Robot for interior-finishing works

A multipurpose interior-finishing robot offers a conceptual alternative to single-purpose construction robots, which are already employed in practice. The robot could be adapted to various tasks, e.g., painting, plastering, building, or tiling, by modification of its effector and control mechanism. The paper addresses two main subjects: (1) It presents an overview of the interior-finishing robot development process; and (2) it describes the methodology and results of one of the more important development stages—the selection of the configuration of the robot’s arm. The development process of the robot included a number of interrelated studies: formulation of the robot performance specifications, the ensuing preliminary design, planning of robot activity in a building, analysis of the robot configuration, adaptation of building technology to the robot’s constraints, and physical experiments with robotic performance of building tasks. The analysis aimed at selection of a preferred configuration for the robot’s arm involves several major variables: the configuration of the joints, the reach of the arm, the length of its links, and the velocity attainable at the joints. The criteria employed in the selection of the preferred alternative were the general efficiency of operation, the productivity, and the cost of the arm.