Romu robot piles into construction tasks

Roboticists have developed Romu, a machine that autonomously drives interlocking steel sheet piles into soil, an advance that could see robots installing retaining walls or check dams for erosion control.

The study, carried out at Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, will be presented at the upcoming 2019 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

Romu uses its own weight to drive sheet piles into the ground. According to Wyss, this is made possible by each of its four wheels being coupled to a separate linear actuator, which also allows it to adapt to uneven terrain and ensure that piles are driven vertically.

From a raised position, Romu grips a sheet pile and then lowers its chassis, pressing the pile into the soil with the help of an onboard vibratory hammer. By gripping the pile again at a higher position and repeating this process, the robot can drive a pile much taller than its own range of vertical motion. After driving a pile to sufficient depth, Romu advances and installs the next pile that interlocks with the previous one and forms a continuous wall.