Geometry and Domain Modelling for Construction Robots

Construction robots operate in an environment very different from that of manufacturing robots. This environment is less structured. more complex and more dynamic than is the norm in manufacturing. In addition. construction robots are inherently mobile, as they are engaged in building or maintaining an immobile structure whihc is large compared to their dimensions. Another complicating factor is the uniqueness of actions that must be taken by a construction robot: the number of special conditions that may eist in buildings is large. All of these differences provide arguments for two related capabilities that are required of construction robots: the ability to reason about and to model their environment. In this paper we present current work at Carnegie-Mellon University which addresses the problems of geometric reasoning and domain modelling in the specific context of knowledge based expert systems.