In civil engineering in Russia, trenching for utilities is currently under digging. To perform such works, it is necessary to use high-precision construction machinery, because inaccurate performance of works can lead to the break down of existing utilities, thereby affecting the residents of nearby houses and demanding the additional works for renewal.The most universal labour saver to perform construction works is hydraulic driven single-bucket excavators, which provide up to 38% of works. Therefore, to improve technical characteristics that affect the accuracy of the work performed is an important task.High requirements for the performance of works are defined by existing construction regulations: an allowable soil layer to remain is at most 0.05 m. To fulfil such requirements, an exact assessment of the working mechanism position and a trench profile is necessary.Examination of a manually operated digging process shows that an operator provides operations untimely, however an automated control system can solve this problem. Dynamic phenomena in the working mechanism have the greatest impact on the accuracy of the works performed.To assess the bucket digging edge position accuracy, a mathematical model of the working mechanism has been created. Based on the cycle scheme of the working process, the excessive displacements of the hydraulic cylinder rods under the load are taken into account. By the end of the cycle, the difference between the specified and obtained positions along the vertical coordinate has been 0.0892 m.A dynamic error of the hydraulic drive system of the working mechanism is considered as a sum of the error due to excessive displacements of the hydraulic cylinder rods and the error due to delay of the hydraulic drive, with the latter being calculated for the average time of delay taking into account the data available in the literature. The total error of the bucket digging edge position of the working mechanism is 0.1176 m, which is 2 times more than the value of 0.05 mConformity of all the links with specification requirements does not guarantee compliance with the required displacement accuracy of the bucket digging edge, and, thus, the soil layer to remain in the base of the trench can exceed the regulated value of 0.05 m.
