Just like those 3D laser printers that have been used to prototype product design, comes projects currently underway in England and the US, with houses being constructed by robots. Essentially, a meatl frame supports the robots in three dimensions, and they build the houses using liquid gypsum and concrete to form the walls, floors and roof. A house takes 24 hours to construct and is driven entirely from a console. basically, the robots function as three dimensional inkjets allowing for quite pheneomenal scope and creativity as well as efficiency. Moreover, the system gets past some of the human foibles of house construction. “If you ask a bricklayer to lay bricks in anything other than a straight line, you’ll run into problems,†said Soar. “But if you ask the robot to make a squiggly line it really doesn’t care.†There is an interview with Dr. Khosnevis one of the researchers behind the American efforts available.
There’s a neat video of small scale robotic construction in youtube today.
There seems to now be a website that now describes the process in great detail and also has a wealth of wonderful images, narration and videos.