Aerial additive manufacturing with multiple autonomous robots

Abstract

Additive manufacturing methods 1–4 using static and mobile robots are being developed for both on-site construction 5–8 and off-site prefabrication 9, 10. Here we introduce a new method of additive manufacturing, referred to as Aerial Additive Manufacturing (Aerial-AM), that utilizes a team of aerial robots inspired by natural builders 11 such as wasps who use collective building methods 12, 13. We present a scalable multi-robot 3D printing and path planning framework that enables robot tasks and population size to be adapted to variations in print geometry throughout a building mission. The multi-robot manufacturing framework allows for autonomous 3D printing under human supervision, real-time assessment of printed geometry and robot behavioural adaptation. To validate autonomous Aerial-AM based on the framework, we develop BuilDrones for depositing materials during flight and ScanDrones for measuring print quality, and integrate a generic real-time model-predictive-control scheme with the Aerial-AM robots. In addition, we integrate a dynamically self-aligning delta manipulator with the BuilDrone to further improve manufacturing accuracy to 5mm for printing geometry with precise trajectory requirements, and develop four cementitious-polymeric composite mixtures suitable for continuous material deposition. We demonstrate proof-of-concept prints including a cylinder of 2.05m with a rapid curing insulation foam material and a cylinder of 0.18m with strutural pseudoplastic cementitious material, a light-trail virtual print of a dome-like geometry, and multi-robot simulations. Aerial-AM allows manufacturing in-flight 2 and offers future possibilities for building in unbounded, at height, or hard to access locations.