Site Assembly in Construction Industry by means of a Large Range Advanced Robot

Abstract

This paper deals with the application of a large range robot for on site assembly operations in the construction industry. The wall erection task, using standard and special concrete blocks, is the main operation of the robot. The assembly process and the robot have been developed under the Computer Integrated Construction (CIC) concept. It means that the robot is easily integrated in the complete CIC system by adequated interfaces. Special attention has been paid to the man-machine interface (MMI) which permits to program and control the system in an automatic and friendly way, i.e., from the CAD building design the system commands and sequences are automatically generated. The hydraulically driven robot is a 6 DOF articulated manipulator with a working range of 8.5 m and it is able to carry payloads up to 500 kg. This work is part of the European ESPRIT III project n° 6450 ROCCO (Robot Assembly System for Computer Integrated Construction).