MIT engineers designed a miniature arm-and-bucket controller for excavators that replaces traditional joysticks and allows novices to match expert performance immediately in simulations.
MIT reported the open-access findings in the Journal of Computing and Civil Engineering. The system, called the World-Space Interface, connects a physical arm controller to a six-screen virtual simulation. Trainees grasp the miniature arm and move it directly, bypassing the separate joystick controls typically required to coordinate an excavator's cab, boom, arm, and bucket.
Principal research scientist Hermano Krebs led the project alongside MIT co-authors Moises Alencastre-Miranda, Joao Buzzatto, and Eran Beeri Bamani in collaboration with Sumitomo Heavy Industries. Sumitomo partnered with MIT in 2018 to address a rapidly aging heavy equipment workforce in Japan, where conventional training on physical courses can take months to years.
Testing in virtual environments
Researchers evaluated the controller across 15 simulated environments, including highways, riverbanks, forest roads, and mining sites. Volunteers completed tasks of increasing difficulty for one hour daily over seven days, scooping gravel, digging trenches, and breaking rocks. Novices operating traditional joystick simulators scored consistently below experts, while novices using the World-Space Interface performed as well as experienced operators from their first session.
Krebs stated that the controller could function inside excavator cabs like an exoskeleton or allow operators in off-site trailers to tele-operate machines in hazardous environments. Study co-author Joao Buzzatto noted that the device is the first excavator interface that operates entirely without joysticks.
Engineers are currently developing haptic force feedback for the controller so operators can physically feel the weight of picked-up debris. While equipment manufacturers including Caterpillar, Hyundai, and Komatsu develop virtual training simulators based on joysticks, the MIT team envisions deploying its physical arm controller directly into real excavator cabs and remote operating stations.
