Laser Scanning with Industrial Robot Arm for Raw-wood Fabrication

Highly optimised processing workflows characterise today's wood industry. The gained efficiency is mainly directed towards making standardised linear materials that fulfil the market's expectation of a continuous flow of identical products with certain constant specifications. The research presented here seeks to question these limitations and provide another approach to the use of wood in construction. The study involves complex geometry handling, architectural design, and material and structural considerations. Trees absorb CO 2 during growth, and as a construction material, wood can function as CO 2 storage, thereby reducing the levels in the atmosphere during the lifetime of the building-and even longer if the building components can be reused. We have seen a significant rise in wood construction over the past few years. This is partly due to growing climate awareness and the increased availability of engineered wood products (EWP). EWPs are reliant on uniform tree production. With growing interest in using wood for construction, an increase in plantation forests is predicted, leading to a lack of biodiversity in the affected areas. The consideration for the general climate expressed through the increased use of wood as a building material may thus appear to be in contrast to the efforts to improve biodiversity. This research seeks to provide an alternative route where non-uniform wood, usually used as firewood, can be used as a construction material. The project demonstrates possibilities that emerge from engaging with the wood as a specific occurrence of a biological entity rather than a standardised material. While historical precedents inspire the research, the project has been developed using digital tools, such as laser scanning, algorithmic design and robotic fabrication. We have developed a unique design-to-production workflow that uses curved natural wood in its original form to enable curved architectural designs. The workflow thereby links the inherent properties of the wood to a distinct mode of expression. The wood is retrieved from a sawmill that collects discarded tree trunks from local forests. The sawlogs are registered with a 3D scanner, and a customised parametric method is used to handle the geometric information and establish a database of the irregular saw logs. A custom-made algorithmic design tool identifies where the sawlogs fit best in a predefined construction design based on the database. Machining data is directly extracted for the subsequent robotic processing. The irregular shape of the material suggests a discrete analysis of the structural properties of each component. A series of destructive physical tests are carried out to indicate the capacity of the structural system and the joint solution. To demonstrate the viability of the workflow, study challenges in controlling tolerances and humidity, and develop an assembly strategy, we have produced a construction prototype of 15 members in the size of 3 m in width and 4 m in height.

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“…For solving this, the end planes are first found from marks on the log. Alternatively, this could be done with a RANSAC algorithm [22]. (Fig.…”

Section: Establishing the Digital Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Timber structures made of naturally curved oak wood: prototypes and processes

Larsen

Aagaard

Hudert

et al. 2022

Archit. Struct. Constr.

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“…On the other hand, traditional engineering manipulators are generally made of rigid materials with large volume and mass, which cannot complete high-precision work tasks, and are often used for mechanical work such as handling or assembly. With the advent of the era of intelligent manufacturing, the work tasks of the construction manipulator have become refined, and industrial production has put forward higher requirements for the precision of the construction manipulator [ 3 ]. At the same time, the adaptability of the production line to different work tasks is also increasing, and the scenarios in which humans and robots cooperate to complete production tasks are gradually increasing [ 4 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptive Biological Neural Network Control and Virtual Realization for Engineering Manipulator

Guo

Da-shuai

et al. 2022

Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience

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By analyzing the feasibility of the digital twin technology in the assembly of construction machinery, the assembly process of the construction manipulator in the engineering environment is discussed. According to the application criteria and modeling requirements of digital twin, the overall framework of digital twin engineering manipulator assembly modeling and simulation is constructed from three aspects: model layer, data layer, and application layer. According to the operation task characteristics of space engineering manipulator, the feasibility of the control method based on joint angular velocity is analyzed, and the task environment of space engineering manipulator based on Markov model is defined. Aiming at the application of the algorithm in the control task of the space engineering manipulator, a reward function with the addition of the angular velocity soft bound term is designed, which improves the strategy optimization process of the algorithm and obtains a better control effect of the engineering manipulator. The motion trajectory of the end of the engineering manipulator is directly given on the simulation platform, and the expected motion of each joint of the engineering manipulator is calculated through the kinematics of the engineering manipulator. It can be seen from the simulation results that the controllers designed in this study can achieve ideal control effects. With the help of Baxter robot platform, the control algorithm designed in this study is applied to the actual engineering manipulator control, and the effectiveness of the control algorithm is further proved by the actual control effect.

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“…In the work by Kyjanek et al (2019) the use of Augmented Reality (AR) technology was introduced in order to achieve efficiency and productivity but also an effective workflow of human and robot collaboration in the assembly of timber structures. In other examples, 3D scanning is used to check raw timber parts, which were used in the construction of wooden structures in order to increase productivity (Someya et al, 2020), to accurately produce timber structures consisting of raw timber material (Vestartas and Weinand, 2020) but also to evaluate the accuracy of complex wooden structures after their production through the correlation of scanned result with the initial design (Hasan et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%