Development of a Robotic Structural Steel Placement System

Abstract

ABSTRACT:The NIST Construction Metrology and Automation Group, in cooperation with the NIST Intelligent Systems Division, is researching robotic structural steel placement as part of a project to develop an Automated Steel Construction Testbed. This project was initiated in response to industry requests for advanced tools and methodologies to speed the erection of steel structures while maintaining or enhancing standards for worker safety and facility reliability. This initial effort integrates and extends prior NIST research in robotic crane employment, teleoperated steel beam placement, laser-based site metrology, construction component tracking, and web-enabled 3-D visualization.

Towards an Intelligent Job Site: Status of the NIST Automated Steel Construction Test Bed

“…The RoboCrane, the SMS, and the High-lever Controller are discussed in sections 2.1 through 2.3. The reader is referred to [3] for a discussion of the Component Tracking System and the 3D Visualization System.…”

A Tool to Improve Efficiency in Large Scale Manufacturing

“…The Construction Metrology and Automation Group at NIST is currently instrumenting a RoboCrane platform with a three-dimensional, laser-based site measurement system (SMS) for absolute position control in all six degrees-of-freedom. [8] The project, part of the Automated Steel Construction Testbed, will be used to demonstrate autonomous steel pick and place operations. Follow-on experiments will incorporate registered LADAR (laser detection and ranging) scans of the work site for task analysis and navigation planning.…”

Nonlinear Feedback Control of a Dual-Cable Ropeway System

“…RoboCrane (Lytle et al 2002) is an innovative cable‐driven manipulator invented by the National Institute of Standards and Technology Intelligent Systems Division. The basic RoboCrane is an inverted Stewart platform parallel link manipulator with cables and winches serving as the links and actuators, respectively.…”