• Architectural research
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.85-92
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• 2010

In recent years, construction projects have been forced to cope with lack of skilled labor and increasing hazard circumstance of human operations. A construction robotic system has been frequently accomplished as one alterative for overcoming these difficulties in increasing construction quality, enhancing productivity, and improving safety. However, while the complexity of such a system increases, there are few ways to carry out an assessment of the system. This paper introduces a knowledge-based multi-criteria decision-making process to assist decision makers in systematically evaluating an automated system for a given project and quantifying its system performance index. The model employs linguistic terms and fuzzy numbers in attempts to deal with the vagueness inherent in experts' or decision makers' subjective opinions, considering the contribution resulted from their knowledge on a decision problem. As an illustrative case, the system, called Robotic-based Construction Automation, for constructing steel erection of high-rise buildings was applied into this model. The results show the model's capacities and imply the application to other extended types of construction robotic systems.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.31-37
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• 2011

Construction automation is yet to be improved since construction site still faces a lot of high risks and difficulties. This research focuses on applying robotic beam assembly system in place of construction workers. This system consists of CF (Construction Factory) structure to provide adequate working environment to robot automation. The CF structure not only gives automation environment for a robot but also houses the equipments to protect from outside effects. The robotic beam assembly system also consists of robotic bolting system and robot transport mechanism. It utilizes various tools to insert and join the bolts and nuts. Visual servoing helps precise robot motion by sensing bolt hole and tail of the bolt. ITA system helps non skilled workers to easily perform the assembly work with the robot system. The robot transport mechanism includes sliding rail and cross-wired lift. It carries the robot to a desired position for assembly work.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.250-256
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• 2009

This paper presents a robotic tower-crane system using encoder and gyroscope sensors as path tracking devices. Tower crane work is often associated with falling accidents and industrial disasters. Such problems often incur a loss of time and money for the contractor. For this reason, many studies have been done on an automatic tower crane. As a part of 5-year 23-million-dollar research project in Korea, we are developing a robotic tower crane which aims to improve the safety level and productivity. We selected a luffing tower crane, which is commonly used in urban construction projects today, as a platform for the robotic tower crane system. This system comprises two modules: the automated path planning module and the path tracking module. The automated path planning system uses the 3D Cartesian coordinates. When the robotic tower crane lifts construction material, the algorithm creates a line, which represents a lifting path, in virtual space. This algorithm seeks and generates the best route to lift construction material while avoiding known obstacles from real construction site. The path tracking system detects the location of a lifted material in terms of the 3D coordinate values using various types of sensors including adopts encoder and gyroscope sensors. We are testing various sensors as a candidate for the path tracking device. This specific study focuses on how to employ encoder and gyroscope sensors in the robotic crane These sensors measure a movement and rotary motion of the robotic tower crane. Finally, the movement of the robotic tower crane is displayed in a virtual space that synthesizes the data from two modules: the automatically planned path and the tracked paths. We are currently field-testing the feasibility of the proposed system using an actual tower crane. In the next step, the robotic tower crane will be applied to actual construction sites with a following analysis of the crane's productivity in order to ascertain its economic efficiency.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2022.06a
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• pp.336-343
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• 2022

Industrial robotic arms are widely adopted in numerous industries for manufacturing automation under factory settings, which eliminates the limitations of manual labor and provides significant productivity and quality benefits. The U.S. modular construction industry, despite having similar controlled factory environments, still heavily relies on manual labor. Thus, this study investigates the U.S., Canada, and Europe-based leading modular construction companies and research labs implementing industrial robotic arms for manufacturing automation. The investigation mainly considered the current research scope, industry state, and constraints, as well as identifying the types and specifications of the robotic arms in use. First, the study investigated well-recognized modular building associations, the Modular Building Institute (MBI), and renowned architecture design magazine, Dezeen to gather industry updates. The authors discovered one university lab and a few companies that adopted Switzerland-based robotic arms, ABB. Researching ABB robotics led to the discovery of ABB's competitor, Germany-based KUKA robotic arms. Consequently, research extended to the companies and labs adopting KUKA models. In total, this study has identified seven modular companies and four research labs. All companies employed robotic arms and gantry robot combinations in a production-line-like system for partial automation, and some adopted design standardization for optimization. The common goal among the labs was to achieve greater flexibility and full automation with robotic arms. This study will help companies better implement robotic arm automation by providing recommendations from investigating its current industry status.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.115-124
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• 2022

Welding is a significant part of the construction industry. Since most high-rise building construction structures rely on a robust metal frame welded together, welding defect can damage welded structures and is critical to safety and quality. Despite its importance and heavy usage in construction, the labor shortage of welders has been a continuous challenge to the construction industry. To deal with the labor shortage, the ultimate goal of this study is to design and develop an automated robotic welding system composed of a welding machine, unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), robotic arm, and visual sensors. This paper proposes and focuses on automated weaving using the robotic arm. For automated welding operation, a microcontroller is used to control the switch and is added to a welding torch by physically modifying the hardware. Varying weave patterns are mathematically programmed. The automated weaving is tested using a brush pen and a ballpoint pen to clearly see the patterns and detect any changes in vertical forces by the arm during weaving. The results show that the weave patterns have sufficiently high consistency and precision to be used in the actual welding. Lastly, actual welding was performed, and the results are presented.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.12 no.12
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• pp.1787-1795
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• 2009

This paper describes an automation of architectural design processes and the direction between this automation and robotic system in building construction using the concept of the object-oriented design in architecture. The research starts from the premise that many computer-aided design systems are mostly aimed at serving as drawing tools which are used only after a design formal solution has already been established by the architect. If the computer is well applied to the architectural design process, many positive things such as standardization of design detail, increasing productivity and collaboration, minimizing construction costs etc. can be done. To support an early design solution in the computer-based environment, the proposed automation was developed and tested in a real building project, using the object-oriented design concept such as product model. This design automation gives various design alternatives from the early design phase to the final stage of design details, according to musical harmony. This paper shows how architectural design process can be automated and how the data of the applied architectural design can be integrated into product model environment, in relation to robotic system in building construction.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.08a
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• pp.1945-1948
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• 2004

This paper describes the design and construction of a micro robotic system addressing such important aspects as versatility and low cost for rapid development and test of new control algorithm. The design and structure of micro robots are presented in detail. The supervision oriented concept is designed for controlling a group of micro robots. In this concept, the vision system recognizes the environment and the host computer decides the micro robot action based on the information from the vision system. In addition, the micro robots can be implemented cheaply and small in size because the structure of supervision oriented system is simplest. The experimental results and the performance of the proposed micro robotic system are discussed.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.1268-1279
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• 2005

The current method for pavement sign marking operations is labor-intensive and very dangerous due to the exposure of workers to passing traffic. It also requires blocking traffic for a long period of time resulting serious traffic jam. This paper deals with the development of a robotic system for automating the pavement sign painting operations. The robotic system consists of gantry frame equipped with transverse drive rail and automatic paint spray system. The workspace of the gantry robot is extended to one-lane width with the transverse rail system. This research also includes the development of font data structures that contain the shape information of pavement signs, such as Korean letters, English letters and symbols. The robot path is generated with this font data through the procedures of scaling up/down and partitioning the signs to be painted depending on the workspace size.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.187-190
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• 2008

This paper presents two dimensional receiving coils to provide hundreds of milli-watt power via inductive link to in vivo robotic capsules, whose orientation are practically undetermined. The wireless power transmission system consists of a transmitter powered by class E power amplifier, and a receiver with three dimensional antenna, rectifier, and voltage regulator. As the 2D lateral antenna construction is more critical for the receiving antenna, two types of 2D antennas are introduced and evaluated by theoretic and experimental analyses. Experimental results verifies that the cross-type construction show better directional performance for receiving power than the cylindrical one for the 2D antenna. The former could deliver the power homogeneously regardless of its orientation, with less than 20 % of variation from the possible maximum power.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.47-54
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• 1998

Underwater robotic vehicles(URVs) have been an important tool for various underwater tasks such as pipe-lining, data collection, hydrography mapping, construction, maintenance and repairing of undersea equipment, etc because they have greater speed, endurance, depth capability, and safety than human divers. As the use of such vehicles increases, the vehicle control system is one of the most critical subsystems to increase autonomy of the vehicle. The vehicle dynamics are nonlinear and their hydrodynamic coefficients are often difficult to estimate accurately. It is desirable to have an intelligent vehicle control system because the fixed-parameter linear controller such as PID may not be able to handle these changes promptly and result in poor performance. In this paper we described and analyzed a new type of fuzzy model-based controller which is designed for underwater robotic vehicles and based on Takagi-Sugeno-Kang(TSK) fuzzy model. The proposed fuzzy controller: 1) is a nonlinear controller, but a linear state feedback controller in the consequent of each local fuzzy control rule; 2) can guarantee the stability of the closed-loop fuzzy system; 3) is relatively easy to implement. Its good performance as well as its robustness to parameter changes will be shown and compared with those of the PID controller by simulation.