Drone-Based Additive Manufacturing of Architectural Structures

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(eng) The paper presents the first results of a new collaboration project between MIT and UCL (MISTI MIT-UCL seed fund), which investigates the feasibility of the construction of building-scale structures with unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly called drones, according to a procedure described below: 1. Designing the building by the architect and the engineer; 2. Modeling the building into a CAD/BIM tool; 3. Translating the CAD/BIM model into remote control instructions compatible with the drones; 4. Assembling the structure with the drones. The major components of the project consists of choosing the best drone-compatible assembly processes and materials, developing the guiding systems for the drones for both broad large-scale movements and precise small-scale motions and developing the best possible translation tools between the CAD/BIM models, and the drone’s remote control instructions. The paper will emphasize on the results of the first part of the project, related to the construction of structures made of geometrically modified blocks bonded together, called dricks and droxels.