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Watch a swarm of flying robotic drones construct a tiny building
- wglb 16y agoThis is just way too much fun.
- brudgers 16y agoInteresting, but robotic cranes on the ground would seem to be more efficient and reliable in ordinary circumstances. It's not a question of how to grip it, It's a simple question of weight ratios.
- mitko 16y agoWhat you say makes sense - robotic cranes should be able to operate with heavier pieces, and will require less energy per piece placement. However, MAVs (micro air vehicles) could reach into places where cranes wouldn't be able - i.e. inside the building. Also you can have many more MAVs working at the same time than cranes, so MAVs might be able to considerably speed up the building process.
- RodgerTheGreat 16y agoThere's no reason you can't combine these approaches. Using larger ground-based equipment to move girders and small, flying machines to do things like interior finishing makes a lot of sense.
- brudgers 16y agoA 4x8 sheet of 1/2" Gypsum board weighs nearly 60 pounds. A five gallon bucket of paint weighs about the same. A quadrotor couldn't finish an office because it would be too large to fit through the door...never mind the rotating blades.
- jerf 16y agoYou're right. But. As robotics becomes practical for building, we will not just replace human with robots. We will change how we build to make it easier to build with robots. For instance, I was noticing that while you might not want to use magnets for everything in your building, you could use them as a guide during that intermediate period where the robot can't just put things together, but they can be mostly correct. Magnets could be used to do things like guide pieces of wood together with a sheath containing powerful magnets, then the wood can screwed together, then the sheaths recovered and used again on some other bits of wood. Everything about building a house may change; for instance, a few years ago there were some news stories about this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fhryxVAsa4&eurl%20= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fhryxVAsa4&eurl%20= only scaled up to human residence sizes, which is obviously not that tricky. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NSX/is_7_49/ai_n6149111/ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NSX/is_7_49/ai_n6149... Cheap robot labor changes what the cheapest houses are. The biggest challenge may very well be keeping codes up to date. I suspect that the crossover may very well be swift when it happens; robots are improving very rapidly and when they cross the line where they are a more cost-effective way to build a house, they aren't going to sort of edge up to it and pull alongside it, they're going to blow right past it and keep going. Times are tough now but the next several decades still stand to be very interesting times, in all senses of the phrase. (Oh, and personally I don't think flying robots have much future in construction. The economics are nonsense, excepting cargo helicopters, which are regularly used for some purposes today. I'm more speaking in general.)
- nitrogen 16y agoI suspect that protectionism will delay the "robot revolution" long past the time when it's technologically feasible. Building codes will be changed in some way to require human labor, building material suppliers will be pressured to "run out of" the parts needed by robot builders, etc. It's been my experience that few people outside of tech actually like the idea of robots doing anything that a human could do.
- mturmon 16y agoIt's funny, people have been talking about prefab houses (related, but not the same, as on-site robotic assembly) for years, but they still are a niche item. Despite all kinds of efforts to popularize them, such as: http://www.dwell.com/magazine/the-prefab-issue.html http://www.dwell.com/magazine/the-prefab-issue.html
- mitko 16y agoI absolutely agree with you - one should use the right tool(robot) for the right task.
- lyime 16y agoHow about the combination for both. Perhaps there could be a 80/20 mix. It could very well make a lot more economic sense. It would seem like the cost vs moving weight ration would be much higher for MAVs compared to a crane.
- mixmax 16y agoThey're also a lot easier to move and set up than cranes.
- qntm 16y agoUse the drones to build the cranes!
- brudgers 16y agoIf robotic ground based cranes can't reach inside the building, then for the most part, neither can human workers [making similar adjustments for scale]. Robotic helicopters might have advantages where helicopters are currently used for construction. But those are limited cases. Generally, the duration of construction is determined by economics and weather. Flying robots probably don't provide an advantage on either front. There may be some applications for MAV's for the inspection of construction. But there's an off the shelf solution already availible [http://www.amazon.com/Air-Hogs-Hawk-Eye-Channel/dp/B00395EJRS http://www.amazon.com/Air-Hogs-Hawk-Eye-Channel/dp/B00395EJR...]
- bpd1069 16y agoKey word being "ordinary". Once you are free of that limitation, applications of this technique on varying scales opens up a new "world" of possibilities. Pipelining/Parallelization could be achieved by throwing more bots at the problem.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- T-zex 16y agoA couple of years ago I've watched a documentary about crane operators working in a harbors. They were payed incredible salaries and it was stated that they won't be replaced by robots because of their capabilities in decision making.
- hinathan 16y agoWell, that and incredibly beneficial union rules. Lots of work printing cargo manifests, handing them to another person who types it into another system, and so on. But it's ok, that process only adds a marginal amount of delay, error, and cost. It's better than getting shut down by a strike, right?
- stcredzero 16y agoI could see potential in this to disrupt industries like roofing, skyscraper cleaning, and line maintenance.
- onteria 16y agoI highly recommend checking out The General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception (GRASP)'s other projects as well: http://www.grasp.upenn.edu/research http://www.grasp.upenn.edu/research
- iamwil 16y agoPretty neat! I'm sure they'll get to it eventually, but there's no advantage to having three drones in this demo, since the work isn't pipelined. It seems that a drone has to wait until one finishes picking stuff up before it can pick up something itself.
- AdamTReineke 16y agoRight, but they're saving travel time. When one drone is flying back to grab a piece, the next drone is lowering a piece into place.
- mhansen 16y agoIt is pipelined, it isn't parallelized.
- yellowbkpk 16y agoThis lab has several other videos with quad rotor robots like this (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvRTALJp8DM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvRTALJp8DM), but don't worry about them escaping and starting a robot domination: they rely on infrared motion capture systems in that room for extremely precise location sensing. Once GPS gets sub-meter accuracy, then we should start worrying.
- sliverstorm 16y agoGPS + Accelerometer is already pretty darn accurate, I'm not really sure why they use the IR room. Perhaps simply easier to set up, and easier to co-ordinate the bots?
- eftpotrm 16y agoThese things don't look very powerful, to put it mildly. GPS means outdoors which means wind which is a bit harder for a small, light hovering robot to handle. Indoor lets them demonstrate the principle with a useful simplifying assumption of no wind.
- burgerbrain 16y agoDid you watch the same videos I did? They have these things lifting sizeable pieces of 2x4's (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBsJwapanWI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBsJwapanWI) and they pull of some pretty absurd manoeuvring (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvRTALJp8DM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvRTALJp8DM) and recovery (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geqip_0Vjec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geqip_0Vjec). Navigational issues resolved, I have a hard time seeing these things having trouble with a modest wind.
- eftpotrm 16y agoYes, I did see the same videos. And I still think no wind is a useful simplifying assumption for them, particularly on power grounds. A constant wind I agree looks like it would be within their capabilities, though their route planning software would need to take account of it and approach the target from upwind by default - not impossible but another thing to account for. The real issue for me is gusting. They are definitely small and light enough that power-to-weight issues, particularly when carrying a load with a higher surface area to the wind than the craft itself, means that it will get knocked off course by gusts. That obviously needs allowing for when navigating to and from the construction site, but particularly when dropping off a load - if the release comes at the same point as the gust, the part simply won't end up where they wanted. Do I think all of these problems are unsolvable? No, but it makes a useful simplifying assumption for their version 1 that they don't have to deal with any of them because they're flying indoors.
- johnohara 16y agoAnybody know the weight of each column?
- burgerbrain 16y agoIn another video they show 4 of them working together to lift a 1.2 kg structure, and they don't seem to have much trouble with it. It also shows a single copter lifting a piece of 2x4 several inches long, but doesn't give the weight. As just a ballpark guess I'd say these things probably max out at lifting and flying with a little under half a kg, they don't seem to have any trouble with at least .25 kg. The columns in the video linked at the top of the page are most likey a lot lighter than that, simply because there's no need for them to be heavy. EDIT: that piece of 2x4 looks to be about 12 inches long. Assuming the wood is pine (likely, and also light), and using 350kg/m^3 as the pine's density (http://www.simetric.co.uk/si_wood.htm http://www.simetric.co.uk/si_wood.htm the lightest figure quoted) that works out to about .55 kg. (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=350+kg%2Fm^3+*+%282*4*12%29+inches^3 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=350+kg%2Fm^3+*+%282*4*1...). Quite impressive.
- eftpotrm 16y agoGreat fun, but I suspect NIMBY concerns would kill any practical application. Let's imagine they get the machines scaled to the point when they could build an actual habitable structure, and that they sort the power concerns that I suspect would make it insurmountably uneconomic. Now, imagine a squad of sufficiently large and powerful helicopters buzzing away all day next to your office. How many people are going to be OK with that?
- philwelch 16y agoDrones don't have lives, families, or seasonal affective disorder. There's no reason they can't work at night if it's less bothersome.
- eftpotrm 16y agoOh, you'd rather have a helicopter next door while you slept?
- philwelch 16y agoIf it was next to my apartment building I'd want the drones to work during the day and if it was next to my office I'd want the drones to work at night. Most homes are not right next to office buildings. I wouldn't mind if the drones were a couple blocks away though.
- eftpotrm 16y agoI live next to a small industrial estate, my employers's campus location has houses the other side of the road and behind some trees from memory. Offices often have bars and restaurants around them which do good trade in the evening, sometimes city centre apartments mixed in too. I certainly follow the principle but I think there's less urban clear 'this time is OK' areas than you might think, low enough to further penalise this against traditional construction techniques.
- 16y ago
- maeon3 16y agoGreat show, but there needs to be another device (carried by the quad rotors) to create very strong bonds between the parts. If the quad rotors could carry this bond-making robot that temporarily attaches to the parts and joins pieces with adhesive/nailgun/puzzle-piece fit, then they would be on to something. Make a structure of actual use, like a tiny bridge across a moat that could hold people. The magnets have got to go.
- csmeder 16y agoAnother approach would be to have a small electric lock built into the pieces. When a piece senses it is touching another piece this electric lock screws into place.
- gridspy 16y agoWhat would be cooler would be a completely separate bond-building robot that can weld / whatever and can independently traverse the completed building. When it was too far from its next destination a quadrotor would come and give it a lift. You might have several different types of crawler. A couple to receive materials from the quadrotor and hold them in place while a third follows a weld pattern.
- GrandMasterBirt 16y agoI think the part connection is just an implementation detail. They can make these guys place something and another robot attaches.
- ars 16y agoIt's not. Their positioning is inaccurate, and the magnet helps guide to the final position.
- thebigredjay 16y agoI like the audible menacing drone. Any autonomous robot should emit a menacing drone.
- btipling 16y agoI think flying swarm rebotics would be best weaponized. You could call them hack-mans, man-chops, person-hacks...HRM
- stevenbedrick 16y agoWho do you think comprise the biggest funders this sort of research?
- fara 16y agorobots building robots. that would be cool
- siculars 16y agoWow, unions are gonna hate these.
- BrandonM 16y agoThe shortsightedness of people worried about fewer jobs because of new technology is ridiculous. If you can build a house for the cost of land and materials only, the cost of living is lowered for everyone. With enough advancement and automation, the cost of life's necessities drops. As it decreases, the amount of human labor necessary to support day-to-day life will drop with it. Eventually we'll be able to support ourselves with very little laborious work, focusing instead on content production and other interesting and creative endeavors. Why try to prevent that?
- JoeAltmaier 16y agoIts Capitalism when everyone works for themselves (ok, the money works for them). Its Socialism when we all work for the collective. What do you call it when nobody works?
- siculars 16y agoArabia? Greece? Hehehe.
- jokermatt999 16y agoBecause although a grand vision of the future is wonderful, so is a guaranteed paycheck for the foreseeable future. For the people who'd be replaced by these machines, "eventually things will be amazing" is not much comfort in the face of "and you'll be replaced".
- fakespastic 16y agoImagine the damage virii of the future will be able to do to our infrastructure...
- andrewcooke 16y agoI'm going to be a pedant here - that does not look like a swarm, and they don't claim it is (in the video, at least). By "swarm" I would understand that all have the same programming and that the assembly process is emergent from simpler instructions plus exploration and feedback. Instead they appear to be programmed to act sequentially with a pre-planned set of actions. There is no feedback, no emergence. In short, it's nowhere near as cool as you seem to think it is. It's just a bunch of dumb machines doing exactly what they are told to do, with no smarts.
- scott_s 16y agoNo smarts? From their behavior, I got the impression that the robots were assessing what was the next step in construction, which included assessing if another robot was still working on construction. They also had to avoid collisions. Anything programmed by humans is a "dumb machine doing exactly what they are told." I think you meant that to mean each individual step was hardcoded. I don't think it was. I think they were all following the same algorithm. The group certainly spends a lot of time on path planning: http://repository.upenn.edu/grasp_papers/ http://repository.upenn.edu/grasp_papers/
- andrewcooke 16y agoActually, you may be more right than you know (sorry). I've found this quote: "We tell the quadrotors what structure to build and they figure out the assembly plan and then build it." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W18Z3UnnS_0&feature=player_embedded https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W18Z3UnnS_0&feature=play... It still doesn't look very swarm-like to me (more like some kind of planner algorithm; I know the quote implies a distributed intelligence, but look at the way they queue always in exactly the same place, do laps, etc etc), but that certainly sounds more promising.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- SeanLuke 16y agoCorrect about the swarm -- indeed it's not a multiagent problem -- but perhaps a bit unfair regarding the "dumb machine" part. This appears to be a "multi-body" problem (rather than a "multi-agent") problem: that is, there is likely one primary decision-maker which dictates the construction task ordering, likely computed via a partial-order multi-body planner. That's part 1 of the AI. But there's another part that's equally interesting. The multi-body planner produces a series of construction steps. Each step is ordered with regard to certain steps, unordered with regard to other steps (these can be done in any order but not simultaneously), and explicitly declared parallel with yet other steps (they can be done simultaneously). The quad-roters grab the steps and perform them in parallel when possible, and at least form a queue otherwise. Last, the quad-rotors have to perform these steps without hitting one another, so there's a significant real-time multi-body path-planning problem involved. Multi-body planning, scheduling, and plan monitoring is nontrivial and should not be so lightly dismissed.
- ph0rque 16y agoThis tech would have a great application in robotic fruit-picking/pruning applications.
- d5tryr 16y agoI've been cleaning up after a flood disaster for the past few days, the most amazing technology i've seen in that time is the bobcats and their drivers. It takes 10-15 people a few hours to empty a house of all it's waterlogged belongings on to the street, and then 15 minutes for the bobcat to get it up on the back of a truck. When I see a tech demo like this I'm very optimistic about it's potential for disaster relief, where simple structures, shelters, and platforms would be of great benefit.
- netcan 16y agoBrisbane?
- grimatongueworm 16y ago36 battery changes later...
- ctdonath 16y agoQuite. Total energy expenditure?
- burgerbrain 16y agoNo problem. These things can do precision landing so there's no reason they couldn't juice themselves back up in shifts.
- shaunfs 16y agoInductive charger landing pads, a must have. Let them build forever. Just make sure the pads are plugged into a neighbors outlet ... or their Chevy Volt. http://translogic.aolautos.com/2011/01/06/ces-2011-gm-brings-inductive-charging-to-volt-invests-5m-in-p/ http://translogic.aolautos.com/2011/01/06/ces-2011-gm-brings...
- hanula 16y ago"...May Build Your Next House". Yea, right. All in all it's designed to kill people in the end.
- jaekwon 16y agoNext I want these drones to make hexagonal structures and feed off of flower polen.
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- soamv 16y agoThe power limitation doesn't seem very difficult to surmount, a drone could just go swap its dead battery with one from a pool of batteries on chargers, and keep working. They'd need two batteries in a drone to do that of course, or perhaps some other robot could execute the battery swap.
- CrabDude 16y agoThe simple matter is that the implications of these drones reaches far beyond simply building things, like showing one aspect of what a hammer can be used to build. The real takeaway is the radical increase in the abilities of flying drones, and the raw potential they leave to be harnessed by future engineers and entrepreneurs. Those who discount their usefulness by staying within the context of the video, and not elaborating outside of that, aren't getting it. I would refer you especially to @burgerbrain's comment and the videos he posted. Specifically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvRTALJp8DM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvRTALJp8DM
- stretchwithme 16y agoRobotic construction will eventually take over the construction industry. Especially once robotic transportation becomes possible. There are many complex processes being performed at construction sites. Many steps take highly optimized machines to perform robotically but that a single human can do just by changing tools. Because of these processes, automating the entire construction process would be very expensive to do right at the site. All parts would have be modularized so they could be snapped together. Or robots will have to be able to change tools. Or parts will have to be moved from robot to robot, with as much work being done before parts are actually brought to the site. Either way, it will be interesting to see how it works out.
- shaunfs 16y agoThis is awesome! It's sort of like a less precise large-scale 3D printer or MineCraft. I'm sure I'm not the only person who thinks this is certainly the beginning of automated construction. It works for assembly lines. We may finally be getting to the point where the same process will work in more mobile volatile environments.