Development of a novel post-construction quality assessment robot system

Abstract

Utilizing construction quality standards for almost perfect building projects ensures future marketability of projects, customer satisfaction and maximization of asset value. This paper describes a novel robot system to autonomously assess the post-construction quality of buildings which is currently done manually by using human inspectors. However, manual inspection always has the disadvantages, such as labile inspection accuracy, being time consuming and indistinct recording. As a novel solution to the aforementioned drawbacks, a mobile robot is equipped with a laser scanner, a thermal camera, an inclinometer and a RGB camera to achieve an autonomous assessment system. This proposed system can assess five types of defects: evenness, alignment, cracks, hollowness, and inclination. A movable trolley with different mechanisms are designed to mount and integrate all these sensors. Its mechanical design with four motors and one linear actuator, which are installed to increase the measurement range of sensors, is also presented. The experimental tests show that the proposed system has a great potential in construction quality assessment area in building sector.