Archinect - News

2024 showcased the potential of 3D printing in architecture

2024-12-20T08:00:00-05:00

The architecture world witnessed a transformative year in 2024, with 3D printing continuing to broaden the possibilities of design and construction. From high-profile collaborations between architecture firms and technology companies to groundbreaking projects that span continents—and even reach beyond Earth—this year marked a surge in innovation across construction sites and research labs alike.

This year, Archinect’s editorial included exclusive insights from BIG’s Bjarke Ingels and ICON’s Melodie Yashar, digging deeper into a collaboration spanning 3D printing materials, hardware, software, and business models. Elsewhere, we saw notable projects such as North America’s first 3D-printed three-story home and the world’s tallest 3D-printed tower in Switzerland, and innovative research led by institutions including MIT, Princeton, ETH Zurich, and IAAC, dwelling on topics as diverse as fish scales to liquid metal.

To further explore these trends, we have set out the key developments a...

AA School of Architecture students construct timber 'Tree and Truss' structure using robotic fabrication

2024-10-29T12:19:00-04:00

A new student-led project from the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA) that combines robotic fabrication processes with new software applications has been shared with Archinect as part of the school's Design + Make 2022-24 cohort.

Image: courtesy Design + Make course Architectural Association/Photographer Rafael Ferres Echavarren

The 'Tree and Truss' project is a mass timber structure made from locally sourced materials and designed to support the columns and trusses of a new lecture hall standing in Hooke Park on the school's Woodland Campus.

Image: courtesy Design + Make course Architectural Association/Photographer Rafael Ferres Echavarren

Together, the students say: "The project explores a hybrid structure that seamlessly transitions from natural geometry to engineered timber and regards the tree as column and the truss as beam as the fundamental points of departure. We design through making and aim to work with the material behavior of timber."

Image: courtesy ...

Robotic fabrication and hybrid structural systems are showcased in the University of Stuttgart's new ITECH Pavilion

2024-10-04T18:52:00-04:00

A team of researchers led by Achim Menges of the Institute for Computational Design and Construction (ICD) and Jan Knippers of the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) at the University of Stuttgart has unveiled a new pavilion made using a novel combination of bio-based materials.

The hybrid structural system behind the ITECH Research Pavilion 2024 is composed of timber and natural flax fiber polymer composites (or NFPCs). Menches and his colleagues were guided by recent research into fiber-polymer composites. The complete assembly works via the compressive strength of timber and tensile properties.

Image courtesy of ITEK and ICD at the University of Stuttgart

The pavilion was erected within the university’s Stadtgarten. It covers an area of roughly 484 square feet and weighs almost 2,130 pounds. The pavilion's structural capacity was shown to be capable of withstanding 1.5 times its own weight and 1.5 times the outside wind load.

Image courtesy of ITEK and...

Construction tech start-up sends AI-powered "micro-factories" to the US to build affordable housing

2024-10-04T17:57:00-04:00

British construction tech start-up Automated Architecture (AUAR) is sending two of its pop-up, robotic micro-factories to the U.S. for the first time in a move to bring automated and affordable house building to North America.

Founded in 2019, AUAR functions by licensing its technology to builders and contractors to build low-energy homes at the price of normal homes, at scale.

Related on Archinect: Where Are All The Affordable Housing Startups?. Image credit: Katerra

The micro-factories will be deployed by real estate development and construction firm Rival Holdings, which aims to address the ongoing housing crisis by building thousands of sustainable, affordable, and high-quality homes across the Midwest. The partnership between Rival Holdings and AUAR was announced in March.

“We are really excited to partner with Rival Holdings to bring our cutting-edge Robotic Micro-factories to the United States,” said Co-Founder and CEO of AUAR, Mollie Claypool. “This partnership is our first ...

Neri Oxman announces formation of OXMAN research practice in NYC

2024-09-27T15:41:00-04:00

Neri Oxman, the former MIT professor and winner of the 2018 Cooper Hewitt National Design Award, has launched a new operation called OXMAN and based in New York City.

Promising a "radical new species of design practice," Oxman, who is collaborating with Foster + Partners on the realization of its 36,000-square-foot space on 11th Avenue in Manhattan, described it as a "design and innovation company that creates new technologies, products, and environments across a range of scales and applications, from the molecular to the urban scale."

Image: courtesy of OXMAN

Initiatives will be pursued in three main project areas and their corresponding platforms. Throughout, a press announcement for OXMAN states, the project will advocate for "synergy between biology and technology, moving towards products and buildings that are designed for the immediate and long-term well-being of human civilization and the natural world."

Photo: Nicholas Calcott, Courtesy of OXMAN

The first, Oo (pronounced 'O-Ze...

ETH Zurich researchers develop robotic process for impact printing earth materials

2024-09-23T12:32:00-04:00

Researchers at ETH Zurich have introduced a new robotic 3D printing method for cement-free low-carbon materials for a circular economy.

Using a technique called 'impact printing,' the team demonstrated a mixture of excavated materials, silt, and clay that was less dependent on additives for its structural strength due to the high-velocity deposition process. Their aim was to "increase the cost competitiveness of sustainable building materials through efficient and automated production."

Image: Girts Apskalns. Copyright: ETH Zurich - Gramazio Kohler Research, Chair of Sustainable Construction and Robotic Systems Lab

First, a custom printing tool was developed that can be integrated on multiple high-payload robotic platforms. The tool was then integrated with a high-payload Gantry system within the ETH's Robotic Fabrication Laboratory. The hardware is also compatible with an autonomous legged excavator system called HEAP, also developed by the Robotic Systems Lab. It has shown...

Good with robots? University of Redlands' architecture school is hiring a robotics and prototyping specialist

2024-08-26T08:30:00-04:00

Following our previous look at an opening for an Exhibition Design Internship at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, we are using the latest edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an opening on Archinect Jobs for a Robotics/Prototype Specialist at the University of Redlands School of Architecture.

The role, based on-campus in Redlands, California, calls for an individual who will “support the application of computer science/information technology including robotics and prototyping to architecture and design,” as well as deliver orientations and demonstrations to students, staff, and faculty for the university’s robotics lab. Among the prerequisites for the role are a bachelor’s degree in architecture, information technology, or a related field, alongside experience in computational design.

Related on Archinect: Inside a new robotic housing factory in British Columbia, Canada. Image courtesy: Intelligent City

Why the role interests us

Redlands’ search for a robotics specialist ...

Why is technological progress still lagging in the building trade?

2024-05-27T11:00:00-04:00

Overall, across Europe and the US, stuff is still built in a pretty manual fashion - not very different to the way it would have been built 100 years ago [...] Construction is a bit of a digital laggard compared with many other industries. It's been slow to adopt digital in the widest sense

Consultant Sam O’Gorman and other experts speak to the BBC about the confounding gap between digital technology and the analog process for delivering residential architecture. Interesting projects mentioned are the University of Maine Advanced Structures and Composites Center’s attempts to develop the world’s largest 3D printer and the UK firm Automated Architecture (or AUAR)’s plan to create a network of ‘micro-factories’ capable of producing pre-assembled six-story timber design for just £250,000 ($320,000 USD) using robots.

ETH Zurich’s 3D printed sculpture oscillates between ‘opaque boundary’ and ‘transparent curtain’

2024-03-14T12:06:00-04:00

ETH Zurich has unveiled a 6.5-foot-tall lightweight shell fabricated from 3D printing.

Named 'Fluid Forms,' and created by the institution’s Digital Building Technologies group, the structure seeks to showcase “an innovative robotic additive manufacturing method that enables the printing of doubly curved thin shells more efficiently.”

Video courtesy Ιoanna.M/YouTube

The design of Fluid Forms was inspired by the Costa minimal surface, which belongs to a family of shapes that minimize area for a given boundary, resulting in a geometry with strong structural properties. In contrast to horizontal plane printing, the fabrication process sees the print paths align to principal curvature directions, which, according to the team, reduces the need for external support and enhances the precision and surface quality of the curved surface.

Image credit: Dominik Vogel

“The print path orientation is controlled through a vector-field optimization method that has been fi...

AI designer and multi-story 3D printer among ICON technologies unveiled at SXSW

2024-03-12T16:00:00-04:00

Construction technologies company ICON has unveiled a suite of new technologies at SXSW, including a multi-story robotic construction system and an AI-powered design system.

At a SXSW event dubbed ‘Domus Ex Machina,’ the company also presented a new low-carbon building material for 3D printing alongside a digital catalog for residential 3D printed architecture containing more than 60 designs.

Phoenix multi-story printer. Image credit: ICON

“In the future, I believe nearly all construction will be done by robots, and nearly all construction-related information will be processed and managed by AI systems,” said Jason Ballard, ICON Co-Founder and CEO, announcing the new systems. “It is clear to me that this is the way to cut the cost and time of construction in half while making homes that are twice as good and more faithfully express the values and hopes of the people who live in them.”

Phoenix multi-story printer. Image credit: ICON

Among the new technologies unveiled is Phoenix, ICON...

Drexel University researchers develop AI-guided robotic structural inspection system

2024-02-12T08:00:00-05:00

Researchers based at the Drexel University College of Engineering have devised a new method for performing structural safety inspections using autonomous robots aided by machine learning technology.

The article they published recently in the Elsevier journal Automation in Construction presented the potential for a new multi-scale monitoring system informed by deep-learning algorithms that work to find cracks and other damage to buildings before using LiDAR to produce three-dimensional images for inspectors to aid in their documentation.

The development could potentially work to benefit the enormous task of maintaining the health of structures that are increasingly being reused or restored in cities large and small across the country. Despite the relative age of America’s built environment, roughly two-thirds of today’s existing buildings will be in use in the year 2050, according to Gensler’s predictions.

NASA tests autonomous construction robots for future use in outer space

2024-02-06T11:09:00-05:00

NASA has unveiled details of a robotic system designed to construct and maintain structural components in space. The system, developed by NASA’s Automated Reconfigurable Mission Adaptive Digital Assembly Systems (ARMADAS) team, consists of inchworm-like robots that may one day assemble, repair, and reconfigure structural materials in orbit, on the lunar surface, or on other planets, before humans arrive.

A Scaling Omnidirectional Lattice Locomoting Explorer (SOLL-E) builder robot carries a small building block called a voxel – short for volumetric pixel – as it maneuvers, stepping inchworm-style, along the exterior of a mechanical metamaterial structure. Image credit: NASA/Dominic Hart

NASA’s system revolves around a set of 3D building blocks called voxels, which resemble a wire-frame soccer ball. Made of strong, lightweight composite materials, the voxels combine to create a system that, according to NASA, is comparable to current high-performance structures such as bridges, aircraf...

University of British Columbia develops ‘smart construction robots’ for basic on-site tasks

2023-12-01T12:00:00-05:00

A team at the University of British Columbia has developed “smart construction robots” for performing basic tasks on construction sites, such as lifting and moving objects. The team, led by Dr. Tony Yang from the University’s Smart Structures Lab, recently demonstrated the concept at a construction site in Richmond, British Columbia.

Photo credit: UBC Applied Science

The team’s process sees aerial drones fitted with cameras capture details that are used to create a digital twin of the construction site. AI-equipped cranes and forklifts use the information to move construction materials, such as beams and columns, around the site without a human operator.

Lead researcher Dr. Tony Yang observes as the robot decides how to navigate around the obstacle and complete its task, without n eeding a human operator. Photo credit: UBC Applied Science

“Our smart construction robots are able to recognize objects, performing detailed scans of structural components for quality assurance,” Dr. Yang ex...

University of Illinois launches center for autonomous construction research

2023-08-23T11:26:00-04:00

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Grainger College of Engineering has announced the creation of a research and development center dedicated to autonomous construction technologies. The initiative, funded by the US Army Corps of Engineers, will engage with research on self-driving construction vehicles and their integration into modern construction practices.

The Center for Autonomous Construction in Manufacturing at Scale (CACMS) will delve into prominent challenges in autonomous construction, including control systems, artificial intelligence applications, system architecture, and advanced manufacturing methods such as additive manufacturing. Vehicles ranging from traditional wheeled vehicles to tracked units will also undergo testing and development at the center, which will also hold a fleet of self-driving cars.

Within these fields, CACMS's primary mission ...

Meet New York City's window-washing robot

2023-08-18T13:47:00-04:00

Skyline Robotics is disrupting the century-old practice of window washing with new technology that the startup hopes will redefine a risky industry. Its window-washing robot, Ozmo, is now operational in Tel Aviv and New York, and has worked on major Manhattan buildings such as 10 Hudson Yards, 383 Madison, 825 3rd Avenue and 7 World Trade Center [...]

Automation has entered the building maintenance field with AI-powered window-washing robots appearing on Manhattan's high-rise facades.

The technology could signal a shift in the workforce traditionally assigned to this task, from human teams to lone robots controlled remotely, potentially from anywhere in the world.

Robots assemble a domed timber pavilion designed by the universities of Stuttgart and Freiburg

2023-08-15T11:16:00-04:00

The University of Stuttgart and the University of Freiburg have partnered on the construction of a domed timber pavilion on the University of Freiburg campus which seeks to showcase an “integrative approach to design and construction for sustainable architecture.” The livMatS Biomimetic Shell at the FIT Freiburg Center for Interactive Materials and Bioinspired Technologies will serve as a research space for the development of innovative, cross-disciplinary research ideas.

Image credit: Conné van d'Grachten

The design of the building envelope is based on the morphological principles of the plate skeleton of sea urchins, which have been researched at the University of Stuttgart for over a decade. For the pavilion, the segmental shell construction was further developed as a highly insulating structure for year-round and permanent use, with the combination of two partial shells of different shapes and sizes creating an opening skylight.

Image credit: Con...

3XN tops out a modular timber office park for two robotics companies

2023-05-05T14:57:00-04:00

3XN is celebrating the topping out of Cobot Hub, a timber office park that will serve as the new joining home of robotics companies Universal Robots (UR) and Mobile Industrial Robots A/S (MiR) in Odense, Denmark.

Photo by Rasmus Hjortshøj

The approximately 215,000-square-foot campus was designed to enhance collaboration and employee well-being while offering specialized environments that foster robotics research and development. It features open office layouts, along with common areas and amenity spaces where employees can interact informally. Increased visibility and transparency throughout the spaces that encourage social interaction were prioritized.

Photo by Rasmus Hjortshøj

Cobot Hub is composed of flexible, cubic modules that are tailored to the needs of the two companies. This approach allows the building to be scaled up or down according to future needs as certain parts of the structure and materials can be reshaped and reused. It is also primarily made of wood, allowing the...

Boston Dynamics’ robot dog Spot equipped with ChatGPT to allow conversations with human companions

2023-05-04T11:39:00-04:00

Florida-based AI solutions company Levatas has equipped Boston Dynamics’ famous robot dog Spot with ChatGPT and Google’s Text-to-Speech model, allowing the robot to answer questions about past and future missions. Humans can talk to the adapted Spot model using normal language commands, with Spot able to instantly parse high volumes of information and use insights from the data to answer questions.

“These robots run automated missions every day,” tweeted machine learning engineer Santiago Valdarrama, who worked on the project. “Each mission uses miles-long, hard-to-understand configuration files. Only technical people can handle them. At the end of each mission, the robots capture a ton of data. There's no simple way to query all of it on demand. That's where ChatGPT comes in. We show it the configuration files and the mission results. We then ask questions using that context. Put that together with a voice-enabled interface, and we have an awesome way to query our data!”

We integr...

Role of artificial intelligence on construction sites expected to surge in coming decade

2023-04-06T11:12:00-04:00

A new report predicts that the global market for artificial intelligence in construction will experience significant growth in the next decade. The analysis by Research Dive reports that the market will grow by 34.1% by 2031 fuelled by AI-driven solutions and services, both on-site and remote.

According to the report, the implementation of artificial intelligence in the construction sector will be driven by a desire to improve worker safety on building sites and lessen health risks in the construction industry. The report cites data from OSHA that since 2020, “one in five worker deaths per year were recorded from the construction sector.” Research Dive, therefore, expects that the safety infrastructure on construction sites, such as cameras, sensors, and IoT devices detecting construction activity, will serve as foundations for increased integration of AI.

Advances in AI on the con...

Florida International University to develop virtual reality games for training future AEC workers thanks to NSF grant

2023-03-27T12:06:00-04:00

Florida International University (FIU) has been awarded a grant to develop games that can train individuals for roles in architecture, engineering, and construction. The funding, awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), will support FIU’s exploration into how institutions can train skilled workers at a time when robotics and autonomous systems are increasingly being deployed in the AEC sector.

As part of the project, faculty from the institution’s School of Architecture and School of Computing and Information Services will work together to develop a platform that will use virtual reality games to train workers through a personalized learning program. The learning tool is expected to focus on operational industrial robots, with learning delivery tailored for "differences in ability, experience, and sociocultural backgrounds."

The tool will see users asked to explain their decisions ...

Autonomous construction robot IronBOT launched to reduce rebar installation times

2023-03-23T13:13:00-04:00

Pennsylvania-based Advanced Construction Robotics (ACR) has unveiled its latest robot designed to handle rebar on construction sites. Named IronBOT, the system can lift, carry, and place up to 5,000-lb bundles of horizontal and longitudinal rebar.

According to ACR, the robotic system requires no pre-programming, pre-mapping, calibration, or BIM input, and instead automates rebar placement based on the user’s spacing requirements. The company also claims the system can be mobilized on a construction site within 4 to 8 hours and can operate day or night.

IronBOT’s release comes six years after Advanced Construction Robotics released TyBOT, an autonomous system that can tie together steel reinforcement bars. According to the company, a construction site that uses both IronBOT and TyBOT can reduce rebar installation times by 50%.

“We are confident the combination of TyBOT and IronBOT generates a disruptive technology, meaning the time and cost savings are so significant on a job that i...

Robotics company unveils world’s first autonomous system for installing solar farm foundations

2023-03-17T08:30:00-04:00

San Francisco-based Built Robotics has announced the development of the “world’s first fully autonomous solar piling system.” The system, named RPD 35, is capable of constructing foundations for solar panel arrays up to five times faster than the traditional method.

The system was designed for integration into utility-scale solar projects, which require the support of steel H-beams measuring 12-16 feet in length. A typical solar farm requires tens of thousands of piles to be installed, each of which is driven approximately eight feet into the ground and positioned at an accuracy of less than an inch.

According to its creators, RPD 35 uses AI to conduct all steps in the piling process, including surveying, pile distribution, pile driving, and inspection. As a result, the system can enable a two-person crew to install over 300 piles per day.

"Solar piling is a tough, repetitive job, one well suited to automation," explained the company’s CEO and founder Noah Ready-Campbell. "Our pili...

Boston Dynamics’ humanoid robot Atlas lends a hand on the construction site

2023-01-19T11:49:00-05:00

Boston Dynamics has released a new video showcasing the capabilities of their humanoid robot Atlas. The one-minute-long YouTube video is set within a mock-up construction site, with Atlas seen assisting a human construction worker on scaffolding.

Playfully titled ‘Atlas Gets a Grip,’ the video shows Atlas moving a timber plank around the mock-up site before picking up a tool bag to toss up to a construction worker on an elevated single-story scaffolding platform. As with past Boston Dynamic videos, Atlas ends the sequence in style by performing a backflip off a wooden crate.

Video via Boston Dynamics on YouTube

Entertainment value aside, the video offers an insight into the evolving capabilities of Boston Dynamics’ humanoid robot and its ability to manipulate the world around it. By interacting with objects and modifying its surroundings in pursuit of a defined goal, the company seeks to demonstrate the evolving ability of robots to assist in heavy-duty human tasks, including compl...

Construction robotics market could triple by 2030, reaching $164 million

2022-08-25T12:01:00-04:00

New research suggests that the global market for construction robotics will triple by 2030. The figures, generated by Straits Research, predict that the construction robotics market will grow from its current $50 million value to reach $164 million by the end of the decade, increasing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14%.

“Primary factors promoting the shift towards adopting robots in the construction industry are enhanced productivity, quality, worker safety, and global urbanization,” the research says, noting that robotics could eliminate or mitigate the risks of human error, operate in hazardous environments, and improve precession and efficiency during the construction process. Straits also identifies the “demolition robot market” as a submarket expected to experience growth.

Herzog & de Meuron's new Royal College of Art Battersea Campus opens to the public

2022-05-23T17:49:00-04:00

Big news today as Herzog & de Meuron’s anticipated expansion of the Royal College of Art has officially opened in the Battersea district of London.

Characterized by a fusion of seven separate facilities into one combined structure, the new £135 million ($169 million) complex entails the creation of new social and educational spaces for the Sculpture, Contemporary Art Practice, and Moving Image departments as well as for the RCA’s School of Design.

Photo: Iwan Baan, image courtesy Royal College of Art

The 15,500-square-meter (167,000-square-foot) campus also sought to aid the shift in the 185-year-old institution's postgraduate offerings towards a more strengthened set of STEAM programs, which is seen in the addition of a new tech-centric eight-story research center, robotics hangar, and a center for enterprise, entrepreneurship, incubation and business support called InnovationRCA.

Photo: Iwan Baan, image courtesy Royal College of Art

Writing in the Guardian today, critic Oliver Wain...

China is building a massive new hydroelectric dam with AI-controlled robots and 3D printing technology

2022-05-11T15:37:00-04:00

China is using artificial intelligence to effectively turn a dam project on the Tibetan Plateau into the world’s largest 3D printer, according to scientists involved in the project. The 180 metre (590 feet) high Yangqu hydropower plant will be built slice by slice – using unmanned excavators, trucks, bulldozers, pavers and rollers, all controlled by AI – in the same additive manufacturing process used in 3D printing.

The Yangqu dam project is set to finish in two years and is being overseen by Tsinghua University’s Liu Tianyun, who recently argued that developments in 3D printing have made the technology “identical to nature.”

Its purported future annual output of nearly 5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity for Henan Province is a full billion more than that of the Hoover Dam, whose WPA-era construction was similarly the product of two decades worth of advancements in engineering and construction technologies.

Robotics company behind machine that automates construction layouts secures $9.4 million in Series A funding

2022-04-26T16:12:00-04:00

Rugged Robotics, a Houston-based developer of construction technology, raised $9.4 million in Series A funding. Similar to Dusty Robotics, Rugged offers a robot to automate construction layout. Rugged’s Mark I marks architectural and engineering designs directly onto concrete floors so workers know where to build. The robot is available for commercial use, which the company delivers via layout as a service (a derivative of Robots as a Service).

The funding round was led by BOLD Capital Partners and Brick & Mortar Ventures, along with Riot Ventures, Morpheus, Embark, Consigli Construction Company, and Suffolk Technologies. This latest capitalization round brings the company’s full funding to around $12 million. Rugged Robotics plans to use the investment to accelerate the robot’s deployment, expand its product offering, and make additional hires.

Rugged Robotics was founded in 2018 by Derrick Morse and Logan Farrell, a NASA engineer. In 2019, the company raised $2.5 million by way of a seed funding round.

The 10 most promising construction startups of 2021, from AI contract reviewers to cloud-based material management

2021-11-24T14:02:00-05:00

The ten winners of the Construction Startup Competition 2021 have been announced by CEMEX Ventures, recognizing the most promising startup companies in the construction sector for this year. The overall winner of the competition was Document Crunch, an AI-powered software which can identify and explain critical issues in construction contracts.

Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Document Crunch allows users to upload documents online to be reviewed by an AI software to analyze risk, understand waivers, and highlight indemnity and insurance obligations. As well as reviewing construction contracts and insurance policies, the software can also analyze plans, drawings, and specifications, categorizing elements such as design responsibility, confidentiality requirements, hazardous materials, and warranty obligations.

Document Crunch was one of ten winning projects in the competi...

ETH Zurich unveils robotically-assembled sculpture inspired by the Hanging Gardens of Babylon

2021-11-23T16:59:00-05:00

Researchers at ETH Zurich in Switzerland have offered an insight into the design and fabrication of a new architectural sculpture, built with the help of artificial intelligence and four robots. The structure, standing 22.5 meters (74 feet) in height, will consist of five geometrically-complex wooden pods all slightly offset from each other and supported by eight thin steel pillars.

Image: Gramazio Kohler Research, ETH Zürich

Titled "Semiramis" after the Babylonian queen associated in folklore with the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the sculpture is currently being manufactured at ETH Zurich’s Robotic Fabrication Laboratory. In what the team describes as a “delicate dance for the highest precision,” the wooden pods are being assembled by four suspended robotic arms, each collecting wooden panels and placing them in accordance with a computer-generated design.

Image: Pascal Bach / Gramazio Kohler Research, ETH Zurich

Once the robotic arms have placed four panels next to each other, cra...

MIT-designed self-driving Roboats make a splash in Amsterdam’s canals

2021-11-18T13:33:00-05:00

After six years of design and research at MIT, a pair of autonomous boats have been launched into the canals of Amsterdam. Roboat, a research project undertaken by the MIT Senseable City Lab and the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS Institute), seeks to encourage a future where autonomous boats could help the city of Amsterdam move part of its road traffic to the water.

From November onwards, the two full-scale prototypes will be used for three use cases: passenger transport, logistics (waste collection), and data collection (surveying water infrastructure and monitoring water quality). The boats will operate with complete autonomy through the use of way-point finding, autonomous docking and undocking, and collision avoidance.

“Picture being amid the hustle and bustle on the Amsterdam canals,” explains Ynse Deinema, Roboat Project Lead at AMS Institute. “This urban context involves tight space maneu...