Autonomous aerial additive manufacturing and infrastructure repair
File(s)
Author(s)
Orr, Lachlan
Type
Thesis
Abstract
There is significant interest in the use of aerial robots in construction. Additionally, additive manufacturing is being adopted increasingly by the construction industry to reduce waste and increase design freedom. Numerous studies have explored the use of aerial systems in applications such as sensor placement and simple repair work have been explored. However, the ability of these systems to operate in real environments without reliance on an external localisation system or low-level guidance from a human pilot is yet to be fully demonstrated. Recent research has pointed to the promise of aerial vehicles for large scale aerial additive manufacturing. This thesis describes the development of large aerial robots, design and kinematics of manipulators for interaction with the environment and structural damage detection and trajectory planning. The aim of this work is to develop a fully autonomous aerial repair and manufacturing framework to enable aerial construction systems to operate in outdoor, unconstructed environments such as construction sites. This study has involved using drones to construct two 2m tall polyurethane foam towers, exploration of multiple novel designs of aerial parallel manipulators and the development of a large coaxial tricopter. The tricopter is capable of carrying payloads of up to 10 kg in addition to supporting a manipulator capable of stabilisation in 6 degrees of freedom and a 3D LiDAR enabling precise localisation and mapping of the environment. Additionally, a system for fully automated detection of damage to a structure and repair by extruding material (with an absolute precision of less than 30 mm) is developed and tested. It is anticipated that this work will be used, in the near future, as the basis of a large scale, fully automated, outdoor aerial construction demonstration.
Version
Open Access
Date Issued
2023-08-04
Date Awarded
2023-12-01
License URL
Advisor
Kovac, Mirko
Sponsor
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
Grant Number
EP/R009953/1
Publisher Department
Aeronautics
Publisher Institution
Imperial College London
Qualification Level
Doctoral
Qualification Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)