Development of a Cartesian Painter Robot for Construction Industry

Nowadays robots are widely used in many applications such as in factories, the mining industries, the automobile industry etc. Currently, the application of robot is still not widely implemented in construction industry. In construction industry, robots are designed to increase speed and improve the accuracy of construction field operations. It can also be used to do hazardous and dangerous job in construction. For example, house painting is done manually. This process can be simplified using a special dedicated robot. It is very difficult and troublesome for human to work in an upright position especially for painting, cleaning and screwing in the ceiling for a long time. Painting in an upright position is also very dangerous for the eyes. To overcome this difficulty, a painter robot system is proposed and developed. The main objective of this project is to develop a three-degree of freedom (DOF) painter robot and its intelligent system. In order to achieve the main objective, the following works are carried out: Development of the mechanical structure of the robot. This includes the positioning module and end-effector module. The positioning module is divided into three parts namely, X-axis module, Y-axis module and Z- axis module. Development of the electrical and electronic system of the robot. These include its power distribution system, sensor system, motor driver system, electro-pneumatic system and programmable logic controller and development of the controlling program of the robot. The proposed painter robot has three degree of freedom (DOF). For X direction, a single-phase induction motor and a chain-sprocket mechanism are used. Two limit switches and two electronic sensors are used to limit the movement i n X direction. Another sensor is used to position the robotic arm along the X direction. For Y direction, two limit switches are used to limit the movement in Y direction. Two sensors are used to protect the robotic arm along the Y direction. The single-phase motor with an inverter is utilized to control the speed of the robot in Y direction. For Z direction, a parallelogram structure and a ball-screw mechanism are used in this project. A single-phase brake motor and a photoelectric sensor are used to control the position in Z direction . Two limit switches are used to limit the movement in Z direction. The proposed robot is used to paint the ceiling of the houses. The paint i s sprayed by the robot automatically using the pneumatic system. The software part involves the design and development of the system control software. The system control software i s created using FP WIN OR PLC programming software. This project implements the Matsushita NAIS FPO programmable logic controller (PLC) to control the overall system of the machine. From the tests conducted on the painter robot operating according to its original plan

Design and development of a slot-less permanent magnet linear motor using permeance analysis method for spray application

Mostly in industrial spray applications pneumatic systems are utilized for operating the automatic spray gun. Linear motor can be one of the alternatives for triggering the spray gun instead of pneumatic systems due to its accuracy in valve positioning according to the required flow rate. From this point of view a tubular linear permanent magnet motor has been designed using Permeance Analysis Method (PAM) and developed. Three permeance models have been developed for PAM analysis. Among these three models, only one model is selected as a PAM model which can be produced the required amount of thrust for triggering the spray gun. After selecting the PAM thrust model, the size of the motor has been optimized by analyzing the effect of thrust constant, electrical and mechanical time constant. Finally based on the optimized data, the motor has been fabricated and tested that shows the good argument with the analysis result

Process involved in designing of an intelligent additional track mechanism tracked vehicle for swamp peat terrain

Different types of off road vehicles are widely used in agriculture, oil industry, mining and military operations but none of them can effectively operate over the swamp peat terrain because of its low bearing capacity of 7kN/m 2. Segmented rubber tracked vehicle and intelligent air-cushion system tracked vehicle were developed in Malaysia for swamp peat terrain.16kN/m2 of ground pressure was exerted by using the segmented rubber tracked vehicle during field operation therefore could not be operated efficiently. The air-cushion tracked vehicle increased the floatation capacity but at the same time increased the frictional effects therefore the tracks of the vehicle easily slipped out from the traction wheels during operation. Addressing these issues an intelligent additional track mechanism for tracked vehicle has been designed to improve the mobility over swamp peat terrain where the additional track would be increased the ground surface area and reduced the vehicle ground pressure. This paper presents the process involved in designing the intelligent additional track mechanism tracked vehicle for transportation of agricultural and industrial goods on the swamp peat terrain with bearing capacity of 7kN/m2. The mechanical design comprises of track vehicle frame with track mechanism. Additional track mechanism with Fuzzy expert system. The design parameters are optimized using developed mathematical model based on the dynamics and kinematics behavior of the vehicle. In order to increase the vehicle contact surface area and reduce the surface contact pressure the additional track mechanism is designed in such way that it can be folded and unfolded from its position by using the ball-screw scissor lift mechanism. While, Fuzzy expert system is used to control the movement of the lift mechanism based on 70mm critical sinkage of vehicle detected from a set of sensors. The completed to vehicle system would be used for off-road applications as required

Graphene-based nanocomposites and their fabrication, mechanical properties and applications

Graphene, the thinnest two-dimensional atomic material, has immerged as a revolutionary material and sparked a flurry of research and innovation owing to its outstanding mechanical, electrical, optical and thermal properties as well as high specific surface area. Graphenebased materials and their composites possess promising applications in a wide range of fields such as sensors, actuators, electronics, biomedical aids and membranes. In this review paper, a critical and comprehensive review has been carried out on the synthesis process and mechanical properties of graphene and graphene-based nanocomposites. Firstly, the concept and structure of graphene materials are discussed then different synthesis techniques and their advantages and limitations have been reviewed. The addition of graphene and its derivatives in producing different polymer and metal-based nanocomposite as well as fabricating hybrid nanocomposite has been thoroughly reviewed. Almost all the papers show that the presence of graphene even at very low loadings can provide significant improvement to the final material. Besides, other parameters that affect the nanocomposite are thoroughly reviewed. Furthermore, the perspective application of graphene materials and its nanocomposite in different promising fields has been discussed

Modelling and simulation of electric drive vehicle based on space vector modulation technique and field oriented control strategy

Recently, the electric vehicle has emerged as a powerful platform for mitigating energy crisis and reducing environmental pollution in the transportation sector. The major drawbacks of electrically powered automobile that limits its competitiveness with the internal combustion engine counterpart are the vehicle driving range and battery energy capacity. Hence, limited energy storage warrants the need for an effective and efficient energy utilisation in the overall system. This paper uses Field Oriented Control algorithm and Space Vector Modulation technique to enhance and to optimise energy saving at the same time improve the vehicle induction motor efficiency. A simple electric vehicle drive with vehicle dynamic and tractive loads for motor driving load were modelled and simulated using Matlab/Simulink. Simulation results show that modelled vehicle speed satisfied the acceleration index for the electric vehicle

Design and optimization of the housing of spray unit of a linear motor operated spray gun

Pneumatic system is normally used to trigger the automatic spray gun for conventional spray operations. Highly skilled labors and a number of adjustable knobs are required to produce the high quality coating works using the conventional automatic spray gun which is cost intensive. Therefore, linear motor operated multiple spray operations spray gun has been developed. This spray gun consists of two spray units, an air control and supply unit and a triggering unit to carry out the multiple spray operations. This paper focuses on the design optimization and fabrication of the housing of the spray units which hold fluid nozzles, air nozzles, an assembly cap, a needle valve or a ball valve. In the air less and air assisted airless spray systems, high pressurized liquid is passed through the nozzle which is held by the housing of the spray unit. Before entering into the nozzle, the high pressurized liquid is passed through the housing. For the simplicity of the analysis, it is assumed that the housing is an open-ended pressure vessel. From the analysis, dimensions and material selection have been optimized and finally the spray units have been fabricated and tested. During the performance test it is seen that satisfactory transfer efficiency of spray operation has been achieved by using newly developed spray housing of the spray units, which proves the stability of the spray housing during high pressure operation

Design of entertainment mobile robot: IDAP

Robotic system applications have advanced dramatically over the past few years. This paper presents the IDAP Robot, which is designed and fabricated by taking the first Malaysia robot games festival or Robofest 2002. Development of the IDAP Robot based on the contest regulation to place out the beach balls into the cylinder tubes. This paper focuses on strategies motion of the IDAP robot. The strategies that involve are; it can carry out eighteen beach balls in one time and it is able to place all the cylinder tubes in one track within 3 minutes. The structure design of the robot is divided into two parts namely hardware and software parts. The hardware part involves the design and development of the platform module, storage module, arm manipulator module, power supply module, permanent magnet DC motor, sensing system, control panel, circuit protection and programmable logic controller (PLC). The platform module is divided into three parts namely, Y-axis design, Z-axis design and θ-axis design

Surface molecular tailoring using pH-switchable supramolecular dendron-ligand assemblies

[Image: see text] The rational design of materials with tailored properties is of paramount importance for a wide variety of biological, medical, electronic and optical applications. Here we report molecular level control over the spatial distribution of functional groups on surfaces utilizing self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of pH-switchable surface-appended pseudorotaxanes. The supramolecular systems were constructed from a poly(aryl ether) dendron-containing a dibenzo[24]crown-8 (DB24C8) macrocycle and a thiol ligand-containing a dibenzylammonium recognition site and a fluorine end group. The dendron establishes the space (dendritic effect) that each pseudorotaxane occupies on the SAM. Following SAM formation, the dendron is released from the surface by switching off the noncovalent interactions upon pH stimulation, generating surface materials with tailored physical and chemical properties

Design and development of a programmable painting robot for houses and buildings

Nowadays robots are widely used in many applications such as military, medical application, factories, entertainment, automobile industries etc. However, the application of robot is still not widely implemented in construction industry. In construction industry, robots are designed to increase speed and improve the accuracy of construction field operations. It can also be used to do hazardous and dangerous jobs in construction. For example, currently house painting is done manually. This process can be simplified using a special dedicated robot. It is very difficult and troublesome for human being to work in an upright position, especially for painting, cleaning and screwing in the ceiling for a long time. Painting in an upright position is also very dangerous for the eyes. To overcome this difficulty, a programmable painter robotic system is proposed, designed and developed. This paper describes all the processes that are involved in designing and constructing the proposed painter robot. The system is divided into two main parts namely hardware and software. In hardware part, mechanical design, fabrication, electrical and electronics system are described and in software part, control algorithm is explained. The testing results indicate that the performance of the painter robot is better compared with that of using manual painting technique