A Cable Driven Parallel Robot with a Modular End Effector for the Installation of Curtain Wall Modules

Abstract

The installation of curtain wall modules (CWMs) is a risky activity carried out in the heights and often under unfavorable weather conditions. CWMs are heavy prefabricated walls that are lifted normally with bindings and cranes. High stability is needed while positioning in order not to damage the fragile CWMs. Moreover, this activity requires high precision while positioning brackets, the modules, and for that reason, intensive survey and marking are necessary. In order to avoid such inconveniences, there were experiences to install façade modules in automatic mode using robotic devices. In the research project HEPHAESTUS, a novel system has been developed in order to install CWMs automatically. The system consists of two sub-systems: a cable driven parallel robot (CDPR) and a set of robotic tools named as Modular End Effector (MEE). The platform of the CDPR hosts the MEE. This MEE performs the necessary tasks of installing the curtain wall modules. There are two main tasks that the CDPR and MEE need to achieve: first is the fixation of the brackets onto the concrete slab, and second is the picking and placing of the CWMs onto the brackets. The first integration of the aforementioned system was carried out in a controlled environment that resembled a building structure. The results of this first test show that there are minor deviations when positioning the CDPR platform. In future steps, the deviations will be compensated by the tools of the MEE and the installation of the CWM will be carried out with the required accuracy automatically.

Robot-Assisted Object Detection for Construction Automation: Data and Information-Driven Approach

“…Therefore, the sensorf usion approach is utilized to localize building materials and wall defects. To obtain 3D location information in the BIM frame, the detection bounding boxes of building material in the camera frame are transformed in the BIM frame with the help of camera intrinsic parameters and a transformation matrix between camera and lidar sensors as given in equation (7). Note that BIM-frame origin and ROS map origin are matched before starting the experiments.…”

“…Furthermore, in a semi or fully automated construction environment, many systems can interact with each other. The assembly, finishing, and painting tasks in [4], [6], [7] are dependent on the outcome of the progress inspection system, which generates the progress report and instructs other robotic systems to complete the task. A comprehensive description of various construction robots and their applications can be found in [8].…”

Cable Robotic 3D-printing: additive manufacturing on the construction site

“…In the field of robotic construction, cable robots have been demonstrated for automate façade installation (Iturralde et al 2020) as well as automated masonry, where the latter includes research on suitable software tools to bridge from BIM data to robotized execution (Bruckmann and Boumann 2021;Heidel et al 2022).…”

Robotic Assembly and Reuse of Modular Elements in the Supply Chain of a Learning Factory for Construction and in the Context of Circular Economy

“…The recently-completed research project HEPHAESTUS proved successful in installing curtain wall modules using a large-scale cable-driven robot alongside a robotic manipulator, but many improvements were left to be implemented (Iturralde et al, 2020).…”