Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory National Institute of Standards and Technology
ISD home About ISD ISD Research Areas ISD's Products and Services What's New in ISD

ROBOCRANE

Shipbuilding

Tools for Shipbuilding (please select a tool)
Flying Carpet
Platform-Welder
Flying Carpet

To assist workers in dry dock ship repair and conversion, a concept called the "Flying Carpet" has been developed by NIST under the Maritech Advanced Shipbuilding Enterprise Program. The presentations shown below include the status of this concept.

Flying Carpet article in HOIST magazine

cover of HOIST

(click on the image to download the file in pdf format)

Flying Carpet Testbed video

Flying Carpet Presentations

(Click on the image below to download presentations in pdf format. You will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader to view presentations. Get Adobe Acrobat Reader)

cover of presentation

cover of presentation

Return to top
Platform-Welder

Reconfigurable welding systems for shipyards could prove to be invaluable toward rapid weld set-up, calibration, and reconfigurability for frequent changes in repair and conversion processes. This concept shown in the presentation below, applies RoboCrane technology for flexible fixturing to reconfigurable welding in shipyards.

Platform-Welder Presentation

(Click on icon to download presentation)

cover of presentation

Return to top

Advanced Double Hull Ship Welding

The photo's below were taken at the Advanced Double Hull Ship Welding Demonstration held on December 3, 1998 at NIST. This live demonstration was also available at this website for access around the world via the internet. The project was sponsored by the Office of Naval Research and included Naval Surface Warfare Center (project manager), Advanced Technology and Research Corporation (advanced weld platform - including welder, weld robot, weld robot boom extension, and weld platform; and controller) developer, Newport News Shipbuilders (double-hull ship weld experts and demonstration mock-up supplier), and NIST (RoboCrane - advanced weld platform deployment system) provider. This first project phase demonstrated the feasibility of using available, advanced, remote-control/semi-autonomous technologies to solve a manufacturing challenge in ship construction. Also, demonstrated were advanced carrier-bottom welding concepts with the facility-mounted RoboCrane supporting an industrial robot.

(click on the photo to enlarge the image)

RoboCrane TETRA operator control station(a) Group of demonstration attendees watching the RoboCrane TETRA(b) Foreground: RoboCrane TETRA maneauvering a welding robot arm; Background, Gantry RoboCrane demonstration(c) Foreground: RoboCrane TETRA maneauvering a welding robot arm; Background, Gantry RoboCrane demonstration(d) RoboCrane TETRA holding the double hull ship weld system against the ship mock-up as the demonstration attendees watch from the background(e) Foreground: RoboCrane TETRA maneauvering a welding robot arm; Background, Attendees receive an explanation from Mark Klemick, ATR, about the double hull welding system(f) Post demonstrations with attendees mingling and RoboCrane TETRA in the upper background(g) RoboCrane TETRA has deployed the double hull ship welder and picked up a different weld robot and is maneuvering it(h) RoboCrane TETRA has deployed the double hull ship welder and picked up a different weld robot and is maneuvering it(i) Double hull ship welder is attached to the mock ship cell and the weld robot (orange) is beginning to advance through the cells portal opening(j) Locking Mechanism (one of three) used to automatically connect the RoboCrane platform to the doublehull ship welder and the weld robot(k) Left foreground: RoboCrane TETRA platform; Left background: ship cell mock up; Right background: double hull ship welding platform system(l) Attendees watching the double hull ship weld robot weld the inside cell seam(m) Double hull ship weld robot is beginning to advance through the cells portal opening(n) Double hull ship weld robot is welding the inside cell seam(o) Double hull ship weld robot is welding the inside cell seam(p) left: Double hull ship weld platform attached to mock ship cell. right: Weld curtain in front of ship weld robot welding seam(q) Weld curtain in front of ship weld robot welding seam(r) Double hull ship welding demonstration attendees mingling(s) Double hull ship welder is attached to the mock ship cell and the weld robot is beginning to advance through the cells portal opening(t) RoboCrane TETRA maneuvering a weld robot as demonstration attendees look on(u) RoboCrane TETRA moving away from double hull ship welder after deployment(v) RoboCrane TETRA carrying a weld robot(w) RoboCrane TETRA maneuvering a weld robot(x) RoboCrane TETRA maneuvering a weld robot(y) RoboCrane TETRA maneuvering a weld robot(z) Double hull ship weld robot welding the cells seam(A) Double hull ship weld robot welding the cells seam(B) Double hull ship weld robot welding the cells seam(C) working on the double hull ship weld robot(D) RoboCrane TETRA carrying the double hull ship weld platform(E)


Return to top

Return to Applications and Concepts Explored

isd-webmaster@cme.nist.gov

Last updated: May 17, 2004