Real-time Linux controls shipbuilding robots
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SDC Systems product story
Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team
Mar 21, 2006
Samsung Heavy Industries has been using a family of advanced RTLinux powered robots in its industry leading facilities on Koje Island Korea.
Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) has made FSMLabs RTLinuxPro its standard platform for shipbuilding robotics and has been using a family of advanced RTLinux powered robots in its industry leading facilities on Koje Island Korea.
SHI designs and constructs high value-added vessels such as LNG carriers and large passenger ships, as well as drill ships and shuttle tankers as part of a nearly $4 billion yearly business.
FSM Labs RTLinuxPro is distributed and supported in Europe by SDC Systems.
SHI selected RTLinuxPro as the standard platform for ship-building robots and has now has been using several systems in production.
The Spider welding robot moves autonomously on the "membrane wall" structure within the ship.
A pipe alignment robot automatically produces the precise alignment required for efficient construction.
A third, Stewart-Gough type six-axis parallel unit is under development.
SHI engineers, working with FSMLabs Korean partner, real-timeWave, have developed 3D path tracking systems and real-time attitude control systems that are incorporated in their sophisticated robot control logic.
The SHI Project Leader and Managing Director Jae-Hun Kim says: "RTLinuxPro and the excellent support from RealTimeWave helped us bring this complex equipment from design to production in record time and with low development cost".
Young-Jun Park, the Principal Research engineer for SHI adds: "RTLinuxPro has a unique capability of combining very precise real-time with the standard Linux platform so that we could make the time sensitive control algorithms operate together with background processing without worrying about interference".
Jae-Hun Kim also notes: "SHI has interests in the ship automation and building automation system markets where we think there will be much future growth and RTLinux is a key technology for us in this area".
