3 ms·

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjcXJ8EU48o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjcXJ8EU48o

TamDenholm 10y ago
Thanks for the video, looks really interesting. The one thing i noticed was that those bricks look suspiciously perfect. If it gets to a stage where it can handle non-perfect standard bricks, discarding broken ones etc, that would be interesting. Still a great proof of concept though.
- david-given 10y ago
  I think they're metal, and it's using an electromagnet to pick them up. ...I've seen 3D printed faux-sandstone back in, um, 2012 or so? And news reports show that Dubai has just announced a 3D printed office, although I can't find any pictures of it in construction. Here's a (moderately terrible) video of a 3D printed building in the Phillipines under construction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTSakUtxXYY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTSakUtxXYY And here's a much better one of what looks like similar technology in a testbed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgPJdpGV8mE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgPJdpGV8mE
  - riskable 10y ago
    No and no. Those are just standard (albeit colored) bricks and it was using a vacuum clamp to pick them up. If you're thinking, "there's no way you can pick up a brick with a vacuum; it's too porous." Think again. The hottest thing in woodworking right now is Festool's new vacuum clamp. I've personally witnessed it holding on to a cinder block so strongly that I could not pull it off with all my might.
    - LeifCarrotson 10y ago
      Interesting that you call it new. In industrial textile manufacturing, vacuum tables have been around for a long, long time. It doesn't matter if your leather is perforated or your upholstery is somewhat porous, or even if your foam is open-cell: A differential of just a few PSI, multiplied by width, multiplied by height, results in a lot of holding power.
      - akiselev 10y ago
        Textile materials have a much lower density (which usually means a much higher ratio of exposed surface area to mass) and suction is a lot easier when it is in the same direction as gravity. As you point out, vacuum tables have been in use by a variety of machines for a long time, including in metal fabrication and construction. This is novel (or at least interesting) because using vacuum pumps to hold things up instead of down is usually reserved for low density, well balanced, flat objects like electronic parts.
    - david-given 10y ago
      I mainly thought they were metal because of being suspiciously shiny and the 'clang' they made as they fell down! The grasper didn't seem to have much of a vacuum hose, either. But metal bricks would be an odd choice --- very heavy and not really good for demonstrations, so I'm quite willing to be wrong.
- dsp1234 10y ago
  It could still be the case that it's interesting if it only deals with near perfect bricks. If that reduces the labor needed to complete a project by X amount, then a construction company may still be interested even if the bricks cost X/2 more, in total, than other available bricks.
LeifCarrotson 10y ago
> It can build stuff using a range of tools with a precision of less than five millimeters So a precision of 10 millimeters, or worse than that? Obvious lexical ambiguity aside, I wonder what they're doing to drop the precision of that ABB arm so far. It looks like it's built around an off-the-shelf IRB2400 to me, which comes from the factory with a repeatability of 0.06mm. 5mm might be an approachable number to a civil engineer, framing carpenter, or bricklayer, but it's not impressive at all in robotics. Also, the Thinkpad T430 and W540 made me smile. So much more appropriate for this bot than the Macbooks or iPads you see in so many videos.
- akiselev 10y ago
  Can it still provide that kind of repeatability along all degrees of freedom at full load though? Last time I worked with robotic arms (Staubli) the real world precision was much worse than the specs claimed. With something as heavy and imprecise as a construction brick, I wouldn't be surprised if there was at least a few millimeters of wiggle room close to the edge of the arm's reach. In my experience, the tolerances on parts used in automated assembly lines don't have such high variability as those in construction (and this seems like a very general purpose robot capable of some complex architectures).
- alkonaut 10y ago
  > a repeatability of 0.06mm That is in a controlled environment where the robot can be programmed to know where it stands in a coordinate system, and the surfaces it works on aren't moving relative to that point. Take any robot in an industrial setting and put it's base on a soft pillow, and it will be a more difficult problem. It will have to use computer vision rather than just precise stepper motors to get where it wants. This thing places things like bricks which are probably +/-5 or 10mm in shape, on a wall that sags, and does so standing on e.g. flexible wheels or tracks, on a construction site where the floor might be a temporary plywood one. I'd guess it can move its arm, if the load is light, to within 0.06mm of somewhere. It just can't know where that somewhere is because it's using a computer vision system with much higher tolerances to do so.
jonah 10y ago
Brick-laying (even with general purpose arms) robots are already in production use. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_Pj2GI6-xc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_Pj2GI6-xc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpD5H1EH0go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpD5H1EH0go Combining it with more comprehensive vision so it can figure out where to build the wall might be novel though.

Thanks for the video, looks really interesting. The one thing i noticed was that those bricks look suspiciously perfect. If it gets to a stage where it can handle non-perfect standard bricks, discarding broken ones etc, that would be interesting. Still a great proof of concept though.

david-given 10y ago
I think they're metal, and it's using an electromagnet to pick them up. ...I've seen 3D printed faux-sandstone back in, um, 2012 or so? And news reports show that Dubai has just announced a 3D printed office, although I can't find any pictures of it in construction. Here's a (moderately terrible) video of a 3D printed building in the Phillipines under construction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTSakUtxXYY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTSakUtxXYY And here's a much better one of what looks like similar technology in a testbed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgPJdpGV8mE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgPJdpGV8mE
- riskable 10y ago
  No and no. Those are just standard (albeit colored) bricks and it was using a vacuum clamp to pick them up. If you're thinking, "there's no way you can pick up a brick with a vacuum; it's too porous." Think again. The hottest thing in woodworking right now is Festool's new vacuum clamp. I've personally witnessed it holding on to a cinder block so strongly that I could not pull it off with all my might.
  - LeifCarrotson 10y ago
    Interesting that you call it new. In industrial textile manufacturing, vacuum tables have been around for a long, long time. It doesn't matter if your leather is perforated or your upholstery is somewhat porous, or even if your foam is open-cell: A differential of just a few PSI, multiplied by width, multiplied by height, results in a lot of holding power.
    - akiselev 10y ago
      Textile materials have a much lower density (which usually means a much higher ratio of exposed surface area to mass) and suction is a lot easier when it is in the same direction as gravity. As you point out, vacuum tables have been in use by a variety of machines for a long time, including in metal fabrication and construction. This is novel (or at least interesting) because using vacuum pumps to hold things up instead of down is usually reserved for low density, well balanced, flat objects like electronic parts.
  - david-given 10y ago
    I mainly thought they were metal because of being suspiciously shiny and the 'clang' they made as they fell down! The grasper didn't seem to have much of a vacuum hose, either. But metal bricks would be an odd choice --- very heavy and not really good for demonstrations, so I'm quite willing to be wrong.
dsp1234 10y ago
It could still be the case that it's interesting if it only deals with near perfect bricks. If that reduces the labor needed to complete a project by X amount, then a construction company may still be interested even if the bricks cost X/2 more, in total, than other available bricks.

LeifCarrotson 10y ago

> It can build stuff using a range of tools with a precision of less than five millimeters So a precision of 10 millimeters, or worse than that? Obvious lexical ambiguity aside, I wonder what they're doing to drop the precision of that ABB arm so far. It looks like it's built around an off-the-shelf IRB2400 to me, which comes from the factory with a repeatability of 0.06mm. 5mm might be an approachable number to a civil engineer, framing carpenter, or bricklayer, but it's not impressive at all in robotics. Also, the Thinkpad T430 and W540 made me smile. So much more appropriate for this bot than the Macbooks or iPads you see in so many videos.

akiselev 10y ago
Can it still provide that kind of repeatability along all degrees of freedom at full load though? Last time I worked with robotic arms (Staubli) the real world precision was much worse than the specs claimed. With something as heavy and imprecise as a construction brick, I wouldn't be surprised if there was at least a few millimeters of wiggle room close to the edge of the arm's reach. In my experience, the tolerances on parts used in automated assembly lines don't have such high variability as those in construction (and this seems like a very general purpose robot capable of some complex architectures).
alkonaut 10y ago
> a repeatability of 0.06mm That is in a controlled environment where the robot can be programmed to know where it stands in a coordinate system, and the surfaces it works on aren't moving relative to that point. Take any robot in an industrial setting and put it's base on a soft pillow, and it will be a more difficult problem. It will have to use computer vision rather than just precise stepper motors to get where it wants. This thing places things like bricks which are probably +/-5 or 10mm in shape, on a wall that sags, and does so standing on e.g. flexible wheels or tracks, on a construction site where the floor might be a temporary plywood one. I'd guess it can move its arm, if the load is light, to within 0.06mm of somewhere. It just can't know where that somewhere is because it's using a computer vision system with much higher tolerances to do so.

jonah 10y ago

Brick-laying (even with general purpose arms) robots are already in production use. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_Pj2GI6-xc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_Pj2GI6-xc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpD5H1EH0go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpD5H1EH0go Combining it with more comprehensive vision so it can figure out where to build the wall might be novel though.