Researchers say that the technology, which has been tested in the lab, could be used in the future for making things and building things in dangerous or hard-to-reach places, like tall buildings, and for helping with disaster relief projects. The use of 3D printing drones in the construction sector is expanding. Static and mobile robots print materials for use in building projects, such as steel and concrete structures, both on the job site and in the factory.
This new way of 3D printing drones was developed by Imperial College London and Empa, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology. It uses flying robots, or “drones,” that build together in a way that mimics how bees and wasps work together to build complex structures.
The fleet’s drones, collectively known as Aerial Additive Manufacturing (Aerial-AM), collaborate using a single blueprint and modify their methods as they go. While in flight, they are completely autonomous, but a human controller keeps an eye on them and intervenes if necessary, depending on the data the drones provide.
Lead author Professor Kovac, of the Materials and Technology Center for Robotics at Empa and the Department of Aeronautics at Imperial College London, said: “At least in the lab, we have demonstrated that drones can operate autonomously and jointly to erect and repair buildings. Our approach is scalable and might one day allow us to build and repair structures in locations that are challenging to access. ”
Printing 3D geometries
As a project advances, Aerial-AM uses both 3D printing drones and a path-planning framework to assist the drones in adapting to changes in the structure’s geometry. The fleet is made up of BuilDrones, which drop materials from the sky, and ScanDrones, which check the quality of the work done by the BuilDrones and send information to the next stages of production.
The researchers created four unique cementitious compositions for the drones to construct in order to test the idea.
During the build, the drones constantly checked the shape of what was being printed and changed their behavior to make sure they met the build requirements, which was within five millimeters.
The proof-of-concept prints featured a 2.05-meter high cylinder (72 layers) made of polyurethane-based foam and an 18-centimeter high cylinder (28 layers) made of structural cementitious material that was specifically produced for the project.
Future construction and maintenance of buildings in high or other difficult-to-access places may be made possible by the technology. The researchers will then work with building companies to evaluate the solutions and offer ways to make them and keep them working.
In comparison to conventional manual methods, Professor Kovac stated that “we hope our fleet of drones could assist in lowering the costs and dangers of construction in the future.”
