Drone swarm that 3D prints cement structures could construct buildings

The person is Jeremy Hsu.

3D-printed foam or cement structures can be created by drones. The experiments are paving the way for a future where swarms of drones could be used to build buildings and other structures without the need for scaffolding or large construction machinery.

Robert Stuart-Smith is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Structural engineering constraints would restrict such creations.

The construction of the drones is inspired by animals. In nature, if you want to build something large, you need a lot of animals working together.

Stuart-Smith and his colleagues showed how several drones could work together to build a two-metre tall cylinder made of insulation foam and a 0.18-metre tall cylinder made of cement. One of the drones flew around in a circle while squirting out a line of quick-hardening foam or cement to build up the structures.

After each layer was printed, a third drone used a camera to take a 3D map of the work in progress and allow the team to adjust construction steps as needed.

Each of the drones can operate for up to 10 minutes before they need to reload building materials or get a new battery.

Up to 15 drones could work together to build a dome, thanks to additional testing and simulations. Human supervision is still required for the drones to make their own decisions about where to fly and how to deposit building material.

Post-disaster reconstruction in remote areas could be helped by these 3D-printing drones, as well as repairing the concrete sarcophagus at the Chernobyl nuclear plant.

The next big step is moving the drones outside. Setting up the communication networks to supervise large numbers of drones is one of the things that needs to be figured out.

Masoud Gheisari at the University of Florida, who was not involved in the study, said that the concept of builder drones makes sense. The paper shows that science fiction is over.

The journal's title is "Nature."