• International conference on construction engineering and project management
• /
• 2009.05a
• /
• pp.457-463
• /
• 2009

The earthwork is essential procedure for all civil engineering projects. Because of its importance in terms of cost and time, it should be managed effectively. In light of this, The Intelligent Excavating System (IES) research consortium has established to improve the productivity, quality and safety of current excavating/earthwork system by the Ministry of Land, Transportation and Maritime Affairs (MLTM) of Korea. This paper summarizes ongoing research aimed at development knowledge and presents a framework of task planning and visualization system for IES. The task planning and visualization system consists of three functions. 1) Using digital terrain model which created by 3D laser scanner, the system can divide it and generates global/local work area so that the excavator can work through the area. 2) In order to operate and/or control the excavator, the system exports the location, paths of boom, arm and bucket data of the excavator to control center. 3) The task planning system is visualized on the computer programming aided-graphic interface which simulates the planned work processes and eventually assists the operator for the control of the excavator. The case study which we have performed, demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed system.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
• /
• 2007.04a
• /
• pp.68-73
• /
• 2007

Civil engineering construction work has always been accompanied by a high proportion of tasks that are either dangerous or unpleasant or both. Enhancing the general working environment and boosting safety levels are critical issues for the industry. In addition to that, the industry has been slow to utilize automation & robot technology, and there is substantial scope for the use of technology th boost efficiency, cut costs and improve quality levels in construction. In a bid to address this issue, Ministry of Construction & Transportation launched a five-year project in 2003 entitled Development of Intelligent Excavating System. The aim of the project is to use telecommunications and robotics technology to minimize inefficiencies and eliminate the dangerous and unpleasant aspects of tile construction process through the development of specific applications such as IT-equipped construction machinery and advanced construction management systems. In this paper, the project introduces on the research and development content related to multi-disciplinary, a intuitive operator control unit(Robot Technology) included.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute Of Construction Engineering and Management
• /
• 2008.11a
• /
• pp.184-192
• /
• 2008

Recently, one of the solutions for the problems of construction industry such as low productivity, lack of experts, insufficiency of manpower, high percentage of calamity and so forth, construction automation which let underdeveloped construction production system be a ultramodern technology is under research. Internal study of construction automation has been initiated since 1980s focusing on robotics and semi-automation for reduction of labor. Therefore development of construction robots is being concentrated with the high development of information technology and Intelligent Excavating System(IES) project had been launched by ministry of land, transportation, and maritime affairs as one way of construction technology revolution business. This study introduces the final goal and the research progress until second year of IES.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
• /
• 2008.06a
• /
• pp.491-492
• /
• 2008

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute Of Construction Engineering and Management
• /
• 2007.11a
• /
• pp.197-204
• /
• 2007

Nowadays, the construction industry is suffering from the decrease of labor productivity caused by the lack of skilled workers and the aging labor forces. The hazardous work conditions and safety problems still exist at the construction sites. The earthwork operation is not the exception. The number of skilled earthwork equipment operators has been rapidly reduced and the equipment needs to be operated in dangerous / hazardous work sites. Thus, through the development of intelligent excavating system, Intelligent Excavating System(I.E.S) research team tries to enhance the safety of work environment, productivity, quality, and payability of the earthwork operation. It is also expected that this research contributes to the development of fundamental construction automation technologies and to the creation a new market sector.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
• /
• 2013.01a
• /
• pp.209-212
• /
• 2013

Global warming and climate change is now an important issue in every industry. Construction is not an exception. Greenhouse Gases (GHG) are emitted by construction activities such as fuel usage in construction equipment and so on. In light of this, Intelligent Excavating System (IES), which is a robotic excavator with site modeling capability, is developed by a research consortium formed in Korea to improve productivity, quality, and safety of the traditional earthwork. This paper presents that energy saving effect of IES in comparison to traditional method. Through this review, we propose a research strategy to achieve carbon reduction goals in construction industry.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
• /
• v.12 no.6
• /
• pp.130-141
• /
• 2011

The intelligent excavating system(IES), the development in South Korea of which has been underway since 2006, aims for the full-scale automation of the excavation process that includes a series of tasks such as movement, excavation and loading. The core elements to ensure the quality and safety of the automated excavation equipment include 3D modeling of terrain that surrounds the excavating robot and the technology for detecting objects accurately(i.e., for detecting the location of nearby loading trucks and humans as well as of obstacles positioned on the movement paths). Therefore the purpose of this research is to ensure the quality and safety of automated excavation detecting the objects surrounding the excavating robot via a 3D laser scanning system. In this paper, an algorithm for estimating the location, height, width, and shape of objects in the 3D-realized terrain that surrounds the location of the excavator was proposed. The performance of the algorithm was verified via tests in an actual earthwork field.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
• /
• 2009.04a
• /
• pp.226-229
• /
• 2009

굴삭기는 다양한 산업 분야에서 폭넓게 이용되고 있는 대표적인 장비임에도 불구하고 작업 환경은 매우 열악하여 굴삭 조종자는 각종 소음이나 진동, 분진에의 노출뿐만 아니라 산업재해의 위험성 또한 높다. 이러한 문제점들을 타개하기 위하여 현재 국내에서는 2006년부터 지능형굴삭시스템(Intelligent Excavating System)에 의한 자동화된 굴삭기의 개발을 위하여 연구를 진행 중에 있다. 자동화 굴삭시스템 구축에 있어서 센싱(sensing)을 통해 획득된 지형 및 주변 환경정보를 활용하여 숙련공의 휴리스틱스(heuristics)를 바탕으로 설계된 모듈을 통해 최적의 굴삭 작업 계획을 세우고, GUI (Graphic User Interface)를 제공하여 실시간 작업진행 상태 파악 및 모니터링(monitoring) 내용을 굴삭기 조종자와 공사 감독관에게 제공하는 Task Planning System의 개발은 생산성, 안전성, 작업의 품질 및 장비의 성능에도 지대한 영향을 미치며 자동화된 굴삭시스템을 개발함에 있어서 필수적으로 요구되어지는 핵심기술이다. 본 논문에서는 자동화 굴삭시스템을 위한 자동화 계획생성 시스템인 Task Planning System의 현재까지 진행된 연구 내용과 모니터링 및 작업에 대한 최소간섭을 위한 Task Planning System Interface를 소개한다.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.145-154
• /
• 2009

For developing an Automation equipment in construction, it is a key issue to develop 3D modeling technology which can be used for automatically recognizing environmental objects. Recently, for the development of "Intelligent Excavating System(IES), a research developing the real-time 3D terrain modeling technology has been implemented from 2006 in Korea and a stereo vision system is selected as the optimum technology. However, as a result of performance tests implemented in various earth moving environment, the 3D images obtained by stereo vision included considerable noise. Therefore, in this study, for getting rid of the noise which is necessarily generated in stereo image matching, the noise elimination algorithm of stereo-vision images for 3D terrain modeling was developed. The consequence of this study is expected to be applicable in developing an automation equipments which are used in field environment.

• 한국방재학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2008.02a
• /
• pp.609-612
• /
• 2008

Since most of the industries have adopted automation system, the industrial disaster has been declined sharply. Also automation system has offered many benefits such as productivity and assured quality. However, the construction industry is still relying on man power and because of this there are many victims occurring due to the industrial disaster. Construction industry has to overcome uncertainty of incidents and changing natural surroundings to actualize automation. Therefore, the efficient working plan and intelligent decision making process are needed to run more developed techniques and automations. Specially to decline the rate of industrial accidents occurred in basic construction in earth work, the automation via excavator is necessary and also the development of planning process system is too. This research is to establish Task Planning System to prevent disaster which is used for planning automated earth work.