A Preliminary Review of Digital and Intelligent Cutterhead Management and the Enabling Technologies in Shield Tunnelling

The shieldmachine is large-scale construction equipment with an intelligent and highly complex system for tunnel excavation. The process of managing and controlling the shield cutterhead is significant, especially for large-size shields. It is a complicated and challenging process but indispensable, thus a digital shield cutterhead management system is needed. With advances being made in artificial intelligence (AI), the capability exists to automatically manage and control large-size construction machines. The corollary developments in artificial intelligence have stimulated a wealth of research in construction to examine its potential application to practice. Firstly, the paper reviews the state of the art and practice of digital shield cutterhead management technologies. Then, with consideration of the advances made within machine learning and digital twin, research challenges, which impede further applications of AI in cutterhead management for super-size shields, especially in composite geological stratum, are analyzed and identified. Finally, future works regarding how to promote the application of these enabling technologies in shield cutterhead management are proposed.