A robot helps people on a construction site in Germany. The robot was developed by the Technical University of Munich and was tested under real conditions for working with human machine in construction. The innovation included the construction of a climate -optimized wall at the university.
The robot arm is equipped with a gripper and mounted on a mobile basis in order to move left and right as required. This helped the robot to reach the approximately 4 x 2.50 meter wall.
The researchers showed that robot stores a digital twin of the wall. As a result, the logic of the robot assembly is integrated directly into the design process. The innovation offers precision beyond human ability. Instead of replacing qualified craftsmen and craftsmen, this complements their skills.
Robot offers precision where people reach their limits
“It makes sense to build in this way,” says Markus Bruckner, coach for bricklayers and plaster on the Munich-Fersberg building. “The robot offers precision where people reach their limits.”
Three of Bruckner's apprentice's bricklayers worked on the wall.
“It took some getting used to when a robotic arm suddenly worked with us,” says Dragan Stanojevic, the Mackelschiff apprentice, who will do his training next year. “Now it is easy to imagine it.”
Collaborative robotics does not mean replacing craftsmanship
They pointed out that a straight wall is not necessarily a climate -optimized wall. Depending on how shaded or sunny the house wall is, there is an ideal angle for individual bricks. The calculations for this come from a digital design configurator – and in the future a robot craftsmen will help to position the brick carefully.
“The workshop makes it clear that the collaborative robotics do not mean replacing craftsmanship, but expanding it in a targeted manner,” says Kathrin Dörfer, Professor of Digital Manufacture at TUM, who initiated the workshop together with Laura Lammel, Master craftsman in the Munich-Eberg Construction Guild.
“Exactly the interaction of digital planning, robot execution and craftsmanship creates new opportunities in the construction process.”
This opens up the trainee for trainees in a future -proof craft, which, far from being sold, is actually strengthened by new technologies.
Based on the idea of a simpler construction
The project is also based on the idea of a simpler construction, for example only with bricks. Instead of complex wall structures with different materials, the trainees lay bricks in several layers, one behind the other. The wall is now “four heads deep”, in Bruckner's words – a total of 55 centimeters. According to a press release, these are 20 to 25 centimeters more than usual.
“Weather -resistant clinker stones or impregnated bricks are used on the outside, while insulating stones should be used inside, which are initially shown here with perforated bricks,” says Fleckenstein. The Master Mason and the construction technician Bruckner have shown that bricks enable simple and sustainable construction – and with monomaterial constructions: “We also think about slight degradation and reusability.”
The researchers showed that the goals of this experiment are to design and establish a design methodology for climate-based building envelope in urban environments using differentiated geometric configurations, which were informed by climatic simulation using mono-material structures.