Autonomous Navigation of a Drywall-Sanding Mobile Manipulator

Nowadays, many building contractors use modular construction, where various parts of a building are partially or completely built on an assembly line and then put together on the delivery site. Building interior modules often involve building and finishing plasterboard walls, including closing joints between panels and hiding fasteners or defects. To do so, a gypsum-based compound is applied, let to dry, and sanded iteratively to achieve a regular surface. This produces a considerable amount of fine dust, which can be a nuisance, especially in the closed space of a manufacturing plant. In this project, we are investigating how a mobile robot can automatically scan a room and position itself to perform the sanding task using a 7 degrees-of-freedom manipulator arm. This project builds on previous successful result in 2D sanding surface identification and sanding tool control, and aims at producing a complete solution for 3D environments.

Faculty Supervisor:

François Ferland

Student:

Partner:

RCM modulaire

Discipline:

Computer science

Sector:

Manufacturing

University:

Université de Sherbrooke

Program: