The evening before the doors to the world’s largest trade show opened, bauma awarded the best in innovation in construction, construction materials and the construction machine industries.
About 450 people gathered at the International Congress Center of Messe München for the bauma Innovation Awards, which honours groundbreaking developments across five categories.
The 2025 awards winners are ROTHO ProCarbonCure (Climate Protection category), Liebherr Autonomous Operations (Digitalization category), Herrenknecht‘s Tunnel Enlargement System (Mechanical Engineering category), New composite bridge construction method (Building Category), and MAXX – Mobile Assembly X-System (Research Category).
Liebherr Autonomous Operations
Liebherr Autonomous Operations is an autonomous system for wheel loaders and the result of many years of intensive development.
Using the system, the repetitive and monotonous tasks of a wheel loader can be undertaken without a driver. This helps counteract the difficulty of finding staff for monotonous routine tasks. “At the same time, it can create space for employees to focus on more complex activities that require human expertise,” said Dr Manuel Bös, Head of Emerging Technologies at Liebherr-Werk Bischofshofen GmbH.
The autonomous system gives operators a simple and user-friendly application that does not require any specialist IT knowledge.
An added benefit is the autonomous operation is developed specifically for use with earthmoving machines and opens new opportunities for planning jobs and organizing working time.
Operators can plan deployments of the autonomous wheel loader using the Autonomous Job Planner web application developed by Liebherr.
“You don’t need any special IT skills to initiate the wheel loader deployment. The system is very intuitive and user-friendly, and requires only a few inputs for the job,” Bös said.
The machine perceives its surroundings, piles and obstacles using 3D environmental sensors – without having to use drones or separate surveying technology – and plans the work cycle accordingly.
RELATED: Liebherr dozers recruited by Austrian Armed Forces (VIDEO)
The autonomous system then carries out the task independently, automatically adapts to the changing environment and does not require GPS reception, which means it can be used indoors, underground, at high quarry faces or under tree cover.
“In these operations, conventional GPS-based systems reach their limits, while Liebherr Autonomous Operations can be used anywhere – from a confined industrial hall to an open quarry,” Bös said.
The autonomous system delivers machine operation with consistent performance and efficiency right from the start and throughout the entire duration of use, regardless of the time of day.
“Due to the consistent performance of the autonomous wheel loader, all processes are easier to plan and can be made more efficient,” Bös said.
“The software-controlled autonomous wheel loader operates in a particularly machine-friendly way, significantly reducing component and tire wear as well as fuel consumption. This reduces ongoing operating costs. Additionally, the operator can seamlessly switch between conventional manual cab operation and fully autonomous operation, thus maximizing machine utilization.”
