HUSCO Brings Digital Muscle to Off-Highway Electro-Hydraulic Control

Taming the Excavator

In a digital habitat, the operator oriented powerful and diverse excavator is not exactly aligned with the precision and productivity needs of machine automation. Despite its rugged exterior, excavators contain substantial hydraulic complexity and a wide breadth in architectures adapted for a Darwinian scale. These characteristics make digital control of machines extremely difficult and even more challenging to leverage solutions across platforms of machines. Without a bridge between the digital precision of today’s construction requirements and the hydraulic control of the excavator, the excavator’s potential would be left unfulfilled in a digital era.

Against these environmental factors, HUSCO developed control and DNA to normalize the complexity, neutralize the dependencies and adapt to the system architecture. The HUSCO solution draws from decades of work function expertise in main control valves, machine understanding from fully instrumented tests on over 100 machines, best in class performance EPRVs, future proofed controller and model based control software to tie it all together. The integration of this know-how, technology and product provide the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) or machine control providers a standardized hydraulic application programming interface (API) to digitally control the powerful excavator.

 

Hydraulics Are Hard, We Make It Easy

It is common for system providers attempting autonomous functionality to be experts in digital control for automobiles or industrial manufacturing. The hydraulics in Off-Highway equipment are far more complex due to the non-linear transfer functions between input commands and output velocities. In addition, excavator output velocities are highly coupled to other input commands, structure loads, engine speed, and operating mode.

The plug-and-play platform from HUSCO makes it easy to achieve the multi-function response system providers want. We take care of the hydraulic control so you can focus on machine control.

Excavator understanding is a corner stone differentiator for HUSCO that has built system acumen on over 100 machines tested for precision, harmony, and efficiency. HUSCO has tested every type of excavator architecture from numerous OEMs covering North America, Europe, Japan, China and Korea. HUSCO knows excavators.

Over our 60-year history of work function experience, HUSCO has become a leader in developing excellent hydraulic components with 50% of production now incorporating electro hydraulics. The vast majority of new product is electro-hydraulic. In 2017 HUSCO produced over 30 million solenoids giving our engineers the unique knowledge of cartridge and main control valve products to operate with digital commands. As part of this wave of new electro-hydraulic product, HUSCO’s updated EPRV (Electronic proportional Pressure Reducing Valve) will enter production later this year. The HUSCO EPRV provides best in class hysteresis, robustness, precision, and responsiveness to take machine performance into the digital age.

HUSCO is combining hydraulic expertise, best in class electro-hydraulic components, future proofed electronics and model based controls to provide exceptional value. HUSCO engineers are unbounded by bandwidth and development flexibility as quick and precise future adaption is central to HUSCO’s strategy.

Exacto

Excavator control for the digital age is the central purpose of HUSCO’s Exacto system. Exacto provides plug and play digital control for pilot controlled excavators. With safety built in from the core, the Exacto solution allows multiple modes of operation for synchronized control of excavator functions. Integrated controllers, software and sensors connect to the MCV, assist or override operator input enabling access to a host of new control methods for OEM or machine control provider.

Exacto provides the hydraulic API to build your higher level machine control functions such as auto-grade, auto-dig, pre-programmed truck loading, geo-fencing, safety caps on speed and height and the opportunity to connect with Building Information Modelling (BIM). Advanced features like machine learning also become feasible, where machine and worksite best performances are learnt, logged and continuously improved.

Accelerate Your Change

With Exacto, HUSCO provides a plug-and-play electro-hydraulic control system to enable OEMs and machine control providers to keep up with evolving machine and worksite developments. With HUSCO you will have a partner with a deep history of mutually beneficial, high trust customer relationships including all phases of ideation, development, verification and validation.

Get ahead of the competition by accelerating your development with the HUSCO best in market systems know-how and electro-hydraulic components.

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