With a sprawling network of tunnels in need of repairs and upgrades, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority has explored in recent years how it might automate some of its dirtiest and most time-consuming underground work. Now, after a successful trial of a railcar-mounted robot to drill holes for tunnel cable racks, the MTA is putting together an open bidding process for vendors to further develop a robot drill rig for use in New York City’s subway tunnels.

MTA的建筑与开发部负责人Alaadien Waziry解释说：“优势在于最大化生产率。”18luck官网“ [比承包商在隧道中执行的手动钻探比[它]的生产力要高得多。”Waziry在6月9日至11日在线举行的2021 ENR FutureTech会议上介绍了MTA关于钻探机器人表演的发现。新利luck

Back in 2017, a team led by Bechtel won the MTA’s Genius Challenge with a proof-of-concept design for a railcar-mounted drilling robot. It was based on a similar robot used by the contractor on the U.K.’s Crossrail project. After the competition, Bechtel teamed up with New Brunswick, N.J.-based robotics firm Reliabotics to develop a working prototype of the tunnel-drilling robot.

The rig consists of a six-axis industrial robotic arm with two Hilti drills attached. Once positioned, the robot operates autonomously, sensing the tunnel wall surface and finding the optimal locations to drill anchor holes. Its sensors can detect obstacles and avoid drilling into any weak areas of the concrete tunnel liner. An adjacent control car houses a 400VAC generator, an air compressor and vacuum system. The vacuum captures silica dust during drilling, thus eliminating a major safety hazard to workers on this type of job, notes Waziry.

A successful field test in 2019 led to further development of the robotic drill rig, which was then used in December 2020 during rehabilitation of the New York City subway’s Rutgers Tunnel. It carries the F train line beneath the East River. Cable trays had to be mounted high on the tunnel walls, and the precision of the robotic drill sped up the process. Once it got going, Waziry says the productivity was impressive. “The manual productivity [for this task] amounted to about 100 linear feet per hour,” he says. “Using this pilot robot, we were able to achieve more than 300 linear feet per hour.”

机器人在Rutge有限的基础上使用rs Tunnel project, and Waziry already has grander ambitions for the system. He envisions a pair of robotic arms on a railcar acting in tandem with a total of 12 drills between them, not only drilling out the holes in the tunnel walls but also installing the anchors and equipment. “We’re hoping this [approach] will improve productivity to about 800 linear feet per hour,” he says.

MTA目前正在为下一个机器人开展开放式招标过程，而不仅仅是向Bechtel和Reliabotics提供工作。Waziry说：“我们将最大程度地提高竞争对手，并允许其他供应商竞标这项工作。”所有这些自动化如何影响用于执行工作的劳动？Waziry说：“在此阶段，我们正在设想开发它们的供应商将使用机器人。”但是，随着系统的成熟，入口的障碍会降低。“将来，我们预计我们将能够与承包商一起培训自己的员工利用他们。