Concept of a robot for interior building trades by the example of wall slits in masonry

This article that is taking pattern from a presentation held at the 13th ISARC in Tokyo deals with the automation of interior building trades by the use of robots. Therefore, the specifications of a robot system for the manufacturing of wall slits, as a preliminary step of wiring and electrical installations in masonry construction, will be defined. The main motivation to reduce the manual tasks is the great difference between the high qualification of workers (especially electricians) and partly the unpretending hard work that does not require such a professional education in the same way. So, the focus of the article lays on a manufacturing process that is suitable for automation, kinematical concepts for the robot and the development of an appropriate end effector. The requirements of the closeness of space and light weight result in the necessity of other kinematical concepts and structures, because common structures of industrial robots are not suitable. The presented kinematics are based on linear components as best solution to cope with the two-dimensional area and a special developed wrist to bridge the existing clearance volumes of the main axes and to allow the accessibility of corners. Furthermore, the robot has to be able to reach working heights near to ceilings and simultaneously to pass a door. Besides this, a robotized process will be explained in order to reduce manual refinishing operations as much as possible because of economical reasons. Consequently, the design of an appropriate end effector based on a joint cutter will be shown. Finally, the sequence of work preparation tasks for the set-up of the robot will be described and a proof for the efficiency of the system will be given.