Heat Resistant Robot for Coke Oven Repair

Abstract

A heat resistant robot has been developed to repair cracks of coke ovens. The robot utilization in the high temperature up to 1, 000°C requires the cooling structure design, suitable repair equipment, a three dimensional measurement system, and an appropriate control system. This paper is concerned mainly with the measurement and the control system of the robot.
To begin with, the crack can be identified on the monitor of a TV camera which is installed in the robot arm. A fixed angle triangulation and the point indication on the monitor form three dimensional data of the cracks for the robot controller. During the automatic repair of the crack, the operator can watch and check the trace of the repair by using another TV camera in the arm, and adjust the repair path. The robot has good man-machine interfaces such as the fine adjustment of the path. And the control system has been developed to be an effective cooperation system of the automatic control with the remote control.
Repair tests in the coke ovens have proven the adequate heat resistance. The control accuracy in the high temperature was assured to be within ±3mm.