Publications / 1992 Proceedings of the 9th ISARC, Tokyo, Japan
The paper examines the economic implications of performing interior building tasks with the aid of specially adapted robots. The analysis is based on full-scale experiments with TAMIR Technion Autonomous Multi-purpose Interior Robot in recent years. Three interior finishing tasks are included in the economic evaluation: (a) painting or plastering of walls and ceilings, (b) tile setting on walls, and (c) building of interior walls and partitions. All three applications were performed and perfected in full-scale within fairly controlled laboratory conditions, which can be extrapolated to real-life site conditions. The paper presents, in economic terms, various aspects of the robotic execution (e.g. travelling, calibration ,productive work , etc ) of these tasks with necessary complementary manual works, based on actual measurements of performance rates, and rigorous estimates of all cost items. The economic comparison of robotic versus manual performance is presented, pertaining to typical residential and office buildings. Due to space limitations, the first application, painting, is analyzed in great detail, while the other three plastering, tile setting and wall building - are analyzed in a concise manner.