Development of a Semi-automatic Cost-Effective Façade Cleaning System

Nowadays the number of buildings with large glass or flat façades is increasing all over the World. These façades must be periodically cleaned with manual procedures that supposed high cost and risk for the workers that have to develop their work under heavy conditions. Although the cleaning cost depends a lot on several factors as the façade characteristics, the cleaning periodicity or the total surface to be cleaned, the average cost is € 8-9 per square meter. A typical building of 12.000 m2 supposes a total façade cleaning cost of € 100.000 and this task is usually done every year. The use of an automatic or semi-automatic cleaning system can lead to around 60% savings over existing practice (Gambao & Hernando, 2006).Automation and robotics technologies allow environmentally friendly façade cleaning, helping to reduce the cost of these tasks. Additionally, these systems overcome the current worker safety problems associated with difficult and dangerous access, contributing to a zero injury and fatality working practices (Elkman et al., 2002).Because of the increasing number of high-rise buildings and large glass façades and the resulting problem of safe and effective cleaning, a lot of effort has taken place in the last few years to develop automated cleaning systems. The majority of systems conceived and developed thus far are in Japan and Europe (Schraft et al., 2000) (Gambao & Balaguer, 2002).The first automated cleaning systems for high-rise building were used in Japan in the middle of the 80’s. These systems were mainly designed for use on specific buildings. For safety purposes or in order to guide the robot’s movement on the façade, they often required additional construction such as guidance rails to the facade. The practical application of the existing systems mostly failed because of either a weak safety concept, poor cleaning quality, required additional construction to the façade, or simply due to expensive initial or operating costs. At this time, there is only one known system that is in continuous practical operation. That is the automatic system for the cleaning of the vaulted glass hall of the Leipzig Trade Fair, Germany (Figure 1), which was developed by the Fraunhofer Institute IFF, Germany (Elkman et al., 1999). It must also beaded that this system is only applicable to this particular building. Many of previous developed robotic façade cleaning has been designed to operate in a complete automatic way (one example is in figure 2). Although some of these systems have successfully solved the numerous technical problems related to façade climbing operations, in most of the cases they cannot be practically used due to the extremely expensive operating cost of such a complex machines. Many remain as prototypes that are very good demonstrators of high technology but cannot be introduced in the market

A simulation environment for bio-inspired heterogeneous chained modular robots

This paper presents a new simulation environment aimed at heterogeneous chained modular robots. This simulator allows testing the feasibility of the design, checking how modules are going to perform in the field and verifying hardware, electronics and communication designs before the prototype is built, saving time and resources. The paper shows how the simulator is built and how it can be set up to adapt to new designs. It also gives some examples of its use showing different heterogeneous modular robots running in different environments

Hammer: an Android based application for end-user industrial robot programming

This paper presents a novel tablet based end-user interface for industrial robot programming (called Hammer). This application makes easier to program tasks for industrial robots like polishing, milling or grinding. It is based on the Scratch programming language, but specifically design and created for Android OS. It is a visual programming concept that allows non-skilled programmer operators to create programs. The application also allows to monitor the tasks while it is being executed by overlapping real time information through augmented reality. The application includes a teach pendant screen that can be customized according to the operator needs at every moment

Hammer: robot programming interface for common people

This video shows the main features of Hammer, a tablet-based end-user interface for industrial robot programming, in a real environment: a robotic cell created for the Hephestos European project. Hammer is an Android application that makes easier to program tasks for industrial robots like polishing, milling or grinding. It is based on the Scratch programming language, but specifically design and created for Android OS. It is a visual programming concept that allows non-skilled operators to create programs. The application allows to monitor the tasks while it is being executed by overlapping real time information through augmented reality. The application includes a teach pendant screen that can be customized according to the operator needs at every moment. The application is designed for online programming and reprogramming; easy use of learn-by-demonstration methods; easy connection with the robot control and sensors systems; and safety-system integration. It aims to be intuitive, easy to use, and simple. The application has four main parts: customized teach pendant, robot programming IDE and simulator, manual-guidance interface and augmented-reality-based-monitoring system

Background-Subtraction Algorithm Optimization for Home Camera-Based Night-Vision Fall Detectors

Background subtraction is one of the key pre-processing steps necessary for obtaining relevant information from a video sequence. The selection of a background subtraction algorithm and its parameters is also important for achieving optimal detection performance, especially in night environments. The research contribution presented in this paper is the identification of the optimal background subtractor algorithm in indoor night-time environments, with a focus on the detection of human falls. 30 background subtraction algorithms are analyzed to determine which has the best performance in indoor night-time environments. Genetic algorithms have been applied to identify the best background subtraction algorithm, to optimize the background subtractor parameters and to calculate the optimal number of pre- and post-processing operations. The results show that the best algorithm for fall-detection in indoor, night-time environments is the LBAdaptativeSOM, optimal parameters and processing operations for this algorithm are reported

Robohealth: smart room interface for hospital patients

The Robohealth project is a coordinated project whose main objective is the development of assistance and rehabilitation robots in hospital intelligent environments, contributing, in this way, to the improvement of the National Health System. This article presents one of the subprojects of the Robohealth project whose objective is the development of intelligent environments for patients living with robots that actively support people in their daily lives in domestic, professional and public environments. In these intelligent spaces a new, intuitive and immersive interaction between the environment and its devices, robots and users is necessary. As a demonstrator of the developed technology, a prototype of a smart hospital room equipped with home automation equipment and a robotic assistance arm is presented

Robohealth: smart room interface for hospital patients

The Robohealth project is a coordinated project whose main objective is the development of assistance and rehabilitation robots in hospital intelligent environments, contributing, in this way, to the improvement of the National Health System. This article presents one of the subprojects of the Robohealth project whose objective is the development of intelligent environments for patients living with robots that actively support people in their daily lives in domestic, professional and public environments. In these intelligent spaces a new, intuitive and immersive interaction between the environment and its devices, robots and users is necessary. As a demonstrator of the developed technology, a prototype of a smart hospital room equipped with home automation equipment and a robotic assistance arm is presented

Current trends in reconfigurable modular robots design

This article presents a review on trends in modular reconfigurable robots, comparing the evolution of the features of the most significant robots over the years and focusing on the latest designs. These features are reconfiguration, docking, degrees of freedom, locomotion, control, communications, size, and powering. For each feature, some of the most relevant designs are presented and the current trends in the design are discussed