DEVELOPMENT OF BRICKLAYING TECHNOLOGY BY ROBOTS

Abstract

The construction industry is an important indicator of development. It creates investment opportunities for various related sectors. Government of India has launched “Prime Minster awash yojna”, according to which, every citizen should have their own house by 2022. On other side, smart city projects are launched to provide economical and agronomical houses. By using conventional way, shortage of skilled labour and their safety will become major issue. To provide cost-effective solutions, it necessitates the development of bricklaying technology. The purpose of this study is to explore the possibilities of use of robots in construction industries, especially for bricklaying. The maximum effort has been taken for development of automated bricklaying technology by robots capable of building entire walls. The wall developed by this technology provides better aesthetic and strength as compare to traditionally developed wall. Online as well as offline programming is done for picking of bricks from automatic feeding mechanism followed by placing it on position defined by program. The Computer Aided Design (CAD) software (Rhino), programming software (Grasshopper) and robot command generator software (Kuka|prc) have been used to develop the programme of various complex shaped wall. This type of technology has wide potential at construction sites as it will save time and construct economical houses with minimum wastage. Programming through CAD software has add-on advantage that it is illustrative and has the potential to detect collision as well as inaccuracies immediately. Furthermore, simulation like reachable workspace, joints motion and path decision can be done in software 3D virtual environment and code generated by Kuka|Prc has been directly uploaded to robot to execute the task. This thesis also contains the brief details of Kuka kr5 arc robot and its operation, brick bonding and its types. Preliminary design of bricklaying setup and estimation of torque require to run the motors of different sub-assemblies are also presented.