Multidisciplinary design process observations of a "train front cab cleaning robot" project

This thesis presents an observation of the designed development process of a train cab front cleaning robot that was demonstrated by building a scaled prototype which was presented during the robotics and autonomous systems dissemination event held by RRUKA. The design process consisted of the systems, mechanical, and software designs which were completed in a multidisciplinary engineering project. Self-reflective observation was conducted to identify problems in decision making, lack of expertise which led to delays, cost increase of the project. The challenges of a multidisciplinary academic design project were addressed during the integration phase when all the system came together in order to build the robot. The problems faced during the project were categorised into external, managerial, logistical, and design issues, which were in turn analysed through

Systems and conceptual design of a train cab front cleaning robot

This paper presents and briefly describes the methodology used to get the systems and conceptual design of a train cab front cleaning robot. While the sides of the trains are cleaned by a mechanised washer, the cab fronts are cleaned manually which imply a number of health and safety issues. The aim of this project is first to carry out an analysis of the current procedures in order to detect the possible gaps in the process, generating a list of requirements that will make possible the conceptual design of a cleaning system that fulfil those requirements. The proposed solution includes the division of the system in various subsystems where different solutions for each subsystem will be considered, analysed and selected as a final option to develop a prototype. This paper focuses in the main structure of the robot that holds the end-effector; different conceptual designs are shown that comply with the requirements set in the systems design

Automation of train cab front cleaning with a robot manipulator

In this letter we present a control and trajectory tracking approach for wiping the train cab front panels, using a velocity controlled robotic manipulator and a force/torque sensor attached to its end effector, without using any surface model or vision-based surface detection. The control strategy consists in a simultaneous position and force controller, adapted from the operational space formulation, that aligns the cleaning tool with the surface normal, maintaining a set-point normal force, while simultaneously moving along the surface. The trajectory tracking strategy consists in specifying and tracking a two dimensional path that, when projected onto the train surface, corresponds to the desired pattern of motion. We first validated our approach using the Baxter robot to wipe a highly curved surface with both a spiral and a raster scan motion patterns. Finally, we implemented the same approach in a scaled robot prototype, specifically designed by ourselves to wipe a 1/8 scaled version of a train cab front, using a raster scan pattern