Universities of Trieste and Udine are developing new paradigms for robots involved in maintenance and restoration tasks. Examples of such tasks are cleaning (laser ablation, chemical treatment, mechanical ablation), painting and local monitoring. The paper is devoted to such tasks which could benefit from robots or automatic devices.
To this regard, our approach consists in exploring the combination of two robotic devices: a device with a large workspace for the gross motion (Gross Motion Robot: GMR) and a smaller robot for the fine motion (Fine Motion Robot: FMR). The GMR is less accurate than the FMR, but it posses a larger workspace. From the kinematic point of view, the FMR is attached to the final link of the GMR; this way, the FMR can be thought of as the end-effector of the GMR.
The GMR could be a robotic vehicle provided with a lifting system. The FMR could be either an industrial robot or a dedicated lighter robot. It is provided with the specific tool involved in the operation (laser, spray gun, scrubber, dispenser, etc.)
In order to operate on a large workspace like the facada of a building, the GMR has to be capable to bring the FMR to the desired position. Once the FMR completes the task locally, the GMR has to move the FMR to contiguous location.
In order to have a light and efficient FMR, a cable direct driven robot is proposed.
