1. Accelerating upgrading and replacement. With the development of modern high and new technologies, the technological development and innovation of construction machinery products worldwide are proceeding more rapidly, replacement cycles are becoming ever shorter, product families are being expanded, and product series are becoming increasingly complete. Major companies in the United States, Europe and Japan have successively launched second-, third- and even fifth-generation new construction machinery products.

2. Increasingly stringent environmental protection requirements. For the sustainable development of human society and the economy, the public worldwide has put forward ever stricter requirements for environmental protection. Whether construction machinery has good environmental performance will become one of the important indicators for participating in international market competition, and it has now become a “market access permit” in many industrially developed countries. Therefore, the United States, Europe and Japan are all competing to develop construction machinery that is “friendly to people and the environment.”

3. Small and large specifications developing together. Medium and large construction machinery remains the mainstream of global construction machinery, with annual sales of about US$70 billion, but the trend of extending toward both miniaturization and large-scale development is very obvious. The United States, Europe and Japan are the main consumer markets for construction machinery, where large-scale infrastructure construction projects are gradually decreasing while repair, maintenance and small urban projects are increasing. To save relatively high labor costs and improve work efficiency, various small and micro construction machines have been introduced one after another. These machines can carry out construction operations in narrow areas or be used in family residences and small engineering projects.

4. Coexistence of personalization and multifunctionality. The development of project types, materials and scale, as well as differences in construction environments, have imposed personalized and multifunctional requirements on construction machinery, while the development of modern design technology and flexible manufacturing technology has created the conditions for realizing product personalization and multifunctionality. Personalized products emerge to adapt to a particular working condition, and multiple uses for one machine is another direction in the development of construction machinery, which will undoubtedly improve equipment utilization.

5. Innovation and breakthroughs in operating principles. The operating principles of construction machinery include the cutting, crushing and backfilling of earth and rock, the screening, mixing and heating of geotechnical materials, and the paving, leveling and compaction of mixtures. The theories behind these operations were originally based on bionics and Newtonian mechanics, while the development of modern science has laid a new foundation for the operating principles of construction machinery. For example, the application of mechanical vibration, pulses, jets, photoelectric effects and thermophysics has created conditions for construction machinery to save resources, improve project quality, and enhance production efficiency, operational reliability, driving comfort and automation.

6. Hydraulic transmission. It began to be applied to road rollers in the 1960s and was popularized and spread within just over a decade. The travel, vibration, steering and braking systems of existing road rollers have achieved full hydraulic transmission. Hydraulic transmission greatly simplifies the design of the roller's transmission and control systems; hydraulic transmission is smooth, easy and effortless to operate, and readily enables stepless speed regulation and automatic control, thereby improving the production efficiency and compaction quality of road rollers overall.

7. Attention to ergonomic principles. Since the 1980s, many large construction machinery manufacturers worldwide have invested substantial manpower and funds in researching and applying modern design methodology. Ergonomics advocates a people-oriented design philosophy and emphasizes the mutual coordination between machines and people. The application of electronic technology in construction machinery has greatly simplified the operator's procedures and improved the machine's technical performance. Electronic control can automatically select the machine's operating mode; electronic monitoring can promptly detect and eliminate faults in the machine system; and electronic sensors processed by a microcomputer can automatically test the machine's operating quality.

8. Industrial design concepts running through product design. Industrial design is the styling design of industrial products, also called the artistic modeling of products. The styling design of construction machinery can unify the machine's form with its structure, function and usage requirements, and coordinate it with people's physiology and psychology. Such styling design should include appropriate proportions of all parts, smooth forms, coordinated colors, attractive instrument layout, and convenience for intuitive operation and eye-catching trademark symbols. At present, major companies worldwide attach great importance to the industrial design of products, and specialized research and design institutions have even emerged.

9. Modular design and virtual manufacturing. Modular design includes what was previously called the universalization of components and the modularization of software in the design process. The modularization of design software allows different systems or components to be assembled and their parameters changed on a computer, thus greatly accelerating the design and development progress of new products. Information technology and global economic integration have created the conditions for virtual manufacturing in the machinery manufacturing industry. Among the major multinational construction machinery companies, an obvious trend is that manufacturers concentrate their efforts on development research and equipment assembly, no longer manufacturing components but delegating them to component suppliers. Mainframe product manufacturers, component suppliers and scientific research and development institutions collaborate, giving play to each party's creative spirit, to jointly develop and produce marketable products.

10. Mechatronics integration and the intelligentization process. Modern construction machinery should be endowed with humanization and intelligence. Intelligent construction machinery is a mechatronic transmission integration system with a thinking brain (microcomputer), sensory organs (sensors), a neural network (electronic transmission), internal organs (power and drive) and limb bones (working mechanisms and travel devices). The combination of electronic technology and sensors with mechanical devices has realized automatic monitoring and automatic control of construction machinery, namely mechatronics integration. Electronic sensors are the sensory organs of mechatronics integration and the medium between the machine and its work object. Electronic technology with a microcomputer at its core is the brain and central nervous system of mechatronics integration; it receives various information sent by sensors and, after computing and processing it, issues instructions to the machine's actuating parts.