Fastbrick Robotics’ bricklaying robot has built a full home structure in 5% of the time it would take using traditional methods.
For the first time, the Hadrian X machine last week completed a two-course ‘F’ structure including all the block configurations and combinations required to build a house, in the open air.
Fastbrick Robotics (FBR) chief operating officer Mark Sheridan said, “The structure might not look overly impressive to the untrained eye, but to us it’s extremely important. This allows us to tune and retest multiple times throughout a single day and in different weather conditions rather than over weeks, giving us a great opportunity to learn and optimize the Hadrian X at an accelerated rate.”
Having successfully completed the task, over the next few weeks the company intends to test the fully automated, end-to-end bricklaying robot with more challenging structures that cover larger ranges of movement and distance covered.
Sheridan added, “Going by the current forecast, this week will offer us a better opportunity to test out DST in higher winds which will again give us some feedback on where we can refine and improve.
“To run a thorough testing program, we need to push our Hadrians to their limits to understand the boundaries of performance, and that means at times we will break or find faults with our robots.
“We need to get both Hadrian Xs battle hardened before we send them out to residential sites to build homes, and we are fortunate enough to have a good testing environment in the yard at our headquarters where we can do exactly that.”
Interested in autonomous industrial vehicles? Check out the Autonomous Industrial Vehicle Technology Conference, which takes place during iVT Expo, on February 13-14, 2019, in Cologne, Germany.
