An improved multipurpose field robot for installing construction materials

Abstract

Recently, there has been a lot of interest concerning remotecontrolled robot manipulation in hazardous environments including construction sites, national defense areas, and disaster areas. However, there are problems involving the method of remote control in unstructured work environments such as construction sites. In a previous study, to address these problems, a multipurpose field robot (MFR) system was described. Though the case studies on construction, to which "MFR for installing construction materials" was applied, however, we found some factors to be improved. In this paper, we introduce a prototype of improved multipurpose field robot (IMFR) for construction work. This prototype robot helps a human operator easily install construction materials in remote sites through an upgraded additional module. This module consists of a force feedback joystick and a monitoring device. The human-robot interaction and bilateral communication for strategic control is also described. To evaluate the proposed IMFR, the installation of construction materials was simulated. We simulated the process of installing construction materials, in this case a glass panel. The IMFR was expected to do more accurate work, safely, at construction sites as well as at environmentally hazardous areas that are difficult for humans to approach.

Physical-limits-constrained minimum velocity norm coordinating scheme for wheeled mobile redundant manipulators

“…where 3 4 T , 4 5 T , and 5 6 T denote the homogeneous transform matrices. The homogeneous representation of the end-effector position vector in the world coordinate frame XYZ is…”

“…In the combined equipment, the mobile platform increases the workspace range, and the manipulator fulfills various given tasks. Due to the coordinated work of a mobile platform and a manipulator, the mobile manipulator possesses more advantages than the fixed-platform manipulator, and has been applied in many fields, such as space exploration, 1, 2 special substance handling, 3 maintenance of equipment, 4 and household services. 5 Therefore, the planning and control of mobile manipulators has become an appealing and significant topic in the area of robotics, and has received increasing attention over the past years.…”

A comparison of industrial robots interface: force guidance system and teach pendant operation

“…It allows the operator to play the role of an instructor that physically moves the robot through the desired positions within its workspace. Examples of applications that used force guidance for programming are the definition of welding trajectories (Hollmann et al , 2010), the assembly of structures in civil construction (Lee et al , 2007) and the assembly of parts performed in collaboration between a robot and a human (Schraft et al , 2005).…”