Flying robots become autonomous construction machines

(CONNECT) An international group of researchers led by the Laboratory of Sustainability Robotics at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) is working on the development of flying robots that can be used as autonomous construction machines. Such construction drones could be used, for example, in disaster areas or in inadequate locations, Empa explains in a press release. Elsewhere, they could serve as a supplement to ground-based robots and 3D printers.

"Existing robot systems on the ground often weigh several tons, take a long time to set up and have a limited working radius," Yusuf Furkan Kaya from the Laboratory of Sustainability Robotics is quoted as saying in the press release. "Construction drones, on the other hand, are light, mobile and flexible - but so far they only exist at a low technical level." The researchers want to remedy this situation.

Its "autonomy framework" provides for five stages, from simple flight along a predetermined route to a fully autonomous flying construction machine. "Our goal is to have flying robots that understand what material they are building with and in what environment - and intelligently optimise the resulting structure during construction," explains Kaya. The researchers are using the DroneHub in Empa's NEST research and innovation building in Dübendorf, which was developed in collaboration with Imperial College London, as a test environment. ce/hs