Drone swarm prints building materials in flight

An international research team from the Swiss Federal Materials Testing and Research Institute (Empa) has developed a swarm of cooperative drones for use in construction. The model is the cooperation of bees and wasps. How the Empa reports, the flying robots print out 3D materials in the air under human control and place them in the designated locations. The performance of these BuilDrones is recorded and monitored by a second fleet, the ScanDrones. They also specify the upcoming manufacturing steps.

Empa also demonstrates in a video that this is the first time such detailed 3D printing has been performed by a free-flying robot. The scientific journal "Nature published the study of the team of Professor Mirko Kovac of the Materials and Technology Centre of Robotics on Sept. 21 online and made them available in its most recent issue of the September 22 to the Cover Story.

Called aerial additive manufacturing, the drones are designed to adapt their activity to the different geometries of the structure as the building process progresses. They act autonomously during their deployment. A human controller observes the process and makes adjustments as necessary based on information provided by the drones.

"We have demonstrated that the drones can operate autonomously to construct and repair buildings, at least in the lab," Kovac is quoted as saying. This could facilitate work in hard-to-reach areas such as high-rise buildings. Now, according to Empa, the experts want to work with construction companies to validate the developed solutions in practice and develop new repair and manufacturing options. mm/Café Europe