Development and Implementation of Troweling Robot for Concrete Floor Finishing

In the construction industry, concrete floor finishing is hard and laborious' and the number of skilled plasterers has dropped sharply. Due to these circumstances, several types of robots were developed to meet the need. But they have not spread too wideIy. Understanding the problems of these robots, we developed a new type of robot from the view point of robotized "tool". It is a compact and light-weight robot of simple operation which can be operated even by unskilled workers. In addition, it can be used from an early stage of work, or the beginning of concrete's setting, which is difficult with conventional robots. This paper describes the background of our development, its design concept, its mechanism and motion and the result of trial operations at actual construction sites and our future prospect.