Technological enhancement and creation of a computer-aided construction system for the shotcreting robot

This paper addresses the technological enhancement of the shotcreting robot. The shotcreting robot has an arm with six degrees of freedoms, which is remotely controlled by an operator. Due to current utilization drawbacks, an improvement plan has been developed in two stages, First, the control system of the semi-automated robot was improved by reducing the number of joysticks from six to two, incorporating a real-time computer simulation model enhanced to identify model feasibility. Second, the robot was enhanced from semi-automated to fully automated. Thus, an automated profile measuring instrument is used to measure the excavated surface and a simulation model calculates the nozzle path for shotcreting. The automated shotcreting robot was completed by integrated the graphical model with the robot control system. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.