{"id":2445,"date":"2016-05-09T15:42:18","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T15:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/minutes.machine.market\/?p=2445"},"modified":"2016-05-09T15:42:18","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T15:42:18","slug":"tomorrows-buildings-construction-industry-goes-robotic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/tomorrows-buildings-construction-industry-goes-robotic\/","title":{"rendered":"Tomorrow’s Buildings: Construction industry goes robotic"},"content":{"rendered":"

The building site of the future is going to look very different to the one we are all used to today.<\/p>\n

Instead of men in high-visibility jackets and hard hats, there are going to be drones buzzing overhead, robotic bulldozers and 3D printers churning out new structures.<\/p>\n

That at least is the hope of those making technological solutions.<\/p>\n

But first they have to convince the traditionally risk-averse construction industry that such change is necessary.<\/p>\n

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Image copyrightSkyCatch Image captionDrones offer a bird’s-eye view of a building site<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

US start-up Skycatch<\/a> is using drones on some high-profile building projects – although it cannot name them because of commercial sensitivity.<\/p>\n

The drones give a bird’s-eye view of a site and provide progress reports, speed up the logistics of construction by monitoring deliveries and offer real-time updates on any changes that may need to be made to the plans.<\/p>\n

Japanese construction machinery giant Komatsu has gone one step further – using the Skycatch drones to provide the eyes for automated bulldozers. The drones send 3D models of a building site to a computer which then feeds the information to unmanned machinery to plot their course.<\/p>\n

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Image copyrightSkycatch Image captionDrones could provide the ‘eyes’ for automated vehicles on a building site<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Skycatch’s chief executive Christian Sanz thinks such combinations of technology could kickstart a robotic building site.<\/p>\n

“The more visible data that you have on a site, the more you’ll see machines and robots moving things around rather than humans.”<\/p>\n

One of the potential solutions to the housing crisis could be 3D printing, which is already making an impact on the construction industry – cutting both the time and cost of building houses.<\/p>\n

The UN estimates that by 2030 approximately three billion people will require housing and has mooted 3D printing as one possible solution.<\/p>\n

A team in the School of Civil and Building Engineering at Loughborough University has been working on the technology since 2007, first developing a 3D concrete printer within a frame and more recently adapting it to work with a robotic arm.<\/p>\n

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Image copyright 3D Printer Plans Image caption Chinese company WinSun claimed to have 3D printed 10 full-size single-storey houses in one day<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Using a robotic arm means that the team can print up to 10 times faster and create a huge variety of forms, including curved, hollow and geometrically complex shapes.<\/p>\n

\"winsun1-1366x576\"

Winsun 3D printer<\/p><\/div>\n

The group’s YouTube video of the system in action has garnered over half a million views, something lead researcher Prof Simon Austin finds astonishing.<\/p>\n

“I am still trying to get my head around the fact that a video about concrete – a material normally seen as boring – has had so many views,” he said.<\/p>\n