Firms partner for semi-autonomous pile driving tech

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Position Partners and Vermeer Australia have partnered to create a semi-autonomous pile driving solution for Australian solar farms.

According to a statement from Position Partners, the amount of the amount of posts required for a solar farm varies greatly, from a few hundred to a few hundred thousand.

It said traditional methods are labour intensive and have the potential for human error as they involve a surveyor manually staking out each pile location, along with continuous stringline installation to guide the machine operator.

The Vermeer PD10 pile driver machine combined with Carlson machine guidance helps eliminate the need for manual stakeout and stringlines.

“Depending on the project, we estimate that contractors save between eight to ten dollars for every pile they drive,” said Andrew Granger, Position Partners Business Manager for Mining, Solar and Landfill.

“On a small solar farm where every dollar counts that’s a good saving, and on a large-scale farm the savings are significant,” he added.

Carlson machine guidance includes a variety of sensors fitted to the machine, along with a GPS unit and a control box that gives the operator real-time information about location, depth and angle of each pile.

Vermeer opened up the PD10’s CANBUS system to allow for greater communication between the machine and the guidance technology, creating a semi-autonomous solution.