CONCRETE PAVING PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENT USING A MULTI-TASK AUTONOMOUS ROBOT
ABSTRACT To improve productivity in conventional concrete construction, autonomous robots that perform specific tasks are being developed. Single-task robots are capable of enhancing specific functions, though their impact on the overall productivity remains unclear. A robot that incorporates each task-specific piece of machinery used in the concrete paving process into one fully autonomous unit is evaluated. Assessing potential productivity from the use of a fully automated process is a required step for developing a full scale-system. With the purpose of identifying productivity benefits in an automated concrete paving operation, two concrete paving processes will be compared using simulation tools. One process is the conventional operation using intensive labour, slip form paving machine and auxiliary equipment. The other process is the automated operation using a fully autonomous robot. Applications of this assessment methodology based in simulation will allow for the determination of productivity indicators of automated operations in hazardous environments, using the respective results to complement prototypical tests.
Service robots : products, scenarios, visions
The copious photographs in this book lavishly illustrate the current and future applications for robots in a wide scope of fields such as entertainment, medicine, space exploration, underwater navigation, and many more. Everyone from professional roboticists to amateur robot and technology enthusiasts will find this book fascinating.
Automation and robotics for construction
The potential for automated real‐time data acquisition, process control and robotics for remote, large‐scale field operations, such as those on construction engineering projects, is addressed. Classifications of technologies for automation and robotics in such operations include hard‐wired instrumentation, remote sensing, analog and digital telecommunications, optical (laser, infrared and fiber‐optic) data transmission, monitoring via microcomputer‐based instrument control and data recording, on‐site process control for fixed plants, partial or fully automatic control of mobile equipment, fixed‐based manipulators, mobile robots, communications between on‐site computers and automated machinery, electronic ranging and detection, and video‐image pattern recognition. Combining selected technologies with microcomputer‐based software could facilitate analysis, design and control decision‐making, and could provide a means of coordinating various discrete automated components or machines that must work together t...