Natta Building Company has trialled Trimble’s precision grading technology on an upgrade to BMW’s Oxford production facilities.
Sitech UK & Ireland installed the Trimble Earthworks UTS technology on one of Natta’s excavators working on the project.
The project covered approximately 15,000sq m and the Type 1 sub-base had to be finished to a tolerance of +0/-10mm. To achieve this, Sitech installed a new MT900 target receiver on the back of the excavator, upgraded the radio receiver to 2400 MHz, which was connected to a Trimble SPS930 total station.
Edward Tinjala, engineer at Natta, said: “This project provided critical upgrades to BMW Group’s Oxford plant production facilities, and we needed to ensure we had the right technology on board to assist our team in completing the job to the highest level of accuracy. Operating in an indoor environment, where multiple trades were working nearby meant space was extremely limited and precision was an even greater concern than usual.
“The Trimble Earthworks UTS made the complex job achievable, ensuring high-precision positioning and real-time tracking. This not only sped up the process, but the reliable accuracy minimised the risk of rework.”
Line-of-sight lasers
Trimble Earthworks UTS is often used on dozers, where the target receiver is positioned on the blade, but it is less common to see Trimble Earthworks UTS on excavators, where the receiver is mounted at the rear of the machine, according to Sitech.
Phil Matchett, technical sales consultant at Sitech, said: “UTS relies on line-of-sight lasers as opposed to satellite signals and is therefore the ideal system to use on indoor projects such as this, where GNSS becomes unreliable. In this instance, Trimble UTS was integrated into the Trimble Earthworks machine control system to provide real-time feedback to operators, allowing for highly accurate earthmoving and grading.
“Having worked for Sitech for five years, I have only ever seen a handful of customers use this technology on an excavator, and it is something not many machine owners/operators may be aware of that you can do – to great effect. Having the technology on board means a reduced need for manual checks, millimetre-accuracy, faster job completion, semi-automatic/automatic operation and compatibility across a multitude of heavy machines.”
