The development of novel robotic fabrication technologies in architecture concentrates largely on integrating stationary industrial-type robots into off-site prefabrication processes. By contrast, few enabling robotic technologies exist today that allow robotic fabrication processes to be mobile and implemented directly on building sites. While mobile in-situ fabrication offers a large range of architectural potentials, its realization requires to address fundamental challenges. First, the production of large-scale and potentially monolithic structures on-site requires an advanced robotic fabrication system that can fulfill the material, structural-and architectural-related demands associated with it. Second, the poorly structured nature of building sites requires mobile robotic systems to be equipped with advanced sensing and control solutions to contend with uncertain conditions found on-site. The research discussed in this paper addresses both of these subjects. It applies a novel construction system for non-standard reinforced concrete structures, termed Mesh Mould, to explore the fabrication of large-scale and monolithic building structures using a mobile robot on site. It further investigates sensorintegrated adaptive fabrication strategies to achieve the accurate fabrication of such a large-scale structure, and this is done despite prevalent uncertainties related to the building site environment, the mobile robotic system, and the material behavior during fabrication. The results of this research were realized in a slender, doubly curved, reinforced concrete wall at the DFAB HOUSE at NEST. This research demonstrator provides the unique opportunity to present robotic in situ fabrication not merely as a future possibility, but as a reality applied to a tangible construction project.
This research paper presents a novel method for robotic spraying of glass-fibre reinforced concrete (GFRC) on a permeable reinforcement mesh. In this process, the mesh acts as a functional formwork during the concrete spraying process and as reinforcement once the concrete is cured, with the goal of producing slender reinforced concrete elements efficiently. The proof of concept presented in this paper takes inspiration from ``Ferrocement'' technique, developed in the 1940s by Pier Luigi Nervi (Greco, 1994) and shows how robotic spraying has the potential of producing such slender and bespoke reinforced concrete elements while also having the potential of reducing manual labour, waste and excess material. The system is coined with the name ``Robotic AeroCrete'' (or RAC) in reference to the use of an industrial robotic setup and the pneumatic projection of concrete.
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