A Comprehensive Performance Evaluation of Different Mobile Manipulators Used as Displaceable 3D Printers of Building Elements for the Construction Industry

Robert Guamán Rivera, Rodrigo García Alvarado, Alejandro Martínez-Rocamora and Fernando Auat Cheein
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Robert Guamán Rivera: Department of Electronics Engineering, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Valparaíso 1680, Chile
Rodrigo García Alvarado: Department of Design and theory of Architecture, Universidad de Bio-Bio, Concepción 1202, Chile
Alejandro Martínez-Rocamora: ArDiTec, Department of Architectural Constructions II, IUACC, Higher Technical School of Building Engineering, Universidad de Sevilla, Av. Reina Mercedes 4-a, 41012 Sevilla, Spain
Fernando Auat Cheein: Department of Electronics Engineering, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Valparaíso 1680, Chile

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 11, 1-17

Abstract: The construction industry is currently technologically challenged to incorporate new developments for enhancing the process, such as the use of 3D printing for complex building structures, which is the aim of this brief. To do so, we show a systematic study regarding the usability and performance of mobile manipulators as displaceable 3D printing machinery in construction sites, with emphasis on the three main different existing mobile platforms: the car-like, the unicycle and the omnidirectional (mecanum wheeled), with an UR5 manipulator on them. To evaluate its performance, we propose the printing of the following building elements: helical, square, circular and mesh, with different sizes. As metrics, we consider the total control effort observed in the robots and the total tracking error associated with the energy consumed in the activity to get a more sustainable process. In addition, to further test our work, we constrained the robot workspace thus resembling real life construction sites. In general, the statistical results show that the omnidirectional platform presents the best results –lowest tracking error and lowest control effort– for circular, helicoidal and mesh building elements; and car-like platform shows the best results for square-like building element. Then, an innovative performance analysis is achieved for the printing of building elements, with a contribution to the reduction of energy consumption.

Keywords: mobile manipulator; 3D printing; tracking trajectory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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