Pipe manipulator enhancements for increased automation

Piping commonly makes up 20–30% of the installed cost of a process plant. The prospects for making piping erection a repetitive, efficient process create a new demand for powerful, specialized pipe erection equipment. A pipe manipulator has been developed which is an adapation of a 20 ton rough terrain hydraulic crane, consisting of an attachment to the main boom. This paper explores desirable enhancements to the pipe manipulator to allow for increased automation, with an emphasis on fully automatic manipulator desirable new features. Three prime issues are discussed: management of the local state of the manipulator arm, with incremental development of an arm motion control system; management of the global state of the manipulator, with a large scale manipulator metrology system; and navigation in a construction environment.