Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 30 (2014) 442450

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rcim

Review

Robots in the shipbuilding industry

Donghun Lee
Soongsil University, Korea

art ic l e i nf o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 17 January 2013
Received in revised form
13 February 2014
Accepted 26 February 2014
Available online 20 March 2014

In this paper, details of the uses of various robots in the shipbuilding process are provided, with an
emphasis on newer developments and applications. The current state of robot applications will be
discussed according to the priority of the shipbuilding process. First, various robots for open structures,
such as several types of welding carriages and 6-axis articulated robot manipulators, will be reviewed in
terms of their mechanisms and applications. Second, several attempts to design autonomous mobile
robotic systems for closed blocks of the double-hulled structure of a ship will be discussed in terms of
the performance characteristics of their proposed self-traveling mechanisms. Lastly, all corresponding
technologies for overcoming structural complexities in closed blocks as well as future directions of robot
automation in the shipbuilding industry are also discussed.
& 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Robot automation
Shipbuilding industry
Self-traveling mechanism
Environment recognition
Launch and recovery system

Contents
1.
2.
3.

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Robots in open structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Robots in closed structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.1.
Intelligent carriages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.2.
Mobile robots. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.3.
Modularized airtight controller. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4.
Environment recognition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.5.
Multiple robot control, launch and recovery system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Acknowledgment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1. Introduction
Over the past few decades, research on robotics has made
considerable impact on many industrial elds [38,39]. Briey, these
successful achievements of robotics research in industrial applications
can be attributed to rising labor costs, aging skilled workers, and the
inclination to avoid 3D (dirty, dangerous, and difcult) jobs in many
industries. The shipbuilding industry, which is the major concern of
this paper, is still one of the labor-intensive industries that demand
numerous skilled workers. Owing to the nature of the shipbuilding
industry, shortening the shipbuilding process should directly lead to

E-mail address: dhlee04@gmail.com

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rcim.2014.02.002
0736-5845 & 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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additional nancial rewards from ship owners and their increased

loyalty to a business. Thus, shipbuilding companies have naturally
concentrated on improving their production efciencies within their
quality assurance requirements through intensive investments in
robot automation as well as developments in shipbuilding processes
[4042]. In this section, the necessity of robot automation technologies in the shipbuilding industry will be discussed in terms of
industrial accident prevention and employment of workers, as well
as production efciency and quality.
Recently, the amount of received orders in the shipbuilding
dockyards of both Korea and China has fallen sharply. Oversupply
of vessel tonnage had a strong impact on the fall of new orders.
The aggressive promotion of the marine plant business by shipbuilders has not led to any remarkable achievements. Moreover, the

D. Lee / Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 30 (2014) 442450

Welding

Blasting

443

Painting

Double-hulled block
Transverse direction
Transverse web floors
Longitudinal
stiffeners
5,100 mm
10,920 mm
3,000 mm

Longitudinal direction

Longitudinal girders

Fig. 1. Overall view of double-hulled structure with some overhead operations needed during the shipbuilding process.
Table 1
Industrial accident rate in the Korean shipbuilding industry [1].
Year

06

07

08

09

10

Shipbuilding industry
Accident rate (%)
Industrial accident victims (person)
Death toll (person)
Average accident rate for all industries (%)

1.89
2240
48
0.77

1.55
2065
46
0.72

1.76
2375
45
0.71

1.41
2413
53
0.70

1.20
2122
47
0.69

rate of industrial accidents in the shipbuilding industry is quite a

high compared with other industries because remarkable progress
has been made on transitions to ships with double-hulled structures
(Fig. 1). Such structures were incorporated into ship hull design
because they could prevent the outow of cargo when a sudden
impact occurred on the outer hull. However, this has denitely led to
an increase in the rate of working processes inside enclosed structures, which represent quite difcult and hazardous environments to
workers. In fact, most major shipbuilding companies have readily
adopted robot automation in various shipbuilding processes such as
welding, one of the core working process in the eld. As shown in
statistics from the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency
in Table 1, applications of robot automation and improvement of
shipbuilding processes have played major roles in reducing industrial
accident rates by preventing the exposure of workers to injurious
worksites. However, the industrial accident rate remains higher than
the average for all industries. The working process in a double-hulled
structure is likely to be one of the main causes of this phenomenon.
A further issue that needs to be addressed in applying robot
automation to the shipbuilding industry is that there are tacit

Table 2
Effect of increased production in the Korean shipbuilding industry on employment [1].
Amount of increase of Coefcient of employment
production (billion)
induction (person/thousand
million)

Employment
induction effect
(person)

1006.7

6040

6.0

voices of concern for long-term decline in employment and

additional responsibilities of maintenance tasks due to the increasing role of robot automation. Such prejudices denitely lead robot
designers to difcult situations in successful eld applications of
developed robots. Statistics in the Inter-industry relation
table 2010 from the Bank of Korea suggest that improvement in
production quality through robot automation should directly lead
to improved credibility of a business, and that a 10% increase in
order quantity through improved credibility should enhance
production with 6040 additional jobs in associated industries
(Table 2). For instance, successful application of a robotic painting

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D. Lee / Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 30 (2014) 442450

system will improve the shipbuilding process in terms of fundamental human rights by reducing harsh working environment for
workers. Undoubtedly, an enhanced image or perception of
improved working conditions in shipbuilding will enable more
efcient manpower management by preventing the outow of skilled
workers. Thus, to achieve such advantages, production and R&D
departments should actively adopt cooperative attitudes toward one
another for achieving mutually supportive relationships.
As mentioned earlier, the working conditions in double-hulled
structures as well as the labor-intensive nature of shipbuilding are
likely to be one of the main causes of the high rate of industrial
accidents relative to the average rate for all industries.
Fig. 2 shows the manufacturing process used to obtain the
closed block, which is a sub-module of the double-hulled wall of
a ship. A bottom shell and an open block are assembled separately
using welding processes [2]. The bottom shell is composed of
a wide steel plate with several reinforcing longitudinal stiffeners
welded to it in parallel. The open block is inserted laterally along
the longitudinal stiffeners of the bottom shell so that each stiffener
slides into its corresponding slit to assemble the closed block. The
resulting closed block must then be welded. Finally, welding must
be performed inside the closed block along the contact boundary
of the open block and bottom shell [2]. Currently, human workers
execute this welding process, as well as painting and blasting
processes, by working inside the space enclosed by the top shell,
the bottom shell, and a pair of transverse web oors and girders.
These manual operations inside the closed block remain the most
difcult and hazardous jobs performed by human workers in the
shipbuilding industry (Fig. 3). As a result, shipbuilding companies
are placed in a difcult situation in which skilled workers
for double-hulled structures are lacking. Therefore, the need for
automated solutions based on robotic systems has been high, and
several remarkable attempts have been made.

Herein, the current state of robot applications will be discussed

according to the priority of the shipbuilding process. First, various
robots for open structures, such as typical articulated robot manipulators, will be reviewed in the next section in terms of their
applications. In addition, several attempts to design autonomous
mobile robotic systems for double-hulled structures will also be
discussed in terms of mechanisms, technologies, and management,
which need to be newly considered for structural complexity and
their environmental hazards. Lastly, future directions of robotic
research on double-hulled structures will be briey mentioned.

2. Robots in open structures

Fig. 2. Manufacturing of a closed block, which is part of the ship wall of the double
hull structure.

The hull of a ship is made of welded steel plates. As shown in

Figs. 1 and 3, numerous welding operations are required to
successfully build ship hull structures by using many pieces of
steel plate and stiffening members. First, to build an open block,
various types of welding equipments, such as 1- or 2-axis welding
carriages as well as 6-axis articulated welding robots installed on
gantries and overhead cranes, have readily played major roles in
various welding operations in shipbuilding. Before discussing
robot applications and technologies in double-hulled structures,
various types of robots for building an open block will be concisely
reviewed here in terms of their mechanisms, operational strategies, and drawbacks in the shipbuilding process.
To build solid open blocks, all boundaries among longitudinal
and transverse girders, longitudinal stiffeners, and bottom plates
are welded through combinations of manual welders and autonomous welding robots (Fig. 4). In this situation, welding carriages
have readily played major roles in efcient and robust welding
operations for long ranges of multiple-pass horizontalvertical
llet welding as well as butt welding. Here, a welding carriage is
dened as a mechanical device having 1 axis or 2 axes for the
specic purpose of welding. As shown in Table 3(a), a 1-axis
horizontal llet welding carriage can weld the contact boundaries
of the stiffeners and the bottom plate without any motion of the
welding torch along horizontal trajectories. The vertical llet
welding robot, shown in the left side of Table 3(a), can weld the
contact boundaries in the vertical direction, with a certain rotating
motion of the welding torch (i.e., weaving motion). In particular,
for both carriages, guidance wheels are used to ensure straight
driving by holding them against the stiffeners. Table 3(b) also
shows a V-ROD, a xed type of commercial welding carriage for
performing vertical weave-welding in specied ranges.
One point to note is that these carriages require careful installation for good alignment with desired welding trajectories, which is
difcult to achieve under real-world conditions. In contrast to

Fig. 3. Manual welding operation in a real-world closed block.

Fig. 4. Welding carriages in shipbuilding industry.

Turn Over

Open block

Bottom Shell

Match slits with stiffeners

Closed Block
(Needs to be welded)

D. Lee / Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 30 (2014) 442450

Table 3
Commercialized welding carriages [19, 20].
(a) 1-axis carriage (left) and 2-axis
welding carriage (right)

445

Controller cables
from the ceiling
Control and power cables
from the overhead crane

(b) Vertical weaving carriage for

llet welding, V-ROD

Control
panel
Wire spool
6-axis welding robots
U-shaped parts
6-axis welding robots
Moving direction
Wire spool

robots xed to factory oors, these types of robots require frequent

installation and re-installation for different work pieces. Even for
the same work piece, the relative position between the work piece
and the installed robot will vary depending on how the robot is
installed. Moreover, even for the same given task, the detailed
shapes and conditions of the work piece vary within a certain range.
Thus, these circumstances require a exible and tailored set of
sensory systems, including an effective seam-tracking algorithm
that enables the robots to plan their paths along the actual welding
trajectories and to work without any complicated calibration
procedures. Therefore, numerous studies have been conducted on
automatic seam-tracking by using sensors based on touch, probe,
vision [312], laser [13,14], arc [15], electromagnetic [16,17], and
ultrasonic sensors [18].
Although these carriages have the excellent properties of compact size, lightness of weight, and modularized controller design,
they are not suitable for more complicated tasks, such as the
welding of U-shaped trajectories as well as the setting of boundary
lines of the transverse web oor, two longitudinal stiffeners, and
bottom plate. The reasons for this are the deciency of the degrees
of freedom in the motions of the welding torch, and the unidirectional welding property [20]. Thus, most shipbuilding companies
have readily employed 6-axis robotic manipulators combined with
additional facilities such as gantry and overhead cranes with
consideration for accessibilities in such complex circumstances for
open blocks.
Before the open blocks are turned over, they are required to
move along the line of bay until they reach the desired position
among several bays according to a scheduled block-assembly
process. Then, a number of 6-axis welding robots spaced apart at
regular intervals can be simultaneously installed and re-installed
at the welding locations in the open block pending on that bay by
lifting and lowering the overhead cranes (Fig. 5). After completing
the rst welding, a welding robot can repetitively move to
subsequent welding locations by using overhead cranes with
guidance from the workers. All welding equipment pieces, such
as wire spools, feeders, and teaching pendants, are fully installed
on the steel frame attached to the robot. However, because the
controllers for these welding robots are located at top of the
overhead crane, a number of cables (heavily loaded with steel
ropes) from the controllers and power sources are connected to
every robot (Fig. 6). Given that most shipbuilding companies have
followed this practice for a long time, it is likely to be one of the
most efcient ways when considering the shipyard assembly
process. Although this method ensures stable welding quality,
operation, and maintenance through successful harmonization
with the shipbuilding process, several points need to be improved

Fig. 5. 6R articulated welding robots connected to overhead crane [21,22,36,37].

RRX welding manipulator

Welding wire spool

and feeder

RRX mobile platform

Modularized airtight controller

Wireless teaching pendant

Fig. 6. Field test of welding robot RRX working inside double-hulled structure
of ship.

in terms of production efciency. The robots cannot achieve

perfect welding for all boundary lines in U-shaped parts (e.g.,
reinforcement brackets between the transverse web oor and
longitudinal stiffeners) because this method does not support
movement in every direction after installation of the robots in
front of the welding locations. Thus, after all welding operations
are performed by the robots, additional manual welding operations are performed by skilled workers. Moreover, repetitive
installation and re-installation when a robot tries to move to the
next welding location require continual assistance from workers.
Therefore, improvements in the method in terms of production
efciency are needed.
If any mobile platform capable of moving freely in the longitudinal and transverse directions were available in such complex
circumstances, then there would be a greater chance of achieving

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D. Lee / Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 30 (2014) 442450

Table 4
Several types of intelligent welding systems.
(a) 4-axis carriage [20, 25]

(b) 5-axis carriage [26]

both welding of high quality without any further manual welding

and enhanced efciency in the shipbuilding process by covering
insufcient manipulator workspace. Moreover, because current
welding robot systems cannot be used in closed blocks owing to
limited accessibility of the overhead crane, any acceptable mobile
platform that could freely travel inside the closed blocks would be
greatly helpful in the automation of all required operations (e.g.,
welding, blasting, and painting). In fact, given its enclosed structure, the temperature increases and reaches 4050 1C during the
summer, air circulation is poor, and it is often too dark to freely
carry out tasks, even during the daytime. However, workers still
frequently perform manual welding, blasting, and painting inside
the space enclosed by the top and bottom shells and a pair of
transverse web oors and girders [20,23]. This is certainly one of
the main reasons for the high rate of industrial accidents in
shipbuilding industry. Thus, many shipbuilding companies have
attempted to focus on developing a mobile platform capable of
freely traveling inside the closed blocks and successfully performing welding, blasting, and painting.

3. Robots in closed structures

We have already described the research motivations of the selftraveling mechanism for robot automation in open and closed
blocks. Therefore, some previous research achievements will be
discussed here in terms of the performances of the proposed selftraveling mechanisms and their corresponding technologies for
overcoming structural complexities. However, before reviewing
the self-traveling mechanism, it would be meaningful to review
some portable intelligent carriages as an alternative of welding
automation for U-shaped part welding in closed blocks. We will
also discuss the recent successful achievement of the rail runner
mechanism [20,24] and commercial Inrotech solution [35].
3.1. Intelligent carriages
Alongside numerous efforts to design self-traveling mechanisms combined with various types of manipulators for their own
purposes, there have been other approaches to achieve autonomous welding in closed blocks through the design of portable
welding carriages with only 4 to 6 axes for manipulation to
perform the welding of U- shaped parts [20,25,26]. However, to
cover their insufcient workspace, the carriages shown in Table 4
(a) and (b) have a driving mechanism, which is genuinely
unacceptable because the bottom oor is usually quite unclean.
Thus, if a certain robust algorithm for motion control does not
hold, then the manner of differential driving cannot mechanically
guarantee the straightness of repetitive multi-pass welding
because of the high likelihood of slippages. In addition, the
carriage shown in Table 4(b) uses an external controller and

(c) 6-axis carriage [20]

driving wheels. As a result, there are a number of cables from

outside to the welding locations, which in turn give rise to
difculties in handling these cables in complex structures and
negative inuences of electric noises from neighboring welding
sites. Furthermore, although these intelligent carriages have
excellent properties of relatively compact size and lightness of
weight compared to autonomous welding robots with their own
self-traveling mechanism, several points need to be improved in
terms of the weight, which can be still considered to be heavy for
the workers to easily handle. In most industrial elds, the maximum weight of objects handled by workers and the number of
times they are handled per day is strictly limited by laws on
occupational safety and health acts; in the case of workers in
Korea, these should not exceed 25 kg and lifting up and down 10
times per day. Thus, to successfully apply these carriages to closed
blocks, auxiliary transportation devices for workers to easily
launch, transport and recover a number of carriages inside the
closed block are needed. However, there are no published studies
on these issues, even though they are worthwhile to investigate
for successful application of autonomous welding systems in closed
blocks.
Recently, RRXC, a new type of welding robotic system shown in
Table 4(c), has been developed to perform the welding of
U-shaped parts. Points to note are that it has a modularized
controller, a fold-up rack system instead of driving wheels, and
6-axis joints comprising three prismatic and three revolute joints.
Unlike with previous carriages, the fold-up rack in the RRXC
guarantees straightness in bi-directional multi-pass welding by
xing the fold-up rack onto the bottom plate with two on/off
magnets. Moreover, it fully conducts the welding of U-shaped
parts without any further manual welding by workers, because it
has enhanced reachability and dexterity in its manipulator workspace compared with previous carriages [20,24]. To easily handle
the RRXC, Lee et al. designed portable auxiliary transportation
devices through which they controlled the mobile function within
the closed blocks. An RRXC consists of electric winches, handclamps, a bridge plate, a sliding plate, hand-winches, and steel
wire. The electric winch, bridge plate, and sliding plate are
customized to meet a common weight requirement for each
device, which should be less than 10 kg to achieve the handheld mode in the real eld. As a result, this then provides a means
of transporting the RRXC along the connected steel wire and lifting
it up and down [20,24].
3.2. Mobile robots
Next, several research achievements in the development of
mobile robots that autonomously move and perform welding,
blasting, and painting in closed blocks will be discussed in terms
of the performances of their self-traveling mechanism and feasibility of successful applications in the real world.

D. Lee / Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 30 (2014) 442450

447

Table 5
Several types of the mobile robot system.[2, 20]
(a) Hitachi's painting robot, Japan [27]

(b) IAI Rower-1, Spain [28]

Table 5(a) shows the painting robot, which has been developed
by the Hitachi-Zosen shipyard in Japan [27]. A 6-axis painting
robot, plus a self-driving carriage, is placed inside the closed block
by using an expandable placer. However, this robotic system
requires a large access hole 800 mm  1600 mm in size. Any
enlargement of the hole requires the permission of the ship's
owner and is almost impossible to achieve because the size of the
access hole is related to ship-design safety regulations. Another
serious problem of this robotic painting system is that it cannot
move freely in the transverse direction inside an enclosed block.
The Industrial Automation Institute (IAI) in Spain has developed
a robotic system called ROWER 1, which is shown in Table 5(b)
[28]. This robot moves like a spider, and has four legs that extend
and contract; it moves autonomously and thus overcomes many of
the welding obstacles encountered in a closed block. However, it
has to be disassembled into seven modules before it can be placed
into a closed block, and then re-assembled in situ. Re-assembly
takes approximately 15 min, which is long enough to seriously
affect the productivity of the system [29]. Therefore, a new
innovative robotic system is needed to satisfy specic requirements such as, compactness to go through an access hole of
500 mm  700 mm, possessing autonomous transverse traveling
capability inside the closed block at relatively high speed, and
having the required operational performance characteristics.
Finally, the RRX and Inrotech welding robotic system, which
overcomes all of the disadvantages of the previous robots, have
recently been established. The commercial Inrotech welding
robotic system is composed of a Fanuc manipulator for welding
the U-shaped parts, a rail system in transverse direction for mobile
functions inside of the blocks, and feeder rail for deploying the
welding manipulator and the rail system from outside of the
closed blocks. This impressive feeder rail system of Inrotech
solution can transport all welding equipments such as welding
robot, rail system, cables, controller, welding machine, etc. from
outside of the blocks through the access hole as shown in Fig. 7.
Moreover, this commercial welding robotic system has been
successfully applied and contributed to the Odense Steel Shipyard
in 2009. [35]
And the RRX is composed of a 6-axis welding manipulator and
a mobile platform in its newest version, where the main function
of the 6-axis welding robot is to weld the U-shape boundaries of
the closed block, and that of the mobile platform is to enable the
transverse and longitudinal movements of the entire robotic
system required to move it to subsequent welding locations. The
RRX platform also displays performance characteristics that differ
from those of the previous mobile robots designed for closed
blocks. First, all electronic components, such as servo drivers and

(c) SNU RRX, Korea [24,30,31]

Feeder rail from

the outside of block

Access hole

Controller &
modular welding system

Welding robot (Fanuc)

Rail system

Fig. 7. Inrotech's commercial autonomous welding robotic system possible to be

placed into the closed blocks by the feeder rail system [35].

power supply, are fully embedded in the airtight lower sliding body
with tailored set of heat pipes for cooling; this is a reasonable design
considering the hazardous environment. In addition, removing all
cables from outside can lead to successful application of RRX by
preventing all negative effects from various noises, hazardous air
conditions, and difcult handling issues. One other point is that the
aim of the RRX platform design is to achieve multiple functions. This
platform is applicable to various tasks such as welding, blasting, and
painting by changing its manipulators [30,31]. Consequently, this
multifunctional mobile platform fully covers all shipbuilding processes. Lastly, RRX shows welding of high quality without further
manual welding operations because it can move in the longitudinal
direction after welding U-shaped parts to cover its insufcient
manipulator workspace and successfully weld both sides of the
bracket. Moreover, its welding performance and mobile functions
have been veried through eld testing over a 1-year period.
Considering the circumstances as a whole, the mobile robot systems
designed in the year ahead for enclosed structures must consider
the following issues: 1) modularized airtight controller; 2) environment recognition for overcoming structural complexity; 3) multiple
robot control; and 4) launch and recovery system.
3.3. Modularized airtight controller
As discussed briey, the controllers in the Hitachi painting
robot and IAI Rower-1 are located outside of the closed block.

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D. Lee / Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 30 (2014) 442450

Thus, there are a number of cables from outside. This causes the
following negative effects on the entire system. First, dragging
a number of cables in such complex structures will certainly
increase the payload of the self-traveling platforms. Second,
increasing the number of robots simultaneously launched in the
same closed block will give rise to difculties in handling these
cables due to their becoming intricately tangled with one another.
Lastly, there is a negative inuence of electric noise from neighboring welding sites. However, a considerable portion of these
problems can be solved by embedding the modularized airtight
controller in the mobile robots.
The most important issues in the design of a modular and
hermetic controller are to secure robust cooling performance and
dustproof quality because the temperature is 4050 1C during the
summer, and operations such as welding, blasting, and painting
produce considerable amounts of metallic dust (e.g., fumes). This
naturally represents a very hazardous environment for the robot
controller, whose body should be kept fully airtight to prevent the
inow of metallic dust and for which the temperature should be
maintained at its rated level. Thus, to satisfy these design constraints, heat pipes can be incorporated to dissipate the amount of
heat from the servomotor drivers and power units without any
airow into the controller for cooling. For instance, Lee et al.
recently proposed a new cooling system for the mobile welding
robot RRX. This proposed cooling system is composed of heat
pipes, cooling ns, fans, and L-shaped brackets for transferring the
produced heat from the heating resources to the heat pipes.
Validation through eld tests fully supports the idea that this
design approach is appropriate for the controller to maintain
stable performance in such a harsh environment. [34]
3.4. Environment recognition
To successfully move in a closed block composed of many
stiffeners and obstacles (e.g., brackets, pipes, ladders), careful
consideration of environment recognition should be conducted.
In the case of the longitudinal stiffeners, structural errors such as
differences in height, interval distance, and straightness naturally
occur in the assembly process among neighboring stiffeners. Thus,
mobile robot platforms that travel on or use the longitudinal
stiffeners will inevitably display uncertainty in their mobile
performance. For instance, the RRX may have inclined robot
postures on two neighboring stiffeners during repetitive movements in the transverse direction when their heights differ. It may
also exhibit errors in travel distances in the longitudinal and
transverse directions when the stiffeners have different interval
distances. Such inclined postures and differences in the initial
positions of the robot at every welding location will negatively
affect the welding quality because of inaccurate recognition of the
target structures. Namely, as the RRX uses a laser displacement
sensor for nding every start or end point for all welding
trajectories of a U-shaped part, having its own recognition algorithm is essential for successfully performing given operations
even though the surrounding structures have the described errors
(Fig. 8).
In fact, we note that some components installed in the closed
blocks (e.g., pipes and ladders) are not necessarily fully represented in the ship hull CAD data. This means that for autonomous
wheeled mobile robots to successfully determine their actual
locations within such environments based on given CAD data for
task-path planning is highly difcult. Commonly, the accurate
position of the robot can be estimated through maps and various
sensor systems by recording information obtained from one form
of perception and comparing it to a current set of perceptions.
However, unreliability of even one of the components will lead to
poor positioning accuracy and a high likelihood of collision with

Raw data
Mobile robot

Scanning sensor
Raw data

Obstacle recognition
Mobile robot

Hose Feeder
Scanning sensor
Table

Fig. 8. Result of environment recognition inside closed block for RRX blasting
application.

obstacles. In addition, because slippages on the bottom oor and

longitudinal stiffeners as well as difculties in installation from
structural complexities are highly likely, dead reckoning or indoor
GPS techniques are unhelpful in this circumstance. For welding
and blasting applications of RRX, to overcome inaccurate map data
based on a given set of ship hull CAD data, a spatial scanning
process by rotating Hokuyo's scanning laser rangender, UHG08LXm, was performed to detect all obstacles through postprocessing techniques such as characteristic edge detection by
using the obtained scattered point cloud [32,33]. Because all
welding locations are arranged along the transverse web oor on
both sides, the RRX moves in the transverse direction with spacing
apart from the web oor to avoid collisions with brackets on the
longitudinal stiffeners. After moving to the next welding location
in the transverse direction, the RRX gradually moves in the
longitudinal direction along the longitudinal stiffeners to take
a dened position in front of the welding location. Then, it
measures the distance from the web oor by using the laser
displacement sensor, and detects obstacles in any direction by
using ultrasonic sensors. To realize robot automation in such
complex structures, efcient combinations of sensor systems
should be considered to overcome such structural uncertainties.
3.5. Multiple robot control, launch and recovery system
Lastly, two important issues in terms of management of these
mobile robot systems in closed blocks are briey discussed.
Because the closed block is commonly composed of 4 to 6 sections
(Fig. 1), a number of robots should be simultaneously launched
into and recovered from the sections. Thus, to manage and control
these robots in such circumstances, the following issues should be
considered: 1) a wireless teaching pendant to realize simultaneous
control of the robots with minimum workers, and 2) a launch and
recovery system (LARS) to efciently manage and transport
a number of robots through the 500700 mm2 access holes.
First, the teaching pendant is a hand-held robot control
terminal that provides a convenient means to run robot programs.
Until the RRX had been developed, most teaching pendants were
connected to a robot controller by cables. However, the wired
teaching pendant is no longer acceptable because the necessity for
a worker to follow a number of robots to every location in
a hazardous environment is highly inefcient. Thus, there is
a great need for wireless teaching pendants to enable workers to

D. Lee / Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 30 (2014) 442450

control the number of working robots without any physical

connections. For instance, Lee et al. have successfully applied the
wireless teaching pendant in RRX and RRXC [2,20,24].
Based on previous analyses of mobile robotic systems, the
mechanism for fully autonomous traveling on the structures has
resulted in the enlargement of the robotic system owing to the
increasing number of joints. This has led to the request for a LARS
for easy handling and transport through only small access holes
with openings of 500700 mm2. Although all of the proposed
mobile robotic systems have their own mobile functions, realizing
functions for passing through the access holes by themselves is
highly difcult. This is why a LARS is greatly needed for robot
automation in closed blocks. Useful research achievements of LARS
have been proposed for mobile robotic systems [20] and carriagetype robotic systems [24].

4. Conclusion
This paper tried to deliver all detailed discussions of the recent
impressive research results in terms of the robotic mechanisms for
welding the ship hull structures to the present. For a fresh
possibility of appearances of innovative robotic systems in shipbuilding industry, one of the important topics would be successful
combinations of the proposed technologies and considerations to
the present with well-designed mobile mechanisms such as RRX
and Inrotech solution. To summarize, methods for convenient
handling, operation, and maintenance in the real world and for
efcient robot performance on all given tasks without any further
manual operations were discussed.
Lastly, as stated earlier about employment induction effect in
Korean shipbuilding industry through providing statistics from the
Bank of Korea, an enhanced image or perception of improved
working conditions by successful application of a robotic system in
harsh environments might enable more efcient manpower management by preventing the outow of skilled workers. Though
the employment stabilization is a matter to be carefully dealt with
in many ways, the statistics clearly show one of the contrary
evidences that the application of robot automation to the shipbuilding process may raise the long-term decline in employments.
That is, it can be carefully interpreted as successful applications
of robotic system that is probably one of the best ways to
gradually improve the chances of such advantages in terms of
fundamental human rights by reducing harsh working environment for workers. Also, it would be greatly helpful that the
production and R&D departments should actively adopt cooperative attitudes toward one another for achieving mutually supportive relationships.

Acknowledgment
This work was supported by the Soongsil University Research
Fund in 2013.
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