Design and implementation of the floor tiling robot control system based on multi-motion unit structure and hierarchical control

Abstract

The floor tiling is a hard work, and a high level of skill is also necessary for the operators. Therefore, the current global floor tiling construction costs continue to increase. The use of robots to replace manual operations is becoming more urgent. Robotic floor tiling can reduce the work intensity of workers while improving the efficiency and the quality. This paper proposes a control system scheme for a floor tiling robot. Based on the characteristics of the multi-motion unit structure of the robot and the design concept of hierarchical control, the control system was divided into the user layer, the system control layer, the intermediate drive layer and the hardware execution layer. The system had clear functions and strong reusability. The user layer played a role of human-computer interaction which received the user’s instructions. The system control layer was the brain of the robot, which was mainly responsible for the coordinated control of all the motion units during the floor tiling process. The middle driver layer provided the device controllers for all dedicated hardware devices, realized recognition of system control layer instructions and took the hardware execution layer devices to work. The hardware execution layer mainly executed the actions in the process of the floor tiling. The test results show that the control system can realize stable control for the floor tiling operation, and the system is stable and reliable. The research results on this study would provide a reference for the control system design of other construction robots or special equipment robots.