Exploratory Investigation of Layered Fabrication Applied to Construction Automation

Abstract

Abstract After more than a decade of research in construction automation, robotic tools have brought little if any productivity improvement to the industry. In this paper, we argue that automation which applies to most manufacturing industry does not translate effectively to construction which is limited not by labor, but by process. We propose a radical departure from generally accepted concepts in construction automation and demonstrate that new techniques of layered manufacturing can be applied effectively to construction. In the process, we also modified material processing of cement to adapt it to the requirements of rapid prototyping. We illustrate our purpose with sample structures manufactured by incremental deposition of reactive bulk materials (cement and Silica in this instance).