Survey, restoration and conservation of historical buildings and monuments by using robotic systems

Surveying is a complex discipline capable that is aimed at fully understanding metrical, geometrical, dimensional, structural and historical aspects of historical goods. It also used to identify the state of health of a building, its conditions of decay and even static conditions. A survey for conservation and restoration acquires a great quantity of information that must be integrated with operators’ interpretation and evaluation. A survey activity needs to use all modern available methodologies and techniques to achieve a full knowledge of surveyed goods. Focus of this paper is to analyse characteristics and problems that are related to Survey, Conservation and Restoration of built heritages, within an innovative approach using robotic systems both for motion and data acquisition aspects. There are very few previous experiences for such specialized application, in connection to the subject of built heritages that is apparently far away from general areas of Robotics. Thus, a new different example could be a preservation analysis of built heritages through the use of robotic systems performing highly complex tasks under the supervision of a human operator. In particular, several architectural surveying actions can be successfully worked out through automated operations that can improve procedures and results in terms of speed and accuracy of survey activity. The aim of this paper is to highlight flexibility of robotic systems and possible interactions with architecture, particularly in the field of surveying and restoration. Thus, this research focuses specifically on the application of robotic systems in Survey, Conservation and Restoration of built heritages, although a wider purpose is to study and design robotic systems and automated procedures to develop activities and results in analysis phase and for the safeguard, conservation and restoration of historical architectural sites at large. Robotic systems are used more and more frequently in difficult situations, such as inspections of internal sites of atomic stations, space travel and exploring inaccessible terrestrial sites, such as volcanic craters. Thus, a new different example could be the analysis and safeguard of built heritages through the use of self-propelled devices performing highly complex tasks on various kind of surfaces under the supervision of a human operator. Therefore, a robot design is proposed to develop a relationship between robotics and architecture, through a mechanical project that is especially studied and aimed for analysis and architectural restoration. This is an extremely innovative application in the field of robotic systems , since it involves attempts to make a robot performing several architectural surveying and restoration actions through operations for inspection, location ans support for data acquisition via vision systems and touch sensors. In Cassino a specific activity has been carried out to design a robotic platform and its operation features for survey activities in architectural sites of cultural heritage interests. The multidisciplinary design activity and main operation features of a prototype will be reported in the paper to discuss the problems and advantage of such an attempt of using a robotic system in Survey, Conservation and Restoration of built heritage by using robotic systems.