Abstract: The intelligent excavator is the transformation and upgrading of the traditional excavator by using artificial intelligence, automatic control and cyber-physical technology, which has higher energy efficiency and operation precision. Because of the remote operation, environment perception and fault diagnosis, it has wide potential application in earthquake relief, space and underwater operations. However, the excavator hydraulic system has the characteristics of powerful nonlinearity time-varying, and strong fluid coupling, while the working device has dynamic coupling and load uncertainty. Therefore, the intelligent control algorithm with simple structure, low parameter dependence and high precision is the basis of the autonomous excavation. The visual sensor is easily affected by illumination and meteorological conditions. Thus the Multi-sensor fusion intelligent algorithm will enhance the environmental sensing ability of the excavator. The fault mechanisms of the hydraulic system is highly complex and diverse. Because of the limit of the hardware, the non-redundant small-scale deep learning network and compressed-sensing technology is the key to realizing online fault diagnosis. The inland and overseas research status of intelligent excavators in trajectory control, environment perception, remote control and fault diagnosis are reviewed. Meanwhile, the existing key problems and development trend of the research on intelligent excavators are pointed out. At last, five conclusions about the current research status are drawn.

Key words: intelligent excavator, trajectory control, environment perception, remote control, fault diagnosis