The aim of the Robocone project is the consecution of an autonomous robotized system capable of performing automated signaling and beaconing tasks on the roads. Robocone system brings a solution to the risks related to the manual placement of signaling on the road, allowing a reduction of the accidents derived from cars’ proximity and avoiding outrages and accidents. It is also useful in road maintenance tasks or selective road cuts.
The aim of the project is to develop a swarm of robotized cones and beaconing elements able to move and coordinate themselves taking in account the position and information given by a coordinator robot, called guide-robot. With this kind of robotic system the road works can be signaled in an effective and safe way at every moment.
The applications of this system are very broad within the construction sector and chiefly within the safety at work. Robocone facilitate signaling work in high risk situations such as lane cuts in highways, traffic deviations works, enabling reversible lanes, Defining areas works, etc. An approach to the system characteristics is described in more detail below. Robocone system comprises two kinds of elements working together. First of them consists on the robotized beaconing and signaling devices, that are the core of the robotic swarm. The number of this kind of devices used in a typical scenario varies depending on the desired pattern and length of the road cut. Due to the fact that most of the times the signaling element is a cone this kind of devices are called “cone-robots”. Opposite to these ones, the second element is the “guide-robot”, which is in charge of the coordination and control of the whole robotic swarm. Every robot in the system follows the instructions given by the guide-robot, although they can also interact with their surroundings in an independent way if needed. To accomplish with this task every robot equips a complete sensor system as well as a positioning system (GPS plus odometry) and a camera that allows the exploration and the retrieval of images of their surroundings. This way the deployment of the robots at the working area is not only made in a safe way but can be precisely controlled at every moment. Cone robot devices comprise two parts. First one is the external casing, designed to accomplish with actual regulation and laws. Each casing has a reflecting strip as well as a LED beaconing system on top of it intended to be turned on automatically when luminosity level is too low or manually if deployment conditions require it.
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