SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the building-a-more-robotic-tomorrow dept.
Hadrian is not the first large-scale industrial robot that can complete a whole build from start to finish. It's not even the first outdoor construction robot.
What's remarkable is it's both. As Mike told me, "Anything you can build inside a factory ... we're getting really, really good at. Trouble is, nothing's happening outdoors."
That's because environmental factors like wind and temperature variations can make life difficult for robots outdoors.
Most robots can't adjust to small, quick changes in wind or temperature fast enough to keep up.
That's fine if little wobbles won't make a big difference. But when you're working on something as large-scale as building a house and a light breeze could lead to bricks being laid way out of position, it can get very dangerous.
So up till now, any robot building on such large scales had to be indoors in minutely controlled environments.
Hadrian has overcome this problem using the precision technology Dynamic Stabilisation Technology (DST). DST was developed in Perth by Mike's cousin, Mark Pivac, back in the early 2000s. The computer program measures environmental factors an astounding 2000 times per second, then accounts for them in real time.
If robots replace the construction workers, who then will wolf whistle?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @03:32PM (4 children)
Humans are already using existing machines to achieve the level of precision required. So it's hard to believe that non-crap robots can't manage to do similar stuff.
If robots can't handle "normal" changes in weather and temperature then more planes would be falling out of the sky. Because that's what many fly by wire planes are - robots exposed to weather and temperature.
Don't blame the weather and temperature for your earlier bots being so crap that they can get bricks way out of position. I mean like what? How bad is your robot? We're not talking about laying bricks in a hurricane are we?
As far as I can see, robots and AIs don't have difficulty with precision, the machine precision problem has been solved decades ago (engineering control theory etc).
The difficult stuff is when some twig or animal somehow gets in the way of the brick, or the brick breaks or is nonstandard shape, then what does the robot do? Does a programmer have to write code for all the different scenarios? Or some human helps/prompts the robot?
Lastly you can also build the prefab stuff in a factory, lay the foundation and initial frames with high precision then have the robots assemble the stuff outdoors:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6f_sayw0mM [youtube.com]
If the prefab pieces are designed right you can be off by many millimeters, but then as you lower a piece it will align itself correctly.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 23 2018, @04:04PM (2 children)
Machine learn the shit out of everything, or even include "neuromorphic" processors in the robots. Teach one robot to do the task very well, and then copy and paste the sauce into every other robot. That way you get to kill the brogrammers and the bricklayers at the same time, and you get them to help you do it during the testing phase.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @05:08PM (1 child)
Then use the brogrammers and bricklayers in the foundation of the buildings. Am I right.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 23 2018, @05:30PM
Yes, you have earned a bonus.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @06:05PM
To post a reply, please select all the squares with twigs.