Development of armour stone covering robots for breakwater construction

Abstract

This research develops two types of heavy robots to cover breakwater with armour stones. The robots assemble the armour stones weighing over two tons on the surface of the breakwater to protect it from storming waves. For construction above sea level, a robot named Stone Man is developed, whereas for construction below sea level, a robot named Stone Diver is built. In addition, Underwater Filming Device (UFD) is designed to film objects in turbid water. Stone Man is designed by a parallel mechanism which enables to handle heavy armour stones dexterously. Stone Diver is developed to work in subsea by waterproofing Stone Man. UFD films objects through the clean water in a transparent box. Stone Diver works with UFD to assemble armour stones in turbid water. Its efficiency depends on the operator's skill but Stone Diver is expected to have much higher efficiency in deep water where human divers are unable to work. Furthermore, while the work is being carried out, UFD is capturing a live video of working process which is recorded for supervisory data so that the work quality can be easily managed.