A General Approach for Automating Teleoperated Construction Machines

Abstract

Despite enormous research advances in robotics, most of repetitive and dangerous tasks on construction sites are still manually performed. The challenge to robotic automation lies in the nature of construction site. Robots must be able to handle large payloads, outdoor conditions, dirty and dynamic environment. Therefore, attempting to develop a new robot for construction sites is a formidable task. In this paper, a generic method is introduced to adapt existing stable hydraulically driven construction machinery so that proven robots can be obtained at a significant reduction in effort. Fist, the bus system of the machinery is utilized to communicate with the user’s computer. Then, a control framework is developed which is based on the closed-loop inverse kinematic (CLIK). The method is experimentally validated on a demolition machine Brokk 170, that is originally designed to be controlled with a remote controller.