Real-Time Motion Planning and Simulation of Cranes in Construction

Real-time planning the motion of heavy equipment (e.g. cranes) is an important issue in construction projects, where rapid and accurate planning directly affects the safety and productivity of operation. The work presented in this thesis is directed towards automatically generating an accurate motion plan in space and time for cranes by: (1) Investigating and utilizing motion planning algorithms to generate feasible paths with respect to all considered constraints; (2) Extending the efficiency of motion planning under complex global constraints (i.e. geometrical constraints) that represent static and dynamic obstacles found in the construction site; and (3) Considering local constraints that are related to the stability of the crane itself. Local constraints include engineering constraints (e.g. workloads for cranes) in addition to kinematic and dynamic constraints for the crane joints.;The proposed methodology provides: (1) A motion planning framework for supporting cranes with the ability of generalizing over different types of equipment; (2) practical equipment planning which is aware of local constraints derived from engineering and kinematics properties of the equipment itself; (3) more accurate and realistic motion planning with efficiency in re-planning dynamic cases found in actual sites; and (4) the ability of visualizing and simulating motion planning results in real-time.;The methodology presented in this thesis was applied to develop a specialized motion planning system for construction equipment called Intelligent Construction Equipment motion Planner (ICE-Planner). This system was integrated into the 3D software to define, solve and visualize motion planning in real time.