ELSEVIER Automation in Construction 4 (1995) 45-60 Experiences with the construction of a building assembly robot a Werner Leyh Institute for Machinery in Construction, Department of Automation in Construction, University of Karlsruhe, Am Fasanengarten, D-76128 Karlsruhe, Germany - zyxwvutsrq Abstract The aim of the development was the construction of a freely programmable handling system for use as an experimental plant for various tasks in research and development in the field of overground workings where freely programmable movement and force patterns are important. The system should be suitable for building assembly work in particular. With regard to the robot technology and the assembly operations, plans which are worked out theoretically are checked here and developed further by practical experience. The handling system constructed will be called “experimental building assembly robot”. Keywords: Robot kinematics; Automatic crane and mobil robot; Light and heavy construction form; Electric and hydraulic drives; Direct and indirect detection of position; Modular design; Open system architecture 1. Robot configurations for application in con- struction The task of building assembly robots is the erection of buildings or at least parts of buildings. Such robots need a large radius of action. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGF 1.1. Two possible schemes: Automatic crane or mobile robot This large radius of action can be achieved by two different possibilities: the automatic crane concept which provides a working area above the construction site (large solution) and the mobile robot concept with which the assembly elements are transported to the assembly area (small solu- tion). * Discussion is open until October 1995 (please submit your discussion paper to the Editor on Construction Technologies, M.J. Skibniewski). Both procedures differ in the suitable size and weight of the assembly elements. Cranes can eas- ily lift large and therefore bulky construction elements across the construction site. Mobile robots must be able to move inside the building, which limits their weight due to the carrying capacity of the ceilings and their size due to the dimension of the rooms and doors [2]. The large solution has the advantage of favour- ing a higher degree of prefabrication. The advan- tage of the small solution consists in the fact that the assembly elements used-at least regarding their dimensions-are close to conventional bricks. Thus, common assembly elements can be used, and an integration of the “mason machine” into the existing overground working structures is facilitated [2]. An unfavourable aspect of the large solution is the fact that one cannot go back to traditional robot technology. In fact, there are various large robot projects (Emir, Lama, Geo etc.) [5-71, but 0926-5805/95/$09.50 0 1995 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved SSDI 0926-5805(94)00034-4