[Cob] Robot builder could 'print' houses

Sat Mar 13 14:38:58 CST 2004

Robot Builder Could Revolutionize Home Construction
By Max Glaskin
NewScientist.com
3-11-4

A robot for "printing" houses is to be trialled by the construction 
industry. It takes instructions directly from an architect's computerised 
drawings and then squirts successive layers of concrete on top of one other 
to build up vertical walls and domed roofs.

The precision automaton could revolutionise building sites. It can work 
round the clock, in darkness and without tea breaks. It needs only power 
and a constant feed of semi-liquid construction material.

The key to the technology is a computer-guided nozzle that deposits a line 
of wet concrete, like toothpaste being squeezed onto a table. Two trowels 
attached to the nozzle then move to shape the deposit. The robot repeats 
its journey many times to raise the height and builds hollow walls before 
returning to fill them.

Engineer Behrokh Khoshnevis, at the University of Southern California, has 
been perfecting his "contour crafter" for more than a year. "The goal is to 
be able to completely construct a one-story, 2000-square foot home on site, 
in one day and without using human hands," he says.

Now Degussa AG, of D"sseldorf, Germany, the world's largest manufacturer 
and supplier of building materials, is to collaborate on the project to 
help Khoshnevis find the best kind of building material.

Mud and straw

Khoshnevis has tested his prototype with cement but believes adobe, a mix 
of mud and straw that is dried by the Sun, could be suitable. But Degussa 
will be looking at other materials.

Gerhard Albrecht, head of research at Degussa's speciality materials 
subsidiary, Admixture, says the company is ready to develop materials 
specifically for the contour crafting technology.

Khoshnevis's prototype robot hangs from a movable overhead gantry, like the 
cranes at ship container depots. Khoshnevis speculates that they could also 
be ground-based, running along rails and able to build several houses at 
one time. But it would be more difficult to create autonomous wheeled 
robots that have sufficient accuracy and precision.

The first house will be built in 2005. If the technology is successful the 
robot could enable new designs that cannot be built using conventional 
methods, for example involving complex curving walls.

Greg Lynn, a leading architect from Venice, California, said. "I believe 
that aesthetically there's a great potential to make things that have never 
been seen before."

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994764
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