Basic study of smart robotic construction lift for increasing resource lifting efficiency in high-rise building construction

Most high-rise buildings are erected in downtown areas, where on-site storage space for construction materials is typically insufficient due to limited spaces. Just-In-Time (or JIT) concept has been adopted so that necessary stock materials and storage spaces can be reduced; for high-rise buildings, however, transporting materials vertically using lifts still poses significant efficiency because its efficiency drops exponentially as the building height grows. Most of current efforts to counter this problem mainly focus on developing smart tower cranes, whereas lift has gathered less attention in this respect. This research aims to develop a robotic lift capable of autonomous operations at night time, based on the intelligent lift development toolkit which was previously developed by the authors. It is now in a preliminary study phase. This study proposes a concept model of the robotic lift system and its operation plans, utilizing several technologies such as an optimized material dispatch algorithm and ubiquitous sensor networks (USNs). The proposed system can be relayed to the horizontal transportation robots located in each floor to move the lifted materials to their destinations. The outcome from this study will contribute to the improvement of the overall efficiency of the high-rise building construction logistics and space constraints of the construction site. It is also expected that the mechanical performance of the existing lift system can be benefited from this research. When overall system development, including optimized operation planning model and monitoring subsystem, is finished, it will contribute to innovation of the construction technology.