Building Design for Robotic Assembly

Construction projects contain a high manual input in all aspects of assembly. Manufacturing applications of robotics, particularly in flexible assembly demonstrate the importance of design for assembly. This paper argues that attention must be focussed on building design if the potential for robotic assembly is to be realised in construction projects. Three areas are addressed. First the assembly operations, Second, the developing environment of the building in which these assembly operations take place. Third, the creation of formal methods for cost effective site layout to facilitate robotic assembly. Methods of rule based generation of building descriptions will be examined. The development of such descriptions of building designs offers the potential for effective planning for robotic assembly because the building design descriptions are created in a way which ‘ parallels’ construction operations required for their realisation.