Video-Game Tech Digging Real Dirt for Caterpillar, Komatsu
- Automation, robotics key plan to revive slumping machine sales
- Mine owners want equipment that does more with fewer workers
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In Chicago, not far from Lake Michigan, the driver of a Caterpillar Inc. bulldozer looked left, right and forward to maneuver the 230,000-pound (104-metric-ton) machine through a desert obstacle course of sand mounds and old tires. But for all his effort, he didn’t go anywhere.
Instead, as he sat inside a stationary box lined with video screens at UI Labs in the city’s Goose Island area, the operator worked the controls on a yellow earth-mover about 1,700 miles (2,700 kilometers) away in Arizona. Welcome to the new world of big machines, where manufacturers including Caterpillar and Komatsu Ltd. are trying everything from remote-access technology to driverless trucks to revive slumping sales and adapt to changing markets.