore as this video shows. You need to keep innovating the things around the machines that allow them to work as well and as safely as possible. Awesome stuff!
Now if only they’d call their system “Skynet” – I can’t think of any reason why that could go wrong.
Can you imagine the carnage if the dozer operator was remotely driving Ryan’s car in a race at the same time!