The additive manufacturing of real scale structures using UAVs (drones) is a new discipline with challenges as wide as the possibilities it opens up for the future.
Pierre Latteur’s team began this research in 2014 and is still today a forerunner in this field. UAVs must not be seen as the only way of robotizing future construction sites, but in combination with other kinds of robots. This adequate combination is indeed likely to reduce the influence of factors that usually badly affect the quality and profitability of construction projects, such as human factors, execution slowness, insecurity, insufficient communication between the stakeholders, weather conditions, strikes, lack of skilled labor, etc..
The aim of this research is to lay the necessary groundwork, still not explored elsewhere, in order to prove the feasibility of building real-scale structures, in particular masonry structures, with big custom-built drones.
In particular, the objective was to investigate
- the drones precision,
- their behavior while transporting, handling and laying loads,
- but also to draw the first guidelines for the design of “Drone compatible” construction elements (their shape, the way they should be assembled together, how to minimize their weight, how to connect them together, how to ensure their stability)
Contact : Pierre Latteur
