Brick and cement will soon be obsolete! Robots and 3D printing are increasingly trendy in the sector of construction, especially the one of the BIM (Building Information Modeling).
The construction process is no exception to the digital transformation; the goal being to reduce costs, save time and get stronger constructions.
Build in total autonomy
A few months ago, Apis Cor had already achieved this feat in Russia. Today, the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) is working on a printer-robot that designs and prints houses.
Equipped with small tracks and solar panels, this robot is already able of printing a 3D concrete structure in the form of a dome (15 meters in diameter) in 14 hours in a prototype state. The goal is to manage flows and energy that impact local communities but also on landlords and tenants.
The development & production team is still trying hard to make it self-reliant. It should be able to select and clean construction sites, design buildings, assemble building materials and build houses without human intervention.
For Steven Keating who is part of the team, they need to propose “something totally autonomous, which [one] could send to the Moon or Mars or the Antarctic “.
For now, let’s congratulate the MIT team whose prototype already traces materials of insulating foam and concrete, and to spray a molded foam while filling it with concrete.
Other tests from other companies were carried out in China and Dubai. In China, Winsun constructed 10 concrete houses in 24 hours. And office spaces of 250 square meters were realized during a demonstration in Dubai. A good way to realize labour saving, right?