Robot “Swarm” 3D-Prints Concrete Structure
Emily Pollock posted on October 05, 2018 |
A team of researchers, led by NTU’s Assistant Professor Pham Quang Cuong, show off the structure their robots printed. (Image courtesy of NTU Singapore.)
Tiny ants working in a coordinated team can create some incredibly complex structures. A new study from the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore paves the way for a future in which robots can 3D print buildings in much the same way, working together in a cooperative “swarm.”
Currently, 3D-printed structures suffer from scale problems. It’s difficult to print a structure much larger than the printer. Typically, the way around it is to have robots print pieces one after the other and join them together later. Sequential printing means that there will be joints between fresh and hardened concrete, weakening bond strength.
To solve the construction scale problem without resorting to piecemeal printing, a team led by NTU Singapore’s Assistant Professor Pham Quang Cuong began looking into the possibility of printing a structure with two or more robots at the same time.
“We envisioned a team of robots that can be transported to a worksite, print large pieces of concrete structures and then move on to the next project once the parts have been printed,” Pham said in the university’s press release.
The team developed robots with a mobile holonomic base. This means that the controllable degrees of…