Structure Design and Solution of Kinematics of Robot Manipulator for 3D Concrete Printing

In relation to automated 3D concrete construction printing, a structure design of a suitable robot manipulator is presented as well as analytical solutions of related kinematics. The proposed structure has a higher number of degrees of freedom which can significantly increase the dexterity of a robot end-effector carrying a printing head. It should perform a continual motion along complicated large-scale printing trajectories. The related robot kinematics is derived by a novel representation of working layers in the complex plane using exponential functions. It leads to an explicit derivation of kinematic equations. The theoretical results are presented by examples of motion trajectories with typical configurations of the proposed structure.

Automated summary

This paper presents a suitable structure design of a robot manipulator for automated 3D concrete construction printing, as well as analytical solutions for its kinematics. The proposed structure has a higher number of degrees of freedom, which enhances the flexibility of the robot's end-effector carrying the printing head. The paper also derives the robot kinematics using a novel representation of working layers in the complex plane and provides examples to illustrate the theoretical results.