Full-Scale Prototype for Bricklaying Activity

A major challenge for construction robotization concerns the use of robots for building activities on site. Several innovative ideas have been tried out in recent years. One of these is the idea of a mechanical mason to make the construction of walls as automated as possible. However, most of the solutions proposed so far have not gone beyond the prototype stage. In this work, we propose a new idea of a multi-robot system able to build walls with large and heavy blocks. After a detailed analysis of the current manual masonry process, the proposed mechanical design is analyzed. To test the feasibility of this innovative approach, a full-scale demonstrator and the entire control algorithm are presented and explained in detail. Experimental results show the efficiency of the proposed multi-robotic system.