In yesterday's post we looked at robotic interventions in garment manufacturing, but architecture is actually among the disciplines that in recent years have been constantly experimenting with robotic fabrications. In a previous feature we looked for example at the Elytra Filament Pavilion, a garden pavilion woven by a robot, created by experimental German architect Achim Menges at the Institute for Computational Design and Construction (ICD) with Moritz Dörstelmann, with structural engineer Jan Knippers at the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE), and climate engineer Thomas Auer.
A few months ago Menges and Knippers completed a new research pavilion made in glass and carbon fibre-reinforced composites, materials usually employed in engineered applications, such as in the automotive and aerospace industries.
The real innovation in this pavilion is actually not the main material employed, but the actual construction that combines low-payload yet long-range machines, such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), with strong, precise, yet limited reach, industrial robots.
Fibre composites construction usually needs full-scale surface moulds, but the researchers at the ICD and ITKE explored the possibilities of using this type of construction through a new manufacturing process limited by the working space of the industrial robotic arms that were utilized.
The shape of the pavilion was based on natural lightweight structures: a study made in cooperation with the Institute of Evolution and Ecology and the department for Paleobiology of the University of Tübingen identified two species of leaf miner moths, the Lyonetia clerkella and the Leucoptera erythrinella, whose larvae spin silk structures similar to hammocks stretching between connection points on a bent leaf. The biological models were then abstracted and transferred into fabrication and structural concepts.
To create the structure the researchers set up a cyber-physical fabrication process with multiple robotic systems that had to communicate together to create a seamless fibre laying process. The material had to be passed between multiple machines to ensure a continuous material structure.
Two stationary industrial robotic arms with the strength and precision necessary for fibre winding work were therefore placed at the extremities of the structure, while an autonomous, long range but less precise fibre transportation system – a custom-built unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) – was utilized to pass the fibre from one side to the other.
The industrial robots and the UAV interacted thanks to an adaptive control and communication system while an integrated sensor interface enabled the robots and UAV to adapt their behaviours in real time to the changing conditions during fabrication.
The UAV could fly and land autonomously without the need of human pilots and the tension of the fibre was actively and adaptively controlled in response to both the UAV and robot behaviours.
The 12 m pavilion, covering an area of about 40 m² and weighing roughly 1000 Kg, was made employing 184 km of resin-impregnated glass and carbon fibre.
The final aim of this project was finding new construction scenarios to include distributed, collaborative and adaptive systems, and envision a scalable fabrication process for long span continuous fibre structures.
Besides, the researchers took into consideration the potential of computational design and construction, studying material behaviour, fabrication logics, and biological principles – the project was indeed designed and made in collaboration with an interdisciplinary team of architects, engineers and biologists.
It is intriguing to wonder if it would be possible to apply this technique to the fashion industry. The machines employed in this project wove the carbon-fibre pavilion using as model the silk hammocks spun by moth larvae, so in a way there is an element of textile art in this architectural project.
Who knows, maybe this process could be used to create a temporary pavilion for a catwalk show, a runway installation or even an architectural gown. Fashionistas will remember how Alexander McQueen's used robotic arms in his S/S 1999 "No. 13" catwalk show, so maybe it is about the right time to invite again robotic machines to interact with a fashion designer and come up with a new memorable creation or an unforgettable fashion experience.
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