• 국제학술발표논문집
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• The 9th International Conference on Construction Engineering and Project Management
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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.

• Architectural research
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• 제12권2호
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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.

• 국제학술발표논문집
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• The 4th International Conference on Construction Engineering and Project Management Organized by the University of New South Wales
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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 Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing
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• 제9권3호
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• pp.85-91
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• 2008

Robot technology is a remarkably interdisciplinary research area, one that can be employed in various industrial fields as well as higher value-added fields. The construction industry, on the other hand, has been known as one of the most difficult research fields to apply robotic schemes. Therefore, applying robot technologies in the construction industry is quite a challenging topic. This paper aims to introduce the progress of automated robotic systems in construction fields, namely with respect to construction robots. While construction robots have a very wide range of application depending on the huge market size of the construction industry, there still exist a lot of problems such as highly risky working environment and inefficiency due to the labor intensive characteristic. In order to solve these problems, a variety of construction robots have been developed and, in this paper, the current state of the robotic systems for construction works and the vision of future robot technology in the construction field are introduced.

• 국제학술발표논문집
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• The 3th International Conference on Construction Engineering and Project Management
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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.

• 국제초고층학회논문집
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• 제11권2호
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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.

• 한국멀티미디어학회논문지
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• 제12권12호
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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.

• 대한기계학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한기계학회 2008년도 추계학술대회A
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• pp.1603-1608
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• 2008

Powered robotic exoskeletons are currently under development for assisting or supporting human muscle power. Many applications using this system for the purpose of national defense system, medical support, and construction industry are now frequently introduced. In this paper, we proposed the exoskeletal wearable robotics for construction workers. First, we analyzed general work conditions at the construction site and set up target tasks through the datum. Then dominant muscles’ activity which is related with the defined target tasks was checked up. Herein, wearers’ intent signal generation methodology was introduced in order to effectively activate the proposed system. In the final part of this paper, we evaluated the capability and feasibility of the exoskeletal robotics by the electromyography (EMG) signal variance; demonstrated that robotic exoskeletons controlled by muscle activity could be useful way of assisting with construction workers.

• 대한의용생체공학회:의공학회지
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• 제29권3호
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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.

• 국제학술발표논문집
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• The 9th International Conference on Construction Engineering and Project Management
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• pp.536-542
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• 2022

Cost overruns, schedule delays, and a shortage of skilled labor are common problems the construction industry is currently experiencing. Modularization and standardization strategies have the potential to resolve the various problems mentioned above and have been applied for various construction applications for a long time. However, the level of modularization remains low, and modular construction projects have not been getting the full benefits. Thus, this review investigated the cutting-edge technologies currently being utilized to develop the modular construction field. For this paper, qualified research papers were identified using predetermined keywords from previous related research papers. Identified literature was then filtered and analyzed. According to the included reviews, several technologies are being developed for modular construction. For example, automated design and monitoring systems for modularization were developed. In addition, research labs are utilizing robotic arms for modular construction to achieve a high level of completion in the construction industry, as is seen in the manufacturing industry. Despite these efforts, more research and development are necessary because some automation technologies still require manual activities. Thus, there is great potential for further development of modularization techniques, and further research is recommended to achieve high levels of modularization.