Mobile Robotic Fabrication Beyond Factory Conditions (2019-09)¶

The development of novel robotic fabrication technologies in architecture concentrates largely on integrating stationary industrial-type robots into off-site prefabrication processes. By contrast, few enabling robotic technologies exist today that allow robotic fabrication processes to be mobile and implemented directly on building sites. While mobile in situ fabrication offers a large range of architectural potentials, its realization requires to address fundamental challenges. First, the production of large-scale and potentially monolithic structures on-site requires an advanced robotic fabrication system that can fulfill the material, structural- and architectural-related demands associated with it. Second, the poorly structured nature of building sites requires mobile robotic systems to be equipped with advanced sensing and control solutions to contend with uncertain conditions found on-site. The research discussed in this paper addresses both of these subjects. It applies a novel construction system for non-standard reinforced concrete structures, termed Mesh Mould, to explore the fabrication of large-scale and monolithic building structures using a mobile robot on site. It further investigates sensor-integrated adaptive fabrication strategies to achieve the accurate fabrication of such a large-scale structure, and this is done despite prevalent uncertainties related to the building site environment, the mobile robotic system, and the material behavior during fabrication. The results of this research were realized in a slender, doubly curved, reinforced concrete wall at the DFAB HOUSE at NEST. This research demonstrator provides the unique opportunity to present robotic in situ fabrication not merely as a future possibility, but as a reality applied to a tangible construction project.