Development of Exterior Wall Painting Robot Capable of Painting Walls with Indentations and Protrusions

Abstract

We developed an exterior wall painting robot for the purpose of automating this painting operation. The robot is mounted on equipment which permits it to move up and down, left and right along the exterior walls of a building. It is computer controlled and is activated simply by the operator pressing a switch on the control panel located on the ground. The robot is capable of painting a four square meter wall surface (4 m long X 1 m high) at one time. It is also equipped with sensors which measure indentations and protrusions in the wall surface, making it possible for it to paint exterior walls with windows, pillars or other indentations or protrusions.

Economic Analysis of Robots Employment in Building

“…The feasible investment is even more sensitive to the cost of labor: For average labor rate of $12.5 per hour (instead of $25) the value of the robot at 1,500 hours of utilization and 20-25 transfers will be $68,000, and at 500 hours and 5-10 transfers -only $20,000. If the robot can be improved to replace more workers, as envisioned [4,7,9,19], then its economic feasibility will substantially improve, even with low labor rates. According to one detailed report [17] one robot plus 3 workers should be able to perform equally to a team of 8 men.…”

System Deployment Structures – A New General Form of Robotic Construction Agent

“…These trends are already evident in that already a number of researchers have proposed the use of basically standard construction machines as basal elements in large scale construction robotics systems. [4,5,6,13] To the basal systems proposed here, a large variety of utility packages and construction tools [7] as well as fully fledged robots can be attached. [8,10] The use of the SDS concept allows one to treat cascaded, hierarchical, hybrid and multiwork front systems.…”

“…[11,5]. By adding to this a traversing robot system with multi-function tool exchange kit, an economically viable full remote operations system for the face of a building can be developed.…”

Inspecting Interior Built Environments Using Augmented Reality-Based Autonomous Robot

“…There has been an increasing interest in deploying robots in built environments. For example, robots have been developed to level and compact concrete [1], to set tiles [6], to finish interiors [14] [15], and to detect concrete cracks [16]. Robots have also been applied as an efficient solution to explore inaccessible environments in the areas of underground sewer pipe inspection [11], removal of damages being result of disasters [2], remote assembly of planetary structures [3], etc.…”