Emerging robotics technology may soon help construction companies and contractors create buildings in less time at higher quality and at lower costs.

Purdue University innovators developed and are testing a novel construction robotic system that uses an innovative mechanical design with advances in computer vision sensing technology to work in a construction setting.

The technology was developed with support from the National Science Foundation.

"Our work helps to address workforce shortages in the construction industry by automating key construction operations," said Jiansong Zhang, an assistant professor of construction management technology in the Purdue Polytechnic Institute.

"On a construction site, there are many unknown factors that a construction robot must be able to account for effectively. This requires much more advanced sensing and reasoning technologies than those commonly used in a manufacturing environment."

The Purdue team's custom end effector design allows for material to be both placed and fastened in the same operation using the same arm, limiting the amount of equipment that is required to complete a given task.

Computer vision algorithms developed for the project allow the robotic system to sense building elements and match them to building information modeling (BIM) data in a variety of environments, and keep track of obstacles or safety hazards in the system's operational context.

"By basing the sensing for our robotic arm around computer vision technology, rather than more limited-scope and expensive sensing systems, we have the capability to complete many sensing tasks with a single affordable sensor," Zhang said. "This allows us to implement a more robust and versatile system at a lower cost."

Undergraduate researchers in Zhang's Automation and Intelligent Construction (AutoIC) Lab helped create this robotic technology.

The innovators worked with the Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization to patent the technology.

Related Links
Purdue University
All about the robots on Earth and beyond!

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

How modern robots are developed
Moscow, Russia (SPX) Feb 04, 2021
Today, neuroscience and robotics are developing hand in hand. Mikhail Lebedev, Academic Supervisor at HSE University's Centre for Bioelectric Interfaces, spoke about how studying the brain inspires the development of robots. Robots are interesting to neuroscience and neuroscience is interesting to robots - this is what the article 'Neuroengineering challenges of fusing robotics and neuroscience' was about in the journal Science Robotics. Such collaborative development contributes to progress in bo ... read more