Online Catalog Development at the University of Guelph

published or submitted for publicatio

Integrating data from 3D CAD and 3D cameras for Real-Time Modeling

In a reversal of historic trends, the capital facilities industry is expressing an increasing desire for automation of equipment and construction processes. Simultaneously, the industry has become conscious that higher levels of interoperability are a key towards higher productivity and safer projects. In complex, dynamic, and rapidly changing three-dimensional (3D) environments such as facilities sites, cutting-edge 3D sensing technologies and processing algorithms are one area of development that can dramatically impact those projects factors. New 3D technologies are now being developed, with among them 3D camera. The main focus here is an investigation of the feasibility of rapidly combining and comparing – integrating – 3D sensed data (from a 3D camera) and 3D CAD data. Such a capability could improve construction quality assessment, facility aging assessment, as well as rapid environment reconstruction and construction automation. Some preliminary results are presented here. They deal with the challenge of fusing sensed and CAD data that are completely different in nature

The Current State and Future Directions of Industrial Robotic Arms in Modular Construction

Industrial robotic arms are widely adopted in numerous industries for manufacturing automation under factory settings, which eliminates the limitations of manual labor and provides significant productivity and quality benefits. The U.S. modular construction industry, despite having similar controlled factory environments, still heavily relies on manual labor. Thus, this study investigates the U.S., Canada, and Europe-based leading modular construction companies and research labs implementing industrial robotic arms for manufacturing automation. The investigation mainly considered the current research scope, industry state, and constraints, as well as identifying the types and specifications of the robotic arms in use. First, the study investigated well-recognized modular building associations, the Modular Building Institute (MBI), and renowned architecture design magazine, Dezeen to gather industry updates. The authors discovered one university lab and a few companies that adopted Switzerland-based robotic arms, ABB. Researching ABB robotics led to the discovery of ABB’s competitor, Germany-based KUKA robotic arms. Consequently, research extended to the companies and labs adopting KUKA models. In total, this study has identified seven modular companies and four research labs. All companies employed robotic arms and gantry robot combinations in a production-line-like system for partial automation, and some adopted design standardization for optimization. The common goal among the labs was to achieve greater flexibility and full automation with robotic arms. This study will help companies better implement robotic arm automation by providing recommendations from investigating its current industry status