Ceiling Beam Screw Removal Using a Robotic Manipulator

The decreasing availability of skilled labor has led to the desire for supplementing workers with robot assistants that can reduce their workload. The Japanese government has undertaken a project to reduce the time and effort required to demolish a building interior by developing robot assistants th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Advanced robotics 2011-01, Vol.25 (11-12), p.1451-1472
Main Authors: Biggs, Geoffrey, Kotoku, Tetsuo, Tanikawa, Tamio
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Automation
Beams (structural)
Ceilings
CONSTRUCTION ROBOTICS
DEMOLITION ROBOTICS
ROBOT CONTROL
Robotics
Robots
RT-MIDDLEWARE
Screws
SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE
Tasks
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Summary:The decreasing availability of skilled labor has led to the desire for supplementing workers with robot assistants that can reduce their workload. The Japanese government has undertaken a project to reduce the time and effort required to demolish a building interior by developing robot assistants that can perform the more physically demanding tasks. These include a robot to assist in removing ceiling-mounted equipment and a robot that uses a novel water-jet approach to cut down suspended ceiling tiles. Within this project, a missing component is the removal of the screws from the suspended ceiling beams. This is a physically demanding task, but also repetitive and so suitable for automation. This paper describes a robot to perform the task of removing the screws from the suspended ceiling beams. The robot uses a specially designed tool mounted at the end of an arm. This tool removes screws by turning them between two rollers. The tool is moved down the beam in a single motion, allowing it to remove many screws fast with little operator interaction. RT-Middleware is used as the implementation architecture.
ISSN:0169-1864
1568-5535
DOI:10.1163/016918611X579484