These drones just got more and more interesting the more I learnt about them! Make sure to try out some of the courses from Brilliant to learn more about the inner workings of engineering systems like these drones - Use my link at brilliant.org/ziroth/ for 30 days FREE and 20% off for the first 200 subscribers! Thanks for watching!!
Gradually we come closer to the small flying robot beings from the movie "Batteries Not Included" (those could build and repair everything). The difference between wasps and those drones is that insects also have legs to stabilize their position and possibly even fix flaws in the applied material, so a precise 3D printer drone swarm likely should have additional small arms to be used in a similar way.
You claim 3d printing in construction is environmentally safe, efficient, and is a business with alot of money. No more scaffoldings , no more wastage, no more heavy equipment, NO MORE HUMANS. I really don't get it why these people are so amazed in machines replacing humans.. ai, human like robots, drones and now these... Evolution means extinction of the latter
One problem I see with this is that using drones to lift materials requires a lot more energy than using a crane. And once the material is up there, the crane can keep it there with virtually no energy expenditure while the drones need to burn a lot of energy just to stay airborne.
A concentrated solar array at the site would fix that, just make the initial costs slightly bigger. Still not as much as the extra costs from both time and heavy machinery
Probably energy expenditure flying those is not a significant cost all expenses accounted. But the crane system would be simpler, faster and less prone to failures. Drones would be maybe better for hard to reach places and fine details.
@@cython5086 if we're gonna set up a solar array for the drones then you have to consider doing that for the cranes as well. Either way the cranes would be cheaper and more energy efficient. this is definitely not efficient or enviromentaly more friendly but it does have use cases for MaRs BuIlDiNgS :-/
That would require extra solar panel production which is also energy intensive. But a solution in the long run for sure. But won't help much short term.
That sounds like a good Idea. But I'd be rather pessimistic about that. First: a drone can't carry much filiment. Keeping a heavy load in the air is a energy expensive. And only taking small loads but many refill tripps, doesn't really lower the energy consumption. A crane that can hold a load in the air without further energy-input is cheaper then to have to keep putting in energy to remain in the air. Second: you have to upscale the drone quite a bit for large constructions. However larger drones need sturdier heavier materials further adding to energy consumption. Third: weather conditions. Holding a large drone still enough against wind and weather will be rather difficult. So you can only operate at still weather.
Was thinking the same thing but I thought construction stopped during weather conditions because holding anything against wind is difficult no? Like, I can't imagine swinging steel bars suspended by a crane wire with higher up winds is business as usual
Yeah drones are just inefficient, even if tethered with a pipe for the concrete it is still inefficient. What they currently have for 3D printing building works much better but if they want to go down the route of collaborative robots then ground based robots are best. Something with either legs or wheels that can go round and build up the walls would be better and wouldn't need stabilisation or to worry about the wind.
@@conorstewart2214 This might sound unintuitive, but OP's 3rd point about wind is actually the easiest one to manage than his other two points - there aren't that many ways we can get around weight and energy consumption after all. Wind, however, is easier. Now, I'm no civil or robotics engineer, but I'd imagine having an independent wind sensor, something you can put around the site, at some distance away, to "forewarn" the drones, would be rather easy. The sensors can then wirelessly communicate with the drones, after which the drones can prepare - adjust their positions, how much to "lean" in a certain direction, and for how long. Like I said, I'm not an expert in these fields, but if even a layman like me can think of something like what I just described, then I'm sure these engineers can figure it out. The weight and power issues are the bigger problems.
Idea: adapt one of those sports stadium cable-suspended cameras as a 3D printer. Would remove the flight/battery issue and have similar benefits plus more stability. Like a giant delta 3D printer.
Already I thought of several ideas that SOMETHING anchored to something else that would supply SOME rigidity to allow the same drone to work and not interfere. LOTS of different ways this could be attempted like the one you say. AND you could have a persistent electric power line compared to small limited batteries. That is a must-have for construction. Just think how many recharge cycles you might run in a day at say 20 min per run, and maintain cases of batteries.
@@mrwayneright Yep, and the lines running power to the unit can also supply feed-stock. Definitely way more real-world potential than a swarm of inefficient flying blender-bombs. Using tethers and/or suspension cabling might at least allow for cranes that aren't so heavy-duty, reducing some of the wastage mentioned.
@@jvon3885 - Not the word I'd have used, but I wouldn't argue against it. TH-cam influencers have always loved to make big dramatic predictions about new technologies. They rarely come true.
99% of work at height is less risky than driving a car. Minimal chance of some idiot hitting you, redundant safety measures etc.. So not much risking of a life. But interesting technology, I'm surprised how effective it might be.
Bullshit. Falls while working at height are the leading cause of workplace fatalities. Everybody and their mother drive a car to work. More people die in traffic accident? Wow. Mind-blowing. This is not in defense of concrete printing, drones or otherwise. It's a terrible way to construct anything. Printed concrete has simply not been proven to remain stable at any scale, let alone high-rise construction.
Yea for large construction projects the cranes would probably be worth the hassle for this reason, but for smaller jobs or emergency applications I could imagine these having their uses
Sure, but more energy for something that's more flexible and 2 or 3 times faster than the gantry style 3d printing, which is already significantly faster than regular building, is worth the efficiency cost. Electricity is cheap and only going to get cheaper.
@@ZirothTech What is a "large" project? For a house-sized project, you could likely design a gantry printer that breaks down in about six major components for transport and can be deployed in less than two hours. Once the gantry is up, it can operate for however long you need it to, no charging or reloading breaks. Though printing speed is ultimately limited by how fast previous layers set hard enough to safely support the next layer.
I could see a combination of the two. A Crane lifts the material close to the use point, then the drones zip about applying it over a short distance. You're still making savings as there is a reduction in labour@@ZirothTech
If the efficiency of the drones and solar cells reaches a certain point, they wouldn't even need to charge, just pick up material and get to work. The efficiency comparison breaks down once we get past energy scarcity.
wow, as a 3dprinting and engineering "enthusiast" i have to say that is absolutely insane and i would love to experiment with that idea myself, thanks for the great insight mate All thought i don't see large use in them due to more energy consumption as some have stated already... i love the concept and already because of how cool and how much of a challenge it is i am absolutely up for testing it once i am able to 😅
Bro I’m sorry but the reason 3d printers are so accurate is bc they are grounded and bolted. Yeah this method could maybe be used in some very specific situations like remote areas, but there is so much that goes into this. Just look the accuracy of the model that they built in a lab, now imagine that with wind and possibly rain
Somewhere around here I've got a video clip of this guy running alongside a hurdler, filming him. He is holding out in front of him, a chicken wearing a helmet with a small camera on top (the guy, not the runner). The result? Absolutely rock solid footage. Why are we trying to reinvent the wh.. the gimbal when nature has spent millions of years developing the chicken?
Because you don't have to feed, water, and wash a plastic robot. A camera gimbal can't feel pain when the operator drops it, nor does it get anxious when strapped to the side of an aircraft.
I think it would make more sense for drones to carry pre-fabricated parts that were 3D printed. Thus you make the part large enough for the drone to lift and transport the required distance. I could see that working. Even use the drones to build a structure, using drop in place pre-fabricated parts. However using drones to actually 3D print structures, I think would be too costly. Technically however clearly possible.
@@JBondy007 in places where you can't get cranes you likely aren't building anything large and chances are you can fit a small crane or forklift in rather than drones.
@@conorstewart2214 Is see it more about process automation and where it's heading. In the future once this drone assisted construction concept evolves sufficiently, I have little doubt it could find a niche in rapid modular construction. Something I'm not sure a crane would be well adapted to. It would hinge on the design structure being modular and optimised for construction via drones, using pre-fabricated components, simply lifted into place by drones at a fairly rapid pace. In the end, it could just come down to cost effectiveness. Modular construction would be easier for drones to adapt to. One off designs less so.
I think what I find weird about it is that it requires you build everything out of a setting material, when if you want "houses [built] with incredible speed" we've been able to do that with prefab housing for a century, and if you want "simple shelters within hours" you can ship a pallet of wood and a nail gun and it wouldn't even need to set.
Using foam to construct buildings has been done for decades. Using a stiff Styrofoam-type (closed-cell extruded polystyrene foam) shell covered in moisture barrier, expanding foam is sprayed or flowed into the center like an ice cream sandwich with common siding and drywall for surface treatment. Inflatable molds can be filled with a dense expanding foam to build non-orthogonal structures. Concrete foam has been used to line tunnels and high volume foam can be used to replace a large portion of a thick (up to 8') non-load bearing slab.
Would love to learn more about the systems that would need to be designed to refill these drones as they'll be limited by their payload capacity. In addition, it might be interesting to dive into the orchestration tactics surrounding swapping out batteries or swapping in/out additional drones as ones need to go offline to charge, which I imagine is something that's already prevalent in some factory automation. Also, how the materials might be processed on-site, especially if it involves locally sourced raw materials, could be an interesting to expand upon further. You've peaked my interest! Obviously there's a lot of problems still to solve surrounding a solution like this but it does look promising for specific applications.
piqued your interest. stirred or aroused, not maxed out. it got your attention. common mistake but you use the word correctly. and you make a lot of good points, I agree, these are pretty interesting problems to sort out
I like how "Ziroth" totally ignore the filament part of the 3d printing process..... It's the small details like that that set apart a real viable project from something designed by ChaptGPT
Would be interesting to do a rough calculation of the number of refill needed based on the mass of concrete or even foam used for an average house and the payload of those drones . I think It would quickly moderate those industry transformation claims haha
I'm pretty sure 3d printing habitats on mars would work better if the drones just traveled on wheels and used jacks to prop themselves in place to use a robotic arm.
a parallel but important discussion is not only the technical way of doing stuff, but the social. so all this makes any sense.. cooperatives and open source software is the thing to promote along side this amazing new technologies
This will be amazing for exploration. I could just imagine taking them out to dump batteries to get them very far out in remote areas. And you could get shelters all over the place to be able to access places that other words were ever accessible. I'm thinking some tweaks and you could have them in water and caves as well. Pretty cool. And if you could get the drones made cheap enough, I'm sure you could think of some really cool designs. If you're not worried about losing the drone in the process. Maybe the drone becomes part of the structure.
A great thing to try and combine this with is wireless power transmission. It would have a lot of kinks to work out between the lab and the real world of course, but it would increase the size and carry capacity of the drones.
i think that if they would interlock it would create redundancy and make them way most stable. adding an adjustable refill station that could postion itself along the flight path would allow then to refill on route.
Considering for larger projects, a single pass with a single small drone will have an absolutely tiny impact on the final product. Any errors on that drones part are going to be negligible especially if the swarm is able to detect errors and take action to correct them like a drone with a clogged nozzle or kinematic errors popping off for maintenance etc and another taking its place.
The hammer is still in use because ''the less moving parts, the less issues there can be'' i'm pretty sure this would be a nightmare operation to deal with. The number of failed print possible is huge and we are talking structural integrity.
@@sebtessier5023 Unless you leverage AI to manage the drones, detect and correct issues in real time. You can drive a single nail into the wrong location and still build a perfectly fine house.
@@Neuralatrophy wouldn't it be absolue atrocious tu try an manually control a swarm of hundreds of drone manually? I am pretty sure we would need an AI. Still have to clean hundreds of nuzzle after, find replace batteries frequently, tiny repairs for every thing and that is without mentionning the noise for the Neighbors. I am pretty sure it would get banned in large city
As a carpenter, I'm pretty confident I can't be replaced by a robot any time soon. Maybe in 50 or 100 years it would be possible. If you're building out of cinder block or brick maybe 3D printing would be an alternative. Trying to do precise finish work over that extruded mess would be challenging though.
I'm more interested in learning more about the printer at 0:43. I had theorized that a printer with an angled head could be interesting, but this is making some *massive* bridging lines look easy. I'm most curious what material it's using, because I don't think concrete works that way.
Drones probably at least in the States couldn't get any city code approval. They would have to conduct their building experiments out in the countryside first say West Texas, where no such building codes exist. In Europe I would imagine it would even be more difficult. Now I hear there is a 3D house printing company in Austin TX that is a hybrid system using giant Vulcan 3D house printers that does meet code. This because it is also using humans and typical building processes, but it would be interesting to know which codes the 3D house printers are passing what they actually allowed to print. I would guestimate - not much.
I think this will prove more useful for aesthetic repairs in hard-to-reach places. I'm not sure the strength or layer adhesion of material deposited like this will meet the regulations required for any kind of load-bearing structural elements.
Yeah this will be better used for other things than building the walls. The walls are built on the ground so why not use ground based robots? Drones may be good for spraying insulation or paint though.
Many problems with drones have aleady been pointed out: precision under wind gust, weight load, fuel efficiency. In addition, drones would be most helpful for high-rise building construction, but the 3D printed materials would likely not have the required tensile strength where steel beams are normally used.
Wow... I think this an amazing technology. I think it is a bit early to jump to the idea that this will replace cranes since drone carry capacities are low, but for some things where there aren't a lot of viable options except to fly and 3D print on site, yea... this make sense.
I recognise the printed structure featured on the video thumbnail. That was a ceramic vase designed by the Belgian artist Unfold and printed on his gantry printer (a modified BFB 3000 if I recall) in about 2010.
I wonder if it makes sense for the drones to be corded, and cement pumped up to them. This would allow for stronger and continuous drones running, and not needing to land to acquire more material. also wouldn't require drones to carry all the material themselves (though maybe that's less of an issue if the drones are corded). Though coordination of the drones through space would become more important to avoid 'crossing streams'.
The drone still needs to lift the weight of the cord or pipe and a pipe filled with concrete is heavy. A robot that crawls or walks along the top of the wall would be better.
I’m a drone guy, but why not apply the materials by integrating the control arms to a concrete pump type truck. Drive the truck up, set up, start bringing materials to the “truck” and get it done.
3D printing is still an emerging and amazing technology. My home printer clearly has 0.05mm or less accuracy when making test pieces. With a 2mm part being too tight, make it just 1.95mm and it fits great! SpaceX and many other rockets use various metal printers now too.
He mentioned the building code tolerances in the video. 9:23 Just missing scale and purpose really. They could just make crawler bots on the surface of that kind of material and save the propeller. Bring in our new hive mindset.
They don't. These drones and most 3D printed houses are nothing but concrete, no metal reinforcement and all electrical or plumbing work needs done after the structure of the house is built. They also likely need to put extra walls up inside or you will have a bumpy, plain concrete wall with all the wiring and plumbing exposed.
Yeah, this could definitely be part of a solid toolkit. I wouldn't bank on it as an all-in-one thing for large projects anytime soon. This and small robots for tight electrical work.
I was hoping for a detailed review of the delta-gimbal construction. I remember seeing one of the first delta robots 30 years ago. I knew then that there would be future applications. This one is extraordinary.
Drones hovering seems to be a limiting factor. What about a drone 'printer' that works like a Delta printer, where the print head can extend below any of the supports. Doing that the drone can land on the structure, build up a section, take off and refill material and recharge. If the construction done was quite large, it could even have smaller drones delivering materials. I like the idea of smaller drones being able to replace a battery on a large drone, or dock and transfer power?
Really cool idea. And I have drones and 3D printers and love them both. Problem here it's going to be power to weight ratio. Construction materials are very heavy, drones have limited carrying capacity. Anything that can build buildings or lift girders or eye beams is going to be massive, and cost way more then Caterpillar or a simple crane. We'll have to see where the future takes us. But i don't see drones doing this for a long long time..
Yeah drones aren't suitable for this really. Ground based robots or gantries would work much more efficiently. Maybe even something that crawls along the wall and poops out concrete behind itself would work. Also it is "I beams" not "eye beams", they are named because of their shape, it is the shape of a capital i, similarly they can also be called "H beams" again because of the shape.
This will NOT replace any current technologies used for building the usual stuff. We do it much more efficient than some flying drones. What this CAN be used for is for building stuff we did not even know we could build up until now - some small remote structures that would require way too much effort to haul a big crane up on a mountain or something like that. This is NEW technology for completely NOVEL kind of builds.
Hi, The wasps and bees do not build their hives while flying, they use thir legs for stability. What about just mounting necessary structures by drones? Pre-planned small structure parts brought together, and self-mounted by a plan?
To be really efficient, and to more closely follow nature, the drones need to land, thus not wasting fliying energy, and then deposit a part of the structure before flying off and collecting more material, or moving to another area on the structure. This is the way.
fascinating! It has so many applications once they overcome those pesky outside hurdles... regulations and such. 🙂 I only found you recently, but am really enjoying your videos.
I think printing buildings is unquestionably the most environmentally benign method of building, especially if a proportion of the matirial used comes directly from the construction site. It will become ubiquitous soon enough. Using drones to do this, however will remain a niche option simply by dint of the weight of the materials used. Scaled up, the drones illustating the principle would be helicopters! Brilliant channel...thanks!
I can see this stuff happening in less than 10 years easily. I can also see it going far beyond what is predicted here. I don't think skyscrapers will be 3D printed with drones, but with large gantries and other types of cranes, who knows though! Really large tethered drones with constant power might be easy enough to make work, especially if they start using those toroidal propellers that provide more lift and are far less noisy.
Why not use a tethered drone with a power cable and material feed pipe/tube. The extra weight of these would be offset by not having to carry batteries and product. There would be no refilling and battery swaps, so it could run indefinitely. You could also have an autonomous ground robot/tanker vehicle for larger construction jobs and to minimise cable/tube lengths.
There may be potential applications, but they're going to be severely limited in usefulness. Mostly because of payload capacity and environmental conditions. You also still need someone to control what they're building. We don't randomly build stuff without engineering it first - mostly because we need a structure that has a purpose and it useful to us. We can't live in a wasp nest or a beehive.
How about a crane-hoisted platform with material, and then have hoses running down to supply a fleet of drones? They would have limited maneuverability, but that would outweigh the time & energy spent picking up stuff.
I could use such a drone in my shop. The electricity and plastic filament would hang from the roof and drop to the drone. No need for batteries. It could work non-stop for days. The advantage is that the size of the object would not be limited by the 3D printer frame. It could be as large as my shop. Precision limit of 5 mm is way too high though.
Je ne crois pas du tout que des drônes puissent imprimer en 3d un bâtiment car cela représente des centaines de tonnes de béton ( mortier), cependant imprimer des bâtiments avec des murs ( voiles) avec une structure en nid d abeilles est une bonne idée pour rendre les murs plus résistants à la compression, cependant il faudra toujours avoir une épaisseur d alvéoles suffisantes: les voiles ( murs ) conventionnels font en général 16 cm d épaisseur, mais en imprimant en 3d ( avec une imprimante 3d ) font environ 5 à 6 cm d épaisseur ( avec 2 ou 3 murs parallèles, donc faire un mur avec plusieurs alvéoles hexagonales d environ 4 à 5 cm d épaisseur pourrait être pertinent pour augmenter la résistance des murs ( comme cela a fait pour des bâtiments imprimés en 3d avec de la terre argileuse : construits avec des formes sinusoïdale se chevauchant). Donc d après moi les nids d abeilles sont une bonne idée, mais cela demandera sûrement plusieurs essais pour avoir une technique au point.
Buffed the buffer for more stability. This is probably amazing for bridge, or antenna repairs, imagine it with a welder attached fixing things. Do we have the modular work bot platform yet? Milwaukee get on that replace my job already I can use a break. Except I'm sure it will just mean overtime. If we keep solving all the problems of work why do we need money again? The cost is coming soon.
Gantrys are definitely a more doable method for now, they are definitely more emervu efficient, but this has alot of applications in emergency situations and spafe travel
There is no reason gantries can't be used in emergencies or in space travel too. Drones aren't very efficient. One thing you will likely lack in space travel or in emergencies on Earth is power so you want an efficient solution.
@conorstewart2214 I agree, but the biggest issue with gantrys for emergencies is that you dont know the situation you're going into. In unideal conditions, you're gonna need a huge gantry. For space travel, the energy efficiency of gantrys makes them a more permanent solution, but you want to reduce weight as much as possible when you launch a rocket, so in some situations drones might be a good idea. I could see drones being designed to prepare (or repair) hard to reach infrastructure, like the equipment that produces filament for a gantry, the gantry itself, or the higher points on lander craft. Though on low atmosphere bodies though drones are basically usless, same for overly windy ones.
Let's check the number of problems with the idea: Likely needs a fleet of drones to practically make anything of usable size. Drones need reload time. Recharge time. Near zero windspeeds for 3d printing to be remotely accurate. So this construction method is. Slower, more expensive and would only be useful in building structures unreachable or in impractical places. Biomimicry is a great idea when used practically, not when you randomly apply it to drones.
Good experiment, but I can think on many other options using drones for construction that does not involve such complexity and power consumption. For example, just put an structural part on top of the other is way easier to a swarm of drones. That said, everyone goes crazy on flying things, may be our human nature hoping to overcome our own limitations as specie. You just can do the same way easier with other kind of robots just have to see nature working with all our legs on the ground, ants and termites are way better building structures than any flying creature (bigger and faster)
It seems to me that a single arm concrete printer would be preferable in the areas where a gantry system is not feasible. If produced on the tens of 1000s, maybe the cost of this construction would be economically doable. Personally, I like the smooth curved lines of these buildings. Would it be more feasible if the system extruded foam and then coated it in some sort of reinforced shotcrete?
I think I have seen printers like that already. The term for robots like that is "cylindrical robot", which is named quite obviously because its range of motion is a cylinder (well really a hollow cylinder like a tube, where the robot itself goes).
Some lines of the video made me think "what could go wrong?"... "...when, not if, drone swarms venture outdoors into real life..." "...working on replenishment systems for materials and batteries..." "...autonomous drones 3d-printing a house doesn't seem all that far-fetched..." I'm picturing drone swarms venturing outdoors under the control of autonomous scandrones, occasionally replenishing themselves so they can build... more drones.
One thing not mentioned is everything they built looks like a combination of dog poop and a termite mound. Neither of which would appeal as a home...emergecy shelter, of course, but not a home.
The only inherent advantage I see from drones is being able to 3d print anywhere. The disadvantages are battery life, load capacity, manufacturing cost, material cost, software cost, margin of error, points of failures, repair cost. It doesn't even beat a crane in that since cranes can move in all directions on top of having massive reach. (For really tall buildings, cranes can lift up other cranes.) -Let me know how the downsides can be mitigated, but aren't drones really bad for construction? They seem to sacrifice everything for the sake of speed as they bring significant disadvantages no matter what scenario you use it in, large scale or small scale.- -[Large Scale]- -It's difficult to get a lot of drones because well, they're drones and you would have to mass manufacture a quadcopter with gps positioning, networking capabilities and can print material. Engineering drones is NOT cheap at all nor does it have an optimized process like creating a long crane arm. You need many different materials along with extremely precise manufacturing for the computer chip and flight parts. It goes without saying that this is not cheap or reliable.- -It also doesn't help that materials that "settle" can be incredibly strong, but they'll probably never be as cheap to make or strong as just pure steel. This singlehandedly kills drones because they aren't effective at heavy loads so they need to use on-demand materials.- -Another concern is the handling of fails, hardware and software. Cranes are relatively extremely easy to maintain to prevent fails, on top of being extremely predictable and mostly safe when it does fail. Drones needs a calibrated gyroscope, secure networking software, calibrated extruder, stable gps connection and camera in order to not fail. When it does fail, you have no idea how it will fail. Will it crash into a building then bury someone in a layer of material, or did someone hack it and cause the drones to come raining down? Normally, a human operative can prevent these things but it's extremely difficult to pick 1 drone out of 1000 and shut that specific drone down.- -[Small Scale]- -Now drones can still be useful for small projects that don't need more than a few drones, enough to be created and serviced by a single person or a small team. Except there's one key issue, why does the 3d printer have to be a drone? Stable configurations will always be more efficient than unstable ones, both in terms of errors and cost. - -For small scale projects, regular 3d printing material is already strong enough to not require stronger parts. In that case, you can build larger structures if you use interlocking parts (which is what the 3d printing community does anyways) then put it together. Worst case scenario, use a screw since if it works for suspension bridges it probably works for you. That or just get a bigger 3d printer. Seams are fixable.- -[Proposed Scenarios]- -Safety high up is already decent. If you can't even ensure your workers can be safe up there, it's highly likely the building itself is unsafe. Disaster relief in faraway places sounds good, until you realize you still need a giant ship to carry all those drones and material over. Replace multiple shipping crates of tightly packed drones with one larger than usual printer and you're fine.-
I can't see this happening. You're essentially talking about drones with the cumulative energy required to lift an entire house. Sure, they only lift a small percentage at a time, but that's not the point, and drones are not energy efficient. In order for the drones to do a useful amount of work per flight, they would need the power to lift a usefully sized payload, something comparable to a job-site cement mixer. That would make them more like small helicopters than any of the drones you showed. Sure, they could use expanding foam instead of concrete to keep the weight of the payload down, but then that's going to have to be covered in some sort of render to make it secure. You wouldn't want a house where thieves could just use a hot knife to slice through a wall, or acetone spray to eat a hole through a wall. Expanding foam is also really hard to control precisely - just look at the state of that tower. Even though it was deposited accurately, it expanded all over the place. Strong foams, especially closed cell foams which is what you need for insulation, are made by expanding them under pressure. In free air, the expansion continues unrestricted, leading to a weak cellular structure. It's bad enough walking around upstairs in an old house where the joists flex. Imagine how creaky it would be if the walls that the joists are attached to flex or squish, even slightly as you walk across the room. There's also health implications to using plastic foam. It will off-gas for years, making the building rather toxic. It would need a very efficient ventilation system to ensure adequate air replacement without losing heat. I'm sure materials science will make great strides, but I just don't see it evolving to the state where it's both economical and structurally sound. When you compare the speed and efficiency of the current construction method using interlocking expanded polystyrene formers, filled with concrete, I just can't see the economics working. I can see how gantry-based printing can be useful for creating very flexible designs, especially when curves are used, but drones? I think not. You say that gantries are bulky, but everything about building a house is bulky. Joists, wooden or steel are large, A-frames for the roof are large, bricks or concrete are also massive. Transporting a relatively light weight set of collapsible gantry frames is no great shakes to the building trade. An experienced team would probably have the gantry assembled in a couple of hours. You talk about drones being able to build on an island. Try getting 3 or four full-sized cement mixers to the island before the concrete goes off. The gantry is the least of your worries. Neither gantry nor drone printing incorporates any means of integrating rebar, so they would be susceptible to crumbling in a high wind or earthquake scenario. This means the walls would need to be much thicker to compensate. The more I think about this, the less practicable it becomes. I'm sure it's fun researching this, but someone needs to take a reality pill.
How does a drone carrying a few liters at best of fast setting concrete help build in remote areas exactly ? You still need to bring the concrete close to the worksite, most likely in a cement mixing truck, you need to bring all the charging infrastructure, so probably a big generator and energy storage in a truck trailer form factor, the drones themselves are probably another truck load on its own, all said and done you still need all the same road and power infrastructure every worksite already has to even start construction. I doubt it would be cheaper either, if flying was cheaper everyone would have helicopters, not cars.
Between this, the eight companies making humanoid robots and the open AI AGI lawsuit that apparently says that Open AI has AGI, the world's getting super weird. I can't be the only one that notices this right??
What's the point of having flying drones. Climbing drones can use an already printed part of the object for orientation in space and as a route for material delivery. Like ants.
Part of me wants to keyboard-jockey about all the unsolved problems we have here, or propose my own solutions. But I AM NOT the one programing the drones and doing the research. THEY are. There are other reasonable posts here. So I wish them well and to accomplish actionable solutions before they run out of research money. Thanks for the story, Ziroth.
My 55Wh lion battery can keep my 1kg drone hovering for about 15-20mins, just got much would be needed to build a house/shelter and carry any meaningful amount of material? They would be better off air dropping a load of popup tents in an emergency shelter situation. Certainly less wastful then using concrete or some exotic materials for a temporary emergency shelter
We're a roofing company that also builds drones and robots via 3D printing. What @Islandhermit said is correct. The energy it takes to lift material is far more significant than the existing methods. 3D printing is still exceptionally unreliable. Clogged nozzles, faulty temperature sensors, maintenance of tensioner belts, humidity control of filaments... Printing on a stable platform in a controlled environment is still hard. Adding drones and integrating all of that into electrical, plumbing, all within code, in all weather..... guys..... guys.... if there's one company that would be all for it its us and we're probably a couple centuries away from doing it this way. Tech likes to think they can solve everything but just remember... Elon Musk succeeded at space travel before he succeeded in roofing.
the smaller-than-product printing system is a great idea, but implementing it with quadcopters doesn't seem to be a good decision, especially on mars where not much atmosphere to generate lift. wired hexapod that climbs on its product while printing would be better
How about ant like drones. That can work together to from different shapes/constructions/machines. Just like a group of ants can form a bridge. How about a group of walking drones that form a crane that holds a hose that prints. Far more stable, stronger, flexible, exact. Flying drones are at the mercy of wind. And wind can't really be controlled. And building needs millimeter exact control. Especially with modern Ai it will be easy to control a swarm of builder ants.
These drones just got more and more interesting the more I learnt about them! Make sure to try out some of the courses from Brilliant to learn more about the inner workings of engineering systems like these drones - Use my link at brilliant.org/ziroth/ for 30 days FREE and 20% off for the first 200 subscribers! Thanks for watching!!
Gradually we come closer to the small flying robot beings from the movie "Batteries Not Included" (those could build and repair everything). The difference between wasps and those drones is that insects also have legs to stabilize their position and possibly even fix flaws in the applied material, so a precise 3D printer drone swarm likely should have additional small arms to be used in a similar way.
Same principle as "When you have a hammer, everything is a nail !". But is it ???
Concrete without rebar... sounds like it should last 2 or 3 years
If this push thru.. a lot of people will lose their job
You claim 3d printing in construction is environmentally safe, efficient, and is a business with alot of money. No more scaffoldings , no more wastage, no more heavy equipment, NO MORE HUMANS. I really don't get it why these people are so amazed in machines replacing humans.. ai, human like robots, drones and now these... Evolution means extinction of the latter
One problem I see with this is that using drones to lift materials requires a lot more energy than using a crane. And once the material is up there, the crane can keep it there with virtually no energy expenditure while the drones need to burn a lot of energy just to stay airborne.
A concentrated solar array at the site would fix that, just make the initial costs slightly bigger. Still not as much as the extra costs from both time and heavy machinery
Probably energy expenditure flying those is not a significant cost all expenses accounted. But the crane system would be simpler, faster and less prone to failures. Drones would be maybe better for hard to reach places and fine details.
@@cython5086 No it doesn't. Cranes are still more energy efficient.
@@cython5086 if we're gonna set up a solar array for the drones then you have to consider doing that for the cranes as well. Either way the cranes would be cheaper and more energy efficient. this is definitely not efficient or enviromentaly more friendly but it does have use cases for MaRs BuIlDiNgS :-/
That would require extra solar panel production which is also energy intensive. But a solution in the long run for sure. But won't help much short term.
> even more precise
>makes hexagonal cell of 5 sides
LOL
savage
Doesn't Hexagon mean '6 sides'?
The bees seem better at the job at present.
@@pcka12 that was exactly the joke part
@@DeathSugar so 'a pentagon'.
That sounds like a good Idea. But I'd be rather pessimistic about that.
First: a drone can't carry much filiment. Keeping a heavy load in the air is a energy expensive. And only taking small loads but many refill tripps, doesn't really lower the energy consumption.
A crane that can hold a load in the air without further energy-input is cheaper then to have to keep putting in energy to remain in the air.
Second: you have to upscale the drone quite a bit for large constructions. However larger drones need sturdier heavier materials further adding to energy consumption.
Third: weather conditions. Holding a large drone still enough against wind and weather will be rather difficult. So you can only operate at still weather.
Was thinking the same thing but I thought construction stopped during weather conditions because holding anything against wind is difficult no? Like, I can't imagine swinging steel bars suspended by a crane wire with higher up winds is business as usual
@@bforbiggy chances are the crane can continue to work on higher wind than a drone can.
Yeah drones are just inefficient, even if tethered with a pipe for the concrete it is still inefficient.
What they currently have for 3D printing building works much better but if they want to go down the route of collaborative robots then ground based robots are best. Something with either legs or wheels that can go round and build up the walls would be better and wouldn't need stabilisation or to worry about the wind.
@@conorstewart2214 This might sound unintuitive, but OP's 3rd point about wind is actually the easiest one to manage than his other two points - there aren't that many ways we can get around weight and energy consumption after all. Wind, however, is easier.
Now, I'm no civil or robotics engineer, but I'd imagine having an independent wind sensor, something you can put around the site, at some distance away, to "forewarn" the drones, would be rather easy. The sensors can then wirelessly communicate with the drones, after which the drones can prepare - adjust their positions, how much to "lean" in a certain direction, and for how long.
Like I said, I'm not an expert in these fields, but if even a layman like me can think of something like what I just described, then I'm sure these engineers can figure it out. The weight and power issues are the bigger problems.
Classic TH-cam comment...
"You're wrong.""
Idea: adapt one of those sports stadium cable-suspended cameras as a 3D printer. Would remove the flight/battery issue and have similar benefits plus more stability. Like a giant delta 3D printer.
brilliant! i'm all down for that one. huge delts 3D printer have been dome before, and (unlike this bogus) it's a really promising technology.
But drones are cool and trendy.
Already I thought of several ideas that SOMETHING anchored to something else that would supply SOME rigidity to allow the same drone to work and not interfere. LOTS of different ways this could be attempted like the one you say. AND you could have a persistent electric power line compared to small limited batteries. That is a must-have for construction. Just think how many recharge cycles you might run in a day at say 20 min per run, and maintain cases of batteries.
@@mrwayneright Yep, and the lines running power to the unit can also supply feed-stock. Definitely way more real-world potential than a swarm of inefficient flying blender-bombs.
Using tethers and/or suspension cabling might at least allow for cranes that aren't so heavy-duty, reducing some of the wastage mentioned.
Yes
Well, those are some rather dramatic predictions. I'll believe it when I see it happening.
You won't because it's dumb.
@@jvon3885 - Not the word I'd have used, but I wouldn't argue against it. TH-cam influencers have always loved to make big dramatic predictions about new technologies. They rarely come true.
Wind: I'm about to end this mans whole career
99% of work at height is less risky than driving a car. Minimal chance of some idiot hitting you, redundant safety measures etc.. So not much risking of a life. But interesting technology, I'm surprised how effective it might be.
Bullshit. Falls while working at height are the leading cause of workplace fatalities.
Everybody and their mother drive a car to work. More people die in traffic accident? Wow. Mind-blowing.
This is not in defense of concrete printing, drones or otherwise. It's a terrible way to construct anything. Printed concrete has simply not been proven to remain stable at any scale, let alone high-rise construction.
Carrying material in the air before depositing it on the structure costs a lot more energy than a crane or a giant printer no ?
Yea for large construction projects the cranes would probably be worth the hassle for this reason, but for smaller jobs or emergency applications I could imagine these having their uses
Sure, but more energy for something that's more flexible and 2 or 3 times faster than the gantry style 3d printing, which is already significantly faster than regular building, is worth the efficiency cost. Electricity is cheap and only going to get cheaper.
@@ZirothTech What is a "large" project? For a house-sized project, you could likely design a gantry printer that breaks down in about six major components for transport and can be deployed in less than two hours. Once the gantry is up, it can operate for however long you need it to, no charging or reloading breaks. Though printing speed is ultimately limited by how fast previous layers set hard enough to safely support the next layer.
I could see a combination of the two. A Crane lifts the material close to the use point, then the drones zip about applying it over a short distance. You're still making savings as there is a reduction in labour@@ZirothTech
If the efficiency of the drones and solar cells reaches a certain point, they wouldn't even need to charge, just pick up material and get to work. The efficiency comparison breaks down once we get past energy scarcity.
wow, as a 3dprinting and engineering "enthusiast" i have to say that is absolutely insane and i would love to experiment with that idea myself, thanks for the great insight mate
All thought i don't see large use in them due to more energy consumption as some have stated already... i love the concept and already because of how cool and how much of a challenge it is i am absolutely up for testing it once i am able to 😅
Bro I’m sorry but the reason 3d printers are so accurate is bc they are grounded and bolted. Yeah this method could maybe be used in some very specific situations like remote areas, but there is so much that goes into this. Just look the accuracy of the model that they built in a lab, now imagine that with wind and possibly rain
Somewhere around here I've got a video clip of this guy running alongside a hurdler, filming him. He is holding out in front of him, a chicken wearing a helmet with a small camera on top (the guy, not the runner). The result? Absolutely rock solid footage. Why are we trying to reinvent the wh.. the gimbal when nature has spent millions of years developing the chicken?
Because you don't have to feed, water, and wash a plastic robot. A camera gimbal can't feel pain when the operator drops it, nor does it get anxious when strapped to the side of an aircraft.
i think he's saying they need to be studying chicken necks with ai algos lol......right?
it didn't take God a million years to make a chicken. 🙂
No, it took roughly 800 million years of animal evolution to get us with a modern chicken, with a tiny chunk of that being human guided evolution
I think it would make more sense for drones to carry pre-fabricated parts that were 3D printed. Thus you make the part large enough for the drone to lift and transport the required distance. I could see that working. Even use the drones to build a structure, using drop in place pre-fabricated parts. However using drones to actually 3D print structures, I think would be too costly. Technically however clearly possible.
May as well use a crane if all you're doing is lifting panels.
In places where cranes can't be cost effectively located, drones might be another option. In the end it comes down to cost and practicality of course.
@@JBondy007 in places where you can't get cranes you likely aren't building anything large and chances are you can fit a small crane or forklift in rather than drones.
@@conorstewart2214 Is see it more about process automation and where it's heading. In the future once this drone assisted construction concept evolves sufficiently, I have little doubt it could find a niche in rapid modular construction. Something I'm not sure a crane would be well adapted to. It would hinge on the design structure being modular and optimised for construction via drones, using pre-fabricated components, simply lifted into place by drones at a fairly rapid pace. In the end, it could just come down to cost effectiveness. Modular construction would be easier for drones to adapt to. One off designs less so.
I think what I find weird about it is that it requires you build everything out of a setting material, when if you want "houses [built] with incredible speed" we've been able to do that with prefab housing for a century, and if you want "simple shelters within hours" you can ship a pallet of wood and a nail gun and it wouldn't even need to set.
Using foam to construct buildings has been done for decades. Using a stiff Styrofoam-type (closed-cell extruded polystyrene foam) shell covered in moisture barrier, expanding foam is sprayed or flowed into the center like an ice cream sandwich with common siding and drywall for surface treatment.
Inflatable molds can be filled with a dense expanding foam to build non-orthogonal structures.
Concrete foam has been used to line tunnels and high volume foam can be used to replace a large portion of a thick (up to 8') non-load bearing slab.
Structurally Insulated Panels or SIPs.
@@slozenger9000Pre-fab?
Would love to learn more about the systems that would need to be designed to refill these drones as they'll be limited by their payload capacity. In addition, it might be interesting to dive into the orchestration tactics surrounding swapping out batteries or swapping in/out additional drones as ones need to go offline to charge, which I imagine is something that's already prevalent in some factory automation. Also, how the materials might be processed on-site, especially if it involves locally sourced raw materials, could be an interesting to expand upon further.
You've peaked my interest! Obviously there's a lot of problems still to solve surrounding a solution like this but it does look promising for specific applications.
piqued your interest. stirred or aroused, not maxed out. it got your attention. common mistake but you use the word correctly.
and you make a lot of good points, I agree, these are pretty interesting problems to sort out
I like how "Ziroth" totally ignore the filament part of the 3d printing process.....
It's the small details like that that set apart a real viable project from something designed by ChaptGPT
Would be interesting to do a rough calculation of the number of refill needed based on the mass of concrete or even foam used for an average house and the payload of those drones . I think It would quickly moderate those industry transformation claims haha
I'm pretty sure 3d printing habitats on mars would work better if the drones just traveled on wheels and used jacks to prop themselves in place to use a robotic arm.
The ingenuity helicopter is absolutely impressive, but there will probably never be much atmospheric flight on Mars.
a parallel but important discussion is not only the technical way of doing stuff, but the social. so all this makes any sense.. cooperatives and open source software is the thing to promote along side this amazing new technologies
This will be amazing for exploration. I could just imagine taking them out to dump batteries to get them very far out in remote areas. And you could get shelters all over the place to be able to access places that other words were ever accessible. I'm thinking some tweaks and you could have them in water and caves as well. Pretty cool.
And if you could get the drones made cheap enough, I'm sure you could think of some really cool designs. If you're not worried about losing the drone in the process. Maybe the drone becomes part of the structure.
I hope to see this being developed by big and strong companies in my country also.
A great thing to try and combine this with is wireless power transmission. It would have a lot of kinks to work out between the lab and the real world of course, but it would increase the size and carry capacity of the drones.
i think that if they would interlock it would create redundancy and make them way most stable. adding an adjustable refill station that could postion itself along the flight path would allow then to refill on route.
OMG, 2 of my favourite things, now combined ! My mind is blown!
Considering for larger projects, a single pass with a single small drone will have an absolutely tiny impact on the final product. Any errors on that drones part are going to be negligible especially if the swarm is able to detect errors and take action to correct them like a drone with a clogged nozzle or kinematic errors popping off for maintenance etc and another taking its place.
The hammer is still in use because ''the less moving parts, the less issues there can be'' i'm pretty sure this would be a nightmare operation to deal with. The number of failed print possible is huge and we are talking structural integrity.
@@sebtessier5023 Unless you leverage AI to manage the drones, detect and correct issues in real time. You can drive a single nail into the wrong location and still build a perfectly fine house.
@@Neuralatrophy wouldn't it be absolue atrocious tu try an manually control a swarm of hundreds of drone manually? I am pretty sure we would need an AI. Still have to clean hundreds of nuzzle after, find replace batteries frequently, tiny repairs for every thing and that is without mentionning the noise for the Neighbors. I am pretty sure it would get banned in large city
As a carpenter, I'm pretty confident I can't be replaced by a robot any time soon. Maybe in 50 or 100 years it would be possible.
If you're building out of cinder block or brick maybe 3D printing would be an alternative. Trying to do precise finish work over that extruded mess would be challenging though.
I'm more interested in learning more about the printer at 0:43. I had theorized that a printer with an angled head could be interesting, but this is making some *massive* bridging lines look easy.
I'm most curious what material it's using, because I don't think concrete works that way.
So now the drone just mimicking the hornet building their nest
Drones probably at least in the States couldn't get any city code approval. They would have to conduct their building experiments out in the countryside first say West Texas, where no such building codes exist. In Europe I would imagine it would even be more difficult. Now I hear there is a 3D house printing company in Austin TX that is a hybrid system using giant Vulcan 3D house printers that does meet code. This because it is also using humans and typical building processes, but it would be interesting to know which codes the 3D house printers are passing what they actually allowed to print. I would guestimate - not much.
I think this will prove more useful for aesthetic repairs in hard-to-reach places. I'm not sure the strength or layer adhesion of material deposited like this will meet the regulations required for any kind of load-bearing structural elements.
Yeah this will be better used for other things than building the walls. The walls are built on the ground so why not use ground based robots?
Drones may be good for spraying insulation or paint though.
Many problems with drones have aleady been pointed out: precision under wind gust, weight load, fuel efficiency. In addition, drones would be most helpful for high-rise building construction, but the 3D printed materials would likely not have the required tensile strength where steel beams are normally used.
Wow... I think this an amazing technology. I think it is a bit early to jump to the idea that this will replace cranes since drone carry capacities are low, but for some things where there aren't a lot of viable options except to fly and 3D print on site, yea... this make sense.
I recognise the printed structure featured on the video thumbnail. That was a ceramic vase designed by the Belgian artist Unfold and printed on his gantry printer (a modified BFB 3000 if I recall) in about 2010.
I wonder if it makes sense for the drones to be corded, and cement pumped up to them. This would allow for stronger and continuous drones running, and not needing to land to acquire more material. also wouldn't require drones to carry all the material themselves (though maybe that's less of an issue if the drones are corded). Though coordination of the drones through space would become more important to avoid 'crossing streams'.
I.e. steering a swarm of 3D-printing string puppet robots!
@@AerialTheShamen: *flying* 3D-printing string puppet robots!
The drone still needs to lift the weight of the cord or pipe and a pipe filled with concrete is heavy. A robot that crawls or walks along the top of the wall would be better.
@@conorstewart2214 good call
Very well explained.
Sounds like it needs to be proven feasible next at scale.
I’m a drone guy, but why not apply the materials by integrating the control arms to a concrete pump type truck. Drive the truck up, set up, start bringing materials to the “truck” and get it done.
3D printing is still an emerging and amazing technology.
My home printer clearly has 0.05mm or less accuracy when making test pieces.
With a 2mm part being too tight, make it just 1.95mm and it fits great!
SpaceX and many other rockets use various metal printers now too.
Can't wait to see where this goes over the next decade.
You are overselling the precision; you are comparing to drones when you need to compare to 3D printers. They got a proof of concept and little else.
both aspects should be covered equally
There's a whole neighborhood going up in Texas that is being 3D printed. Call it what you want, it's more than a concept.
He mentioned the building code tolerances in the video. 9:23 Just missing scale and purpose really. They could just make crawler bots on the surface of that kind of material and save the propeller. Bring in our new hive mindset.
How do you get rigidity into these structures. Are there 3d printing rebar drones. Or..girder drones?
They don't. These drones and most 3D printed houses are nothing but concrete, no metal reinforcement and all electrical or plumbing work needs done after the structure of the house is built. They also likely need to put extra walls up inside or you will have a bumpy, plain concrete wall with all the wiring and plumbing exposed.
I was actually surprised but the trump international hotel in chicago is 1389 ft of concrete, no rebar.
but definitely not built with flimsy drones
ITT automated assembly, so like premade wall sections and other modular sections, combined with in-situ 3D printing, will be the real game changer.
Yeah, this could definitely be part of a solid toolkit. I wouldn't bank on it as an all-in-one thing for large projects anytime soon. This and small robots for tight electrical work.
Have two drones stacked ( sort of ) the top drone could hold the material the lower drone printing.
It will be interesting in conjunction with the advances in synthetic spider-silk.
You always find the most fascinating new technologies.
I was hoping for a detailed review of the delta-gimbal construction.
I remember seeing one of the first delta robots 30 years ago. I knew then that there would be future applications. This one is extraordinary.
Drones hovering seems to be a limiting factor. What about a drone 'printer' that works like a Delta printer, where the print head can extend below any of the supports.
Doing that the drone can land on the structure, build up a section, take off and refill material and recharge.
If the construction done was quite large, it could even have smaller drones delivering materials. I like the idea of smaller drones being able to replace a battery on a large drone, or dock and transfer power?
Really cool idea. And I have drones and 3D printers and love them both. Problem here it's going to be power to weight ratio. Construction materials are very heavy, drones have limited carrying capacity. Anything that can build buildings or lift girders or eye beams is going to be massive, and cost way more then Caterpillar or a simple crane. We'll have to see where the future takes us. But i don't see drones doing this for a long long time..
Yeah drones aren't suitable for this really. Ground based robots or gantries would work much more efficiently. Maybe even something that crawls along the wall and poops out concrete behind itself would work.
Also it is "I beams" not "eye beams", they are named because of their shape, it is the shape of a capital i, similarly they can also be called "H beams" again because of the shape.
Pretty cool stuff. Would be awesome to see how this gets deployed in the future.
This will NOT replace any current technologies used for building the usual stuff. We do it much more efficient than some flying drones.
What this CAN be used for is for building stuff we did not even know we could build up until now - some small remote structures that would require way too much effort to haul a big crane up on a mountain or something like that. This is NEW technology for completely NOVEL kind of builds.
Hi,
The wasps and bees do not build their hives while flying, they use thir legs for stability.
What about just mounting necessary structures by drones?
Pre-planned small structure parts brought together, and self-mounted by a plan?
you have seen the stuff in place of cement for fence posts that might work
To be really efficient, and to more closely follow nature, the drones need to land, thus not wasting fliying energy, and then deposit a part of the structure before flying off and collecting more material, or moving to another area on the structure. This is the way.
fascinating! It has so many applications once they overcome those pesky outside hurdles... regulations and such. 🙂
I only found you recently, but am really enjoying your videos.
The delivery of construction materials by air using drones or airships is interesting. But it's ridiculous to build without relying on a building.
Dude that is really cool!
it just ain't gonna work. lol
I think printing buildings is unquestionably the most environmentally benign method of building, especially if a proportion of the matirial used comes directly from the construction site. It will become ubiquitous soon enough. Using drones to do this, however will remain a niche option simply by dint of the weight of the materials used. Scaled up, the drones illustating the principle would be helicopters! Brilliant channel...thanks!
do they sting and hunt me down like normal wasps?
that could be arranged
bees and wasp are protesting about AI advancement
The genius of this is it let build big prints.
Would love your thoughts on ocean wave/kinetic energy capture... Exciting field no one's ever really gone after BIG.... Cheers- love your work!
I can see this stuff happening in less than 10 years easily.
I can also see it going far beyond what is predicted here.
I don't think skyscrapers will be 3D printed with drones, but with large gantries and other types of cranes, who knows though!
Really large tethered drones with constant power might be easy enough to make work, especially if they start using those toroidal propellers that provide more lift and are far less noisy.
Why not use a tethered drone with a power cable and material feed pipe/tube. The extra weight of these would be offset by not having to carry batteries and product. There would be no refilling and battery swaps, so it could run indefinitely.
You could also have an autonomous ground robot/tanker vehicle for larger construction jobs and to minimise cable/tube lengths.
There may be potential applications, but they're going to be severely limited in usefulness. Mostly because of payload capacity and environmental conditions. You also still need someone to control what they're building. We don't randomly build stuff without engineering it first - mostly because we need a structure that has a purpose and it useful to us. We can't live in a wasp nest or a beehive.
3-D printed houses only print the walls. The foundation, roof, windows, doors, insulation, wiring, plumbing etc are all still done manually.
Exactly. And putting up the walls and roof of a truss-based metal building can be done quickly by a small crew.
How about a crane-hoisted platform with material, and then have hoses running down to supply a fleet of drones? They would have limited maneuverability, but that would outweigh the time & energy spent picking up stuff.
I could use such a drone in my shop. The electricity and plastic filament would hang from the roof and drop to the drone. No need for batteries. It could work non-stop for days. The advantage is that the size of the object would not be limited by the 3D printer frame. It could be as large as my shop. Precision limit of 5 mm is way too high though.
Je ne crois pas du tout que des drônes puissent imprimer en 3d un bâtiment car cela représente des centaines de tonnes de béton ( mortier), cependant imprimer des bâtiments avec des murs ( voiles) avec une structure en nid d abeilles est une bonne idée pour rendre les murs plus résistants à la compression, cependant il faudra toujours avoir une épaisseur d alvéoles suffisantes: les voiles ( murs ) conventionnels font en général 16 cm d épaisseur, mais en imprimant en 3d ( avec une imprimante 3d ) font environ 5 à 6 cm d épaisseur ( avec 2 ou 3 murs parallèles, donc faire un mur avec plusieurs alvéoles hexagonales d environ 4 à 5 cm d épaisseur pourrait être pertinent pour augmenter la résistance des murs ( comme cela a fait pour des bâtiments imprimés en 3d avec de la terre argileuse : construits avec des formes sinusoïdale se chevauchant). Donc d après moi les nids d abeilles sont une bonne idée, mais cela demandera sûrement plusieurs essais pour avoir une technique au point.
Buffed the buffer for more stability. This is probably amazing for bridge, or antenna repairs, imagine it with a welder attached fixing things. Do we have the modular work bot platform yet? Milwaukee get on that replace my job already I can use a break. Except I'm sure it will just mean overtime. If we keep solving all the problems of work why do we need money again? The cost is coming soon.
Wind will be the drawback , should that be overcome , reinforcing becomes a problem , along with cooling from drone props.
Gantrys are definitely a more doable method for now, they are definitely more emervu efficient, but this has alot of applications in emergency situations and spafe travel
There is no reason gantries can't be used in emergencies or in space travel too.
Drones aren't very efficient. One thing you will likely lack in space travel or in emergencies on Earth is power so you want an efficient solution.
@conorstewart2214 I agree, but the biggest issue with gantrys for emergencies is that you dont know the situation you're going into. In unideal conditions, you're gonna need a huge gantry.
For space travel, the energy efficiency of gantrys makes them a more permanent solution, but you want to reduce weight as much as possible when you launch a rocket, so in some situations drones might be a good idea. I could see drones being designed to prepare (or repair) hard to reach infrastructure, like the equipment that produces filament for a gantry, the gantry itself, or the higher points on lander craft. Though on low atmosphere bodies though drones are basically usless, same for overly windy ones.
Love how useful this could be in crisis situations!
can these gymbals be used to be accurate with sniper rifles? asking for Anduril.
Impressive, however cant see them having a major impact. Drones can only lift so much weight.
Let's check the number of problems with the idea: Likely needs a fleet of drones to practically make anything of usable size. Drones need reload time. Recharge time. Near zero windspeeds for 3d printing to be remotely accurate. So this construction method is. Slower, more expensive and would only be useful in building structures unreachable or in impractical places.
Biomimicry is a great idea when used practically, not when you randomly apply it to drones.
We still need Cranes - Buildings weigh hundreds of tons, lifting all that via Drone will be taking more Time than with a single Crane. Awesome Video.
Good experiment, but I can think on many other options using drones for construction that does not involve such complexity and power consumption. For example, just put an structural part on top of the other is way easier to a swarm of drones.
That said, everyone goes crazy on flying things, may be our human nature hoping to overcome our own limitations as specie. You just can do the same way easier with other kind of robots just have to see nature working with all our legs on the ground, ants and termites are way better building structures than any flying creature (bigger and faster)
as this tech advances, the drones will probably have smaller extra rotors for stabilizing
Yeah, very efficient, very genius
It seems to me that a single arm concrete printer would be preferable in the areas where a gantry system is not feasible. If produced on the tens of 1000s, maybe the cost of this construction would be economically doable. Personally, I like the smooth curved lines of these buildings.
Would it be more feasible if the system extruded foam and then coated it in some sort of reinforced shotcrete?
I think I have seen printers like that already.
The term for robots like that is "cylindrical robot", which is named quite obviously because its range of motion is a cylinder (well really a hollow cylinder like a tube, where the robot itself goes).
You telling me that wind, which is practically everywhere, will not affect the accuracy?
Some lines of the video made me think "what could go wrong?"...
"...when, not if, drone swarms venture outdoors into real life..."
"...working on replenishment systems for materials and batteries..."
"...autonomous drones 3d-printing a house doesn't seem all that far-fetched..."
I'm picturing drone swarms venturing outdoors under the control of autonomous scandrones, occasionally replenishing themselves so they can build... more drones.
One thing not mentioned is everything they built looks like a combination of dog poop and a termite mound. Neither of which would appeal as a home...emergecy shelter, of course, but not a home.
Hahaha... and here I thought the hyperloop was already the most ridiculous idea.
The only inherent advantage I see from drones is being able to 3d print anywhere. The disadvantages are battery life, load capacity, manufacturing cost, material cost, software cost, margin of error, points of failures, repair cost. It doesn't even beat a crane in that since cranes can move in all directions on top of having massive reach. (For really tall buildings, cranes can lift up other cranes.)
-Let me know how the downsides can be mitigated, but aren't drones really bad for construction? They seem to sacrifice everything for the sake of speed as they bring significant disadvantages no matter what scenario you use it in, large scale or small scale.-
-[Large Scale]-
-It's difficult to get a lot of drones because well, they're drones and you would have to mass manufacture a quadcopter with gps positioning, networking capabilities and can print material. Engineering drones is NOT cheap at all nor does it have an optimized process like creating a long crane arm. You need many different materials along with extremely precise manufacturing for the computer chip and flight parts. It goes without saying that this is not cheap or reliable.-
-It also doesn't help that materials that "settle" can be incredibly strong, but they'll probably never be as cheap to make or strong as just pure steel. This singlehandedly kills drones because they aren't effective at heavy loads so they need to use on-demand materials.-
-Another concern is the handling of fails, hardware and software. Cranes are relatively extremely easy to maintain to prevent fails, on top of being extremely predictable and mostly safe when it does fail. Drones needs a calibrated gyroscope, secure networking software, calibrated extruder, stable gps connection and camera in order to not fail. When it does fail, you have no idea how it will fail. Will it crash into a building then bury someone in a layer of material, or did someone hack it and cause the drones to come raining down? Normally, a human operative can prevent these things but it's extremely difficult to pick 1 drone out of 1000 and shut that specific drone down.-
-[Small Scale]-
-Now drones can still be useful for small projects that don't need more than a few drones, enough to be created and serviced by a single person or a small team. Except there's one key issue, why does the 3d printer have to be a drone? Stable configurations will always be more efficient than unstable ones, both in terms of errors and cost. -
-For small scale projects, regular 3d printing material is already strong enough to not require stronger parts. In that case, you can build larger structures if you use interlocking parts (which is what the 3d printing community does anyways) then put it together. Worst case scenario, use a screw since if it works for suspension bridges it probably works for you. That or just get a bigger 3d printer. Seams are fixable.-
-[Proposed Scenarios]-
-Safety high up is already decent. If you can't even ensure your workers can be safe up there, it's highly likely the building itself is unsafe. Disaster relief in faraway places sounds good, until you realize you still need a giant ship to carry all those drones and material over. Replace multiple shipping crates of tightly packed drones with one larger than usual printer and you're fine.-
I can't see this happening. You're essentially talking about drones with the cumulative energy required to lift an entire house. Sure, they only lift a small percentage at a time, but that's not the point, and drones are not energy efficient. In order for the drones to do a useful amount of work per flight, they would need the power to lift a usefully sized payload, something comparable to a job-site cement mixer. That would make them more like small helicopters than any of the drones you showed. Sure, they could use expanding foam instead of concrete to keep the weight of the payload down, but then that's going to have to be covered in some sort of render to make it secure. You wouldn't want a house where thieves could just use a hot knife to slice through a wall, or acetone spray to eat a hole through a wall. Expanding foam is also really hard to control precisely - just look at the state of that tower. Even though it was deposited accurately, it expanded all over the place. Strong foams, especially closed cell foams which is what you need for insulation, are made by expanding them under pressure. In free air, the expansion continues unrestricted, leading to a weak cellular structure. It's bad enough walking around upstairs in an old house where the joists flex. Imagine how creaky it would be if the walls that the joists are attached to flex or squish, even slightly as you walk across the room.
There's also health implications to using plastic foam. It will off-gas for years, making the building rather toxic. It would need a very efficient ventilation system to ensure adequate air replacement without losing heat.
I'm sure materials science will make great strides, but I just don't see it evolving to the state where it's both economical and structurally sound. When you compare the speed and efficiency of the current construction method using interlocking expanded polystyrene formers, filled with concrete, I just can't see the economics working. I can see how gantry-based printing can be useful for creating very flexible designs, especially when curves are used, but drones? I think not. You say that gantries are bulky, but everything about building a house is bulky. Joists, wooden or steel are large, A-frames for the roof are large, bricks or concrete are also massive. Transporting a relatively light weight set of collapsible gantry frames is no great shakes to the building trade. An experienced team would probably have the gantry assembled in a couple of hours.
You talk about drones being able to build on an island. Try getting 3 or four full-sized cement mixers to the island before the concrete goes off. The gantry is the least of your worries.
Neither gantry nor drone printing incorporates any means of integrating rebar, so they would be susceptible to crumbling in a high wind or earthquake scenario. This means the walls would need to be much thicker to compensate.
The more I think about this, the less practicable it becomes. I'm sure it's fun researching this, but someone needs to take a reality pill.
How does a drone carrying a few liters at best of fast setting concrete help build in remote areas exactly ? You still need to bring the concrete close to the worksite, most likely in a cement mixing truck, you need to bring all the charging infrastructure, so probably a big generator and energy storage in a truck trailer form factor, the drones themselves are probably another truck load on its own, all said and done you still need all the same road and power infrastructure every worksite already has to even start construction. I doubt it would be cheaper either, if flying was cheaper everyone would have helicopters, not cars.
Between this, the eight companies making humanoid robots and the open AI AGI lawsuit that apparently says that Open AI has AGI, the world's getting super weird. I can't be the only one that notices this right??
I've seen this in Command & Conquer Generals
I don't see flying drones replacing cranes or large 3D printers for construction, but they could be useful for some jobs.
this is such a bad idea I didn't even want to finish watching the video but I did
“astonishing speed and precision!”
*show what looks like a playdoh creation from a 6 year old*
I'll be amazed when drones will print steal beam or something with same or better mecanical properties.
What's the point of having flying drones. Climbing drones can use an already printed part of the object for orientation in space and as a route for material delivery. Like ants.
Exactly. The climbing drone makes infinitely more sense. And I would imagine that's why nature preferred that design also.
They should be like wasps with legs to stabilize, move around and smear the concrete if glitches happen.
Part of me wants to keyboard-jockey about all the unsolved problems we have here, or propose my own solutions. But I AM NOT the one programing the drones and doing the research. THEY are. There are other reasonable posts here. So I wish them well and to accomplish actionable solutions before they run out of research money. Thanks for the story, Ziroth.
My 55Wh lion battery can keep my 1kg drone hovering for about 15-20mins, just got much would be needed to build a house/shelter and carry any meaningful amount of material? They would be better off air dropping a load of popup tents in an emergency shelter situation. Certainly less wastful then using concrete or some exotic materials for a temporary emergency shelter
We're a roofing company that also builds drones and robots via 3D printing.
What @Islandhermit said is correct. The energy it takes to lift material is far more significant than the existing methods.
3D printing is still exceptionally unreliable. Clogged nozzles, faulty temperature sensors, maintenance of tensioner belts, humidity control of filaments... Printing on a stable platform in a controlled environment is still hard. Adding drones and integrating all of that into electrical, plumbing, all within code, in all weather..... guys..... guys.... if there's one company that would be all for it its us and we're probably a couple centuries away from doing it this way.
Tech likes to think they can solve everything but just remember... Elon Musk succeeded at space travel before he succeeded in roofing.
Factorio becoming real
the smaller-than-product printing system is a great idea, but implementing it with quadcopters doesn't seem to be a good decision, especially on mars where not much atmosphere to generate lift. wired hexapod that climbs on its product while printing would be better
How about ant like drones. That can work together to from different shapes/constructions/machines. Just like a group of ants can form a bridge. How about a group of walking drones that form a crane that holds a hose that prints. Far more stable, stronger, flexible, exact. Flying drones are at the mercy of wind. And wind can't really be controlled. And building needs millimeter exact control. Especially with modern Ai it will be easy to control a swarm of builder ants.
The flying drones would need additional legs(robot arms) like wasps to stabilize for precise work and knead the applied concrete into shape.