Trimble GuidEx enables control of machine navigation

The Trimble GuidEx machine guidance system is an advanced navigation solution to guide machines along route corridors or to specific target areas.

Photo: Trimble

Trimble has introduced the Trimble GuidEx Machine Guidance System, an advanced machine navigation solution intended to quickly and efficiently guide machines along route corridors or to specific target areas, while providing local awareness using customer-provided mapping or engineering data to create exclusion and inclusion zones.

Trimble GuidEx uses an integrated GNSS and inertial navigation system (INS) to compute a virtual reference point and precise heading, pitch and roll.

Users can install the Trimble GuidEx system on anything from utility terrain vehicles (UTVs) to heavy equipment, on- or off-road.

Trimble GuidEx provides streamlined design-stakeout navigation that eliminates the need for advance survey stakeout operations. This enables machine operators to navigate to an exact point without stakes or surveyors, such as for core-sampling operations.

Corridor navigation allows users to efficiently complete a range of tasks including clearing paths for access routes and plowing snow. With comprehensive local machine data-logging, contractors can capture a range of data including position, time and speed.

“Trimble GuidEx was built to meet the needs of natural resource exploration activities, but can be used for many other applications,” said Scott Crozier, vice president of Trimble Civil Construction. “This system improves productivity and awareness with easy, efficient, task-specific navigation.”

To ensure work is done exactly where it should be, proximity and zone breach alarms can be set based on custom exclusion and inclusion zones.

Regardless of the equipment or the application, Trimble GuidEx uses customer-provided data to keep operators aware of prohibited or dangerous areas and decrease time and money wasted on unnecessary work.

Trimble GuidEx provides crossline navigation along predefined routes via an integrated software-based lightbar viewed on the display, including visual and audible alarms when operators breach user-defined distances from a centerline. The system also provides point and pad navigation information with intuitive navigational arrows, supported by a wide variety of data recording settings.

Compatible with virtually any machine type, Trimble GuidEx connects equipment to the office to keep everyone aligned. Operators and supervisors can send mapping data to and from the machine and office to avoid rework.

Reliable guidance data allows contractors to track machines by time or user-defined event triggers for a more accurate representation of the machine utilization cost of a project. Trimble GuidEx can leverage real-time kinematic (RTK) and CenterPoint RTX correction services for enhanced high-accuracy positioning.