Tech | December 06, 2011 | 7 comments

A Vision Of Future "Cities" Built By Flying Robots

source: http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/diy/video-watch-flying-robots-build-a-6-meter-tower

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Video: Watch Flying Robots Build a 6-Meter Tower

POSTED BY: Erico Guizzo / Fri, December 02, 2011

This is the Flight Assembled Architecture, an installation that opened yesterday near Paris and is still going up as I write this. It's the result of a collaboration between ETH Zurich roboticist Raffaello D'Andrea and architects Fabio Gramazio and Matthias Kohler, also from ETH.

D'Andrea, an IEEE Fellow and IEEE Spectrum editorial board member, is known for his amazing robotic sculptures and flying robot stunts, and Gramazio and Kohler, who run their own design studio, are pioneers in bringing together robotics and architecture. But for an installation at the FRAC Centre, in Orléans, near Paris, they wanted to do something entirely new and bold.

How about using a fleet of quadcopters to build a 6 meter (20 feet) twisting tower out of 1500 foam bricks? Sure!

D'Andrea tells me they're using four flying robots at the same time. First, the robots grab foam bricks from a special brick dispenser on the ground. Next the quadcopters receive the exact coordinates of where the bricks should go based on a detailed digital blueprint of the tower. Then they fly off.

The robots fly autonomously, but they get help from the environment: The ceiling of the room where the assembly is taking place was equipped with a motion-capture system. A computer uses the vision data to keep track of the quadcopters and tell them where to go -- the same approach used at ETH's Flying Machine Arena. (More technical details here.)

When a robot's battery runs low, it automatically lands on a charger and a new quadrotor takes its place. The assembly is happening at a pace of 100 bricks per hour on average, D'Andrea says. Glue on the bottom of the bricks keeps them in place (the installation will become part of FRAC's permanent collection).

The foam tower is actually a 1:100 model of a "vertical village" conceived by Gramazio and Kohler. It would have a height of 600 meters and living space for 30,000 people, with each "brick" housing up to three floors of apartments as well as stores, cinemas, and gyms. A system of express and local elevators would allow efficient transportation, and traversing the entire building would take just 7 minutes. If you don't like the idea of having 29,999 other people living less than 7 minutes away, you may take some comfort in the fact that the village would be everything but densely packed: Looking out your window to the interior of the tower, the other side would be more than 300 meters away, and while shielding wind, the porous structure would allow for plenty of sunlight from all directions.

This week, after some test runs in Zurich, D'Andrea, Gramazio, and Kohler gathered their teams, packed their robots and bricks, and started the setup at the FRAC space. Last night, the museum opened its doors, and a crowd filled the room, letting off "lots of oohs and ahhs," reports Markus Waibel, a member of the D'Andrea team.

You have got to see this video and the associated pictures:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/diy/video-watch-flying-robots-build-...
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7 comments // A Vision Of Future "Cities" Built By Flying Robots

  • artemis6
  • Gravity_Man
    • +1
      Gravity_Man  

    • A "real" building wouldn't use glue they'd have interlocking spikes. I imagine you could almost achieve Space Elevator height.. After the building's finished put the elevator in the center. An extremely LIGHTWEIGHT elevator.

      Put a couple rockets on the DOWN CABLE and shoot that sucker inta Earth orbit. Hmm. Like Lois Lane, going UP. hahaha

      That being said why not just DO AWAY WITH THE NAPALM-IN-THE-MORNING HELICOPTERS and make a spiral from the bottom => put wheels on the "bricks" and drive em up. Drop in place, the next brick drives across it and drops in place.

      HAHAHA You could have a fully-functioning Space Elevator in less than two week's construction time. You'd want ta design the brick sections so that when they dropped into position a lever would be thrown to release the engine and it would slide spiralling all the way down through the internal rollers to the bottom and be used again.

      Preventing a building up of excessive weight. Of course buildings constructed this way would start looking like Beehive Planet. No one would want that. Except hmm, NASA WOULD. They're chomping at the bit to have Space Elevators. Hmm. I could see where a super-length railgun could be integrated also.

      Yeah, get rid of the choppers. This ain't Hollywood.

    • 6 months ago
  • Gravity_Man
  • Gravity_Man
    • +1
      Gravity_Man  
    • Gravity_Man:

      I suggest building them somewhere flat like Texas, the recently-deceased burned up Cinder State. The first level should be elevated above-the-ground to allow cars & animals to move around unimpeded, their lives left undisturbed.

      Such buildings would make gobs more sense than Hadron Colliders. These would have us a cheap Space Launch AND Cargo Delivery System.

      I seriously doubt an interlocked building of this size would be bothered by tornadoes or hurricanes. I like it.

    • 6 months ago
  • remanns
  • squarethecircle
    • +2
      squarethecircle  

    • It would certainly cut down on our impact on Earth if we lived so clustered; however, the continued separation of us from real systems is slightly disturbing, innovative and genius, but application and intent are a major part of change we need.

    • 6 months ago
  • remanns
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