from the hemi-powered-drones-scream-down-the-boulevard dept.
Wasp-like technique could be used to 3D-print structures:
Bees and wasps, which build structures from mashed-up regurgitated wood fiber, provided the inspiration to researchers at London Imperial College and Empa, the Swiss Federal Laboratories of Materials Science and Technology. They have developed a new manufacturing process using a group of untethered aerial robots to collectively and autonomously construct 3D structures under human supervision.
Known collectively as Aerial Additive Manufacturing (Aerial-AM), drones are divided into machines that scan a structure or lay of the land to help figure out a plan (ScanDrones) and those that perform the 3D printing, dubbed BuilDrones. The latter are fitted with a nozzle that moves to account for volatility in the drone's flight position.
Together, the drone teams work cooperatively from a single blueprint, adapting their techniques as they go, according to a paper published in the journal Nature this week. The drones are fully autonomous while flying but are monitored by a human controller who checks progress and intervenes if necessary, based on the information provided by the drones, the researchers said.
Lead author professor Mirko Kovac, director of Imperial's Department of Aeronautics and Empa's Materials and Technology Center of Robotics, said: "We've proved that drones can work autonomously and in tandem to construct and repair buildings, at least in the lab. Our solution is scalable and could help us to construct and repair buildings in difficult-to-reach areas in the future."
[...] "We believe our fleet of drones could help reduce the costs and risks of construction in the future, compared to traditional manual methods," Kovac said.
Journal Reference:
Zhang, K., Chermprayong, P., Xiao, F. et al. Aerial additive manufacturing with multiple autonomous robots. Nature 609, 709–717 (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04988-4
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 30 2022, @12:19AM (3 children)
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 30 2022, @01:43AM (1 child)
Sounds like vaporware, really. Some tech savvy people were hanging around a construction site, watching how things work and they started dreaming about doing it all with tech.
This is certainly not the first 3D printing construction idea to come along. I'm wondering which, if any, are in real use, anywhere in the world. By "real use", one or more contractors have adopted the methods, and rely heavily on 3D printing to build homes, apartments, and housing complexes.
Pretty much all the 3D printing ideas look good, in concept. Where are they actually in use? Here's a list of unique firsts, but I don't see regular use in any of them. https://all3dp.com/2/3d-printed-house-3d-printed-building/ [all3dp.com]
(Score: 4, Funny) by driverless on Friday September 30 2022, @06:22AM
Sorry, there was a typo in the submission, the original title was actually Teams of Flying Pigs Might One Day Help to Build Houses. Please adjust your responses accordingly.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Friday September 30 2022, @02:43AM
I think that's the question. I think this sort of thing would make the most sense in the short term for when there isn't yet enough progress made in the construction for things like elevators and robots that can walk around. The only real advantage to them flying is that they aren't bound to areas with flooring and you can have more of them so that more tasks can be done in parallel.
It could also be potentially useful if you're trying to build somewhere that doesn't yet have roads.
But, I definitely agree that in most cases you're better off with something that doesn't need to fly, the energy consumption needed to fly things up is significant.
(Score: 2) by MIRV888 on Friday September 30 2022, @04:49AM (3 children)
As more and more jobs are replaced by machines, the first world nations are going to end up with huge swaths of people with no work.
The $20,000 question is what is to be done with the unemployed masses.
I don't have an answer but we better start thinking about it.
Because it's happening now and will only get worse.
I'm open to suggestions.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday September 30 2022, @12:10PM (2 children)
Universal basic income would solve that problem completely. Work becomes less a matter of survival. As an added bonus, you can reduce the typical work week down to about 10 hours, and employ a lot more people a little bit rather than demand a few people do a ton of work while others do nothing.
But you're right that our current economic system doesn't work very well in cases where there's more than enough to go around. Its main response is to try to create artificial scarcity, backed by threats of financial losses or prison or violence. For example, there are far more empty homes than there are homeless people, but any effort to allow homeless people to live in those empty homes is met with horror. Or you can point to the food system throwing out somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of available food and carefully put it in locked dumpsters, while at the same time millions of people go hungry, and any suggestion that they give that food they were going to throw away to whoever needs it is flat-out rejected.
The impression I get is that there are people out there who firmly believe that other people having leisure time is evil and must be prevented at all costs. Although funnily enough, this sort doesn't seem to mind having leisure time themselves ...
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 30 2022, @03:40PM (1 child)
Cappadocia is full of empty cave homes that successfully housed many civilizations for thousands of years. Why don't the homeless people go live there? Many of them are surrounded by abandoned vineyards and orchards, too, and have functional water systems. Or, China could throw open its doors to migrants and let them live in the vast empty cities that China's state construction firms have built one after the other. Even Detroit has lots of empty homes around it that homeless could live in. So, why don't they do any one of those things?
If we took a Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon man and dropped him in the middle of your average, modern city he'd think he'd died and gone to heaven. There is so much food lying around, untouched, even without counting the dumpster-diving you're talking about. Wild edibles are everywhere; there used to be a guy named Steve Brill who'd give walking tours of Central Park and Prospect Park in NYC to teach people how to forage for them. Fish, water fowl, and lots of other critters are plentiful everywhere, too.
My general point is our societies are not suffering from an actual shortage of housing or food as much as from limited perspectives. Personally, if everything in my own life ever went south in civilization I take great comfort in the knowledge that I'm not too proud to make my own way in the world. I'm never gonna freeze and starve.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Saturday October 01 2022, @02:52PM
You might think that. But in the experience of every person I've ever known whose done work to help the homeless, any effort homeless people try to make do for themselves, like setting up in a cave or an abandoned building or making a shanty for themselves or pitching a tent, is sooner-or-later met with cops beating them and taking any stuff they might have managed to keep hold of.
That makes it very hard to recover from being homeless.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2022, @02:48PM
News at 11, drone from department that deals with drones says drones will be good for XYZ.
I've seen rapid construction stuff. You'd be better off using cranes than drones. It's not like the building and foundation are going to be moving while you're doing the building, so cranes or similar stiff will do just fine.
As for difficult locations, prefab/prebuilt will work better. Get one of those big helis to fly and lower the prebuilt building there. Don't waste time trying to build/assemble the stuff in a difficult location.