Archinect - News

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 ...

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...

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...

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.

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...

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.

This bridge near Oslo will be the world's longest designed without any 2D drawings

2022-06-22T17:50:00-04:00

Like many highway projects around the world, it has been engineered to span great distances and stand strong—feats that have become so normal they’re expected as the status quo. But unlike most large-scale building projects, this bridge has been designed and constructed without any drawings.

Called the Randselva Bridge, the structure stretches 2,080 feet and stands 180 feet above ground at its highest point. It’s located near the city of Hønefoss, about 31 miles northwest of Oslo. When it opens to traffic next month, it will be the longest bridge ever constructed without 2D drawings. Instead of using traditional construction blueprints, engineering company Sweco opted to employ a BIM model that would be used and adjusted throughout every step of the bridge’s construction. The company used technology company Trimble's Tekla modeling software. Oystein Ulvestad, a BIM developer for Sweco, led the design of the project.

As part of the BIM model, each section of the structure is constructed and scanned, allowing any changes to the project to be immediately reflected in the model. This makes it easier to execute adjustments to the plan, saving both time and money. Workers would follow the updated plans using tablets and augmented reality. According to Fast Company, Ulvestad s...

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.

Inside a new robotic housing factory in British Columbia, Canada

2021-10-20T11:50:00-04:00

Intelligent City, a Canadian company focused on innovation in housing, has offered a glimpse inside their new factory in Delta, British Columbia. The facility, which has now begun building mid-to-high-rise urban housing projects for Canada and the United States, will use advanced robotics to automatically assemble mass timber building systems.

Intelligent City's new factory in British Columbia. Image courtesy: Intelligent City

The company was founded in 2008 by German-Canadian architect Oliver Lang and Canadian designer Cindy Wilson, who also comes from an architectural background with a Bachelor of Architecture and Bachelor of Arts from the University of British Columbia. The team is currently working to deliver 2,880 homes in Canada and 1,400 homes in the United States, with delivery of their first projects expected in early 2022 in Vancouver.

Intelligent City's new factory in British Columbia. Image courtesy: Intelligent City

The company’s approach is centered on the use of mass...

Automated rebar prefabrication startup raises $8 million in Series A funding

2021-07-01T18:38:00-04:00

A New York-based construction robotics startup that makes prefabricated rebar cages for concrete structures has announced that it has secured $8 million in a Series A funding round.

The round was led by Tribeca Venture Partners and featured Blackhorn Ventures, Point72 Ventures, New York State, and Twenty Seven Ventures. This follows a $3 million seed round raised in late 2019.

The company, Toggle, was founded in 2016 by Daniel Blank and Ian Cohen. Toggle automates the rebar assembly process, combining its software with industrial robots and heavy material handling equipment. This allows the company to produce building materials in a safer, more productive, and more precise manner, thus able to deliver them at a lower cost and faster speed.

"At a time when global construction is accelerating at an unprecedented pace, Toggle offers a way to add capacity while saving time and cost on some of the largest types of projects," said Toggle CEO, Daniel Blank. "We are especially grateful f...

Archinect's Virtual Event Guide for the week of March 17-24, 2021

2021-03-17T16:39:00-04:00

This week's featured virtual event happenings, from Archinect's Virtual Event Guide, are highlighted by Exhibit Columbus' Design Presentations kicking off this Friday. Other events to tune into address topics such as decolonization, surveillance, automation, public and domestic placemaking, healthy communities, and design experience.

Are you hosting a virtual lecture? Presentation? Tour? Interview? Happy Hour? Submit it for consideration by clicking here.

Are you an expert in an arena that's especially important right now? Let us know if you would like to work with Archinect to host an online event.

Sharon E. Sutton: Decolonizing the City-Making Professions: Learning from the Dreams and Defeats of the 1960s
Wednesday, March 17, 2021 | 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM EDT
Dr. Sharon Egretta Sutton, FAIA is a distinguished visiting professor of architecture at Parsons School of Design and has also served on the faculties of Columbia University, Pratt Institute, the University of Cincinnati, the Univer...

Japanese construction company to build dam with automated robots

2020-07-28T11:55:00-04:00

Japanese contractor Obayashi has started to build a dam almost entirely with robots, addressing the industry's labor shortage and aging workforce. The site of the trial project is a concrete dam in Mie Prefecture, on the southeast coast of Japan's main island. The 84-meter-high structure is slated for completion in March 2023.

According to Nikkei, Obayashi has developed automated equipment to stack concrete layers to form the 334-meter-wide dam with virtually every process for constructing the dam involving some form of automation. Those process include the initial work of establishing the foundation, and pouring concrete to form the body, Nikkei reports. "By transferring expert techniques to machines, we're able to analyze what was once implicit knowledge," said Akira Naito, head of Obayashi's dam technology unit in a statement.

From grocery stores to mini-fulfillment centers

2020-07-02T18:54:00-04:00

Even before the pandemic reconfigured every aspect of our daily lives, it was clear that the cash register — the kind with a drawer that pops out after your groceries are tallied — was headed for the dust heap of technology, joining fax machines and CD players. Many convenience stores, like CVS, Rite Aid and Target, started installing self-checkout stations a decade ago.

Architecture critic Inga Saffron of The Philadelphia Inquirer examines the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has supercharged the automation of grocery stores and other spaces, finding that with the boom in grocery delivery services that has taken hold since the pandemic hit, some purveyors are adopting smaller scale versions of the fulfillment center model typically employed by digital behemoths like Amazon.

Material Bank pushes the future of material discovery and sampling

2020-06-16T12:30:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by Material Bank

Material Bank is the world’s largest material marketplace, providing the fastest and most sustainable way to search and sample materials. It simplifies the complex process of material search and sampling by enabling architecture and design professionals to search hundreds of thousands of materials such as paint, flooring, and textiles across hundreds of brands on a single site.

Streamlining the material sampling process, Material Bank focuses on the client and their needs through an expedited search and sampling system.

Image courtesy of Material Bank

Architecture and design firms spend countless hours searching for the right textiles, flooring samples, paint options, and more. Through Material Bank's propriety database, the need for fumbling through large, clunky catalogues will cease to exist thanks to the company's powerful database and ultra-fast logistics hub. Having samples ready for next day presentations can make or break signing ...

This 3D-printed house will be ready for land and water

2020-05-28T19:31:00-04:00

Around the world, private companies and public institutions alike are racing to present "first-of-its-kind" 3D-printed buildings, even entire villages.

In the Czech Republic, a developing company in collaboration with sculptor Michal Trpak is preparing to build, what it calls, the country's first 3D-printed inhabitable house this June.

Called Prvok (Protozoon), the project's building process is promoted as significantly cutting construction time, material waste, carbon emissions, and overall cost when compared to the region's conventional brick buildings.

"Prvok od Burinky (Protozoon) will have three rooms — a bathroom with toilet, living room with a kitchen and a bedroom," explains the project announcement. "The building will be anchored on a pontoon and is a year-round livable house."

"The house offers eco technologies such as recuperation, recirculation shower, remote control, green roof, as well as reservoirs for drinking, utility and sewage water."

Printing the 43 sqm / 463 s...

Amazon opens first cashierless grocery store in Seattle

2020-03-09T11:19:00-04:00

Amazon [has opened] its first grocery store to pilot the use of the retailer’s cashierless “Just Walk Out” technology that has previously powered 25 Amazon Go convenience stores in a handful of major U.S. metros. Based in Amazon’s hometown of Seattle, the new Amazon Go Grocery store allows customers to shop for everyday grocery items like fresh produce, meat, seafood, bakery items, household essentials, dairy, easy-to-make dinner options, beer, wine and spirits, and more.

According to TechCrunch, the store is 7,700 square feet in the front of house and 10,400 square feet overall, making it the largest use of Amazon's Just Walk Out technology to date. With a similar model to the Amazon Go convenience stores, shoppers use the Amazon Go app to check themselves in as they enter the store. Once inside, users shop as they typically would. Sensors and cameras monitor the items removed from shelves and add them to the shopper's virtual cart. Once the shopper exits the store, the software charges the card the customer has on file, TechCrunch reports.

Automation could replace 2.7 million construction jobs by 2057

2020-02-13T13:18:00-05:00

Increasing automation in the construction industry could displace or replace as much as 49% of the America’s blue-collar construction workforce (2.7 million workers) and eliminate nearly 500,000 non-construction jobs by 2057, according to a new study by the Midwest Economic Policy Institute (MEPI) and the Project for Middle Class Renewal at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

As a part of their study, Midwest Economic Policy Institute (MEPI) and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign researchers highlighted a "decades-long decline of blue-collar labor as a total share of construction costs and the growing share of capital— which includes machinery, equipment, and other technologies— to show that the industry is well positioned to move towards increased automation."

The researchers posit that the decline in skilled tradespeople could potentially push the construction industry toward the accelerated development of automated solutions to fill the need. “Whether through the use of robotics, virtual reality, or other technological innovations, automation has been increasing productivity, reducing costs, and improving quality,” said Jill Manzo, one of the researchers. “With capital growing, the industry struggling with skilled labor shortages, and our nation facing growing infrastructure needs, it is fair to conclude that the pace of automation is likely t...

A new start-up wants to use AI and algorithms to replace "expensive, architect-designed" homes

2020-01-29T11:59:00-05:00

Tech start-up Higharc aims to "reinvent home design for the digital age," reports the Financial Times. The company uses iterative design to create "custom" 3D models and plans. Algorithmic design isn't new to architecture, but it looks like Higharc seeks to do away with "expensive, architect-designed plans that take forever to produce."

According to the Financial Times, Marc Minor, founder and CEO of Higharc, said that the company's system is "faster than existing best-in-class design software for homes...there are sophisticated algorithms behind the scenes continuously determining crucial details that typically take hours of manual effort."

Additionally, Pamela Wallgreen, co-founder of a start-up called Finch 3D, "whose software that automates repetitive tasks and guides architects through the design process" through simulation and AI encouraged architects to take advantage of these new emerging technologies.

Robots for construction, agriculture, restaurants and homes: property developer Country Garden invests heavily in robotics

2020-01-20T18:16:00-05:00

China’s largest property developer by sales Country Garden is planning to start mass production of construction robots next year to cut costs and raise efficiency, it said on Friday. The group, which started investing in robotics research and development in 2018, said it aims to have at least one robot at each of its sites across the nation.

According to Reuters, Country Garden Holdings Co. Ltd. has signaled its intention to invest more than $2 billion in robotics each year for the next five years to boost automation in the company's construction, agriculture, restaurant, and property management businesses.

To showcase its technological prowess, the Chinese mega-corporation just opened its first robot restaurant (now China's first fully automated eatery) in the city of Guangzhou.

With 32 industrial robots in the kitchen alone, handling everything from food preparation to cooking, and further AI-powered robots guiding guest to their tables and taking orders, Country Garden has reportedly dropped $29 million on this restaurant prototype — which the company's founder, billionaire Yang Guoqiang, hopes to replicate 1,000 times across China within two years.

Aerial reforestation by drone: Flash Forest Kickstarter wants to plant a billion trees by 2028

2019-12-26T14:13:00-05:00

[...] a team of Canadian science and engineering graduates is pitching a dream to plant a billion trees by 2028 using drones. The project is dubbed Flash Forest and combines the use of drones with specially-designed pods and an accelerated seed germination process. According to Flash Forest, its technology can plant trees 10 times faster than a single worker and at a cost that is 80 percent cheaper than traditional tree planting methods.

On their Kickstarter page, the team behind the Toronto-based Flash Forest project explains what happens before and after heavy-lift drones pneumatically fire their custom-designed seed pods into the ground: "Before we plant our pods, we pre-germinate the seeds inside using our own 'secret sauce.' This ensures that the seeds have already sprouted before they’re even in the ground and that they have a strong rooting system when they grow. Not only that, but after we plant them we follow up with our spraying drone to remove competition and provide nitrogen and other nutrients for the best chance of success. We continuously monitor our seedlings with the mapping drone to make sure they’re healthy."

Modular construction startup Katerra cuts 200 jobs to embrace automation

2019-12-13T17:08:00-05:00

Katerra Inc., a modular construction startup, got an $865 million cash infusion from investors led by SoftBank Group Corp. last year. Now, the company is shutting down a factory in Phoenix and cutting 200 jobs. The move will shift Katerra’s manufacturing away from Phoenix and into its highly automated and lower-cost factory in Tracy, California.

The company's mission is to "shake up the construction industry with a combination of efficient factories, prefab parts and modular construction units," Bloomberg reports. The Phoenix factory will remain open thorugh the end of the year and affected employees will receive a 90-day severance package.

AI-focused "College of Computing" coming to MIT with $1 billion endowment

2019-11-20T12:14:00-05:00

MIT will create a new college that combines AI, machine learning, and data science with other academic disciplines. It is the largest financial investment in AI by any US academic institution to date.

MIT’s new artificial intelligence-focused Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing will "create 50 new faculty positions and numerous fellowships for graduate students," according to the MIT Technology Review. The school is set to debut in September 2020, first in existing buildings and later in its own facilities. Schwarzman is the CEO and co-founder of multinational private equity and financial firm Blackstone Group.

MIT Technology Review notes that one of the focuses of the new college will be to encourage students and researchers to think about the potential impact of computing and AI, both in terms of innovation and ethics.

Bricklaying robot gets to work delivering "wall as a service" construction

2019-10-22T14:05:00-04:00

The Australian company promoting the brick- and block-laying robot Hadrian X has entered a series of agreements with housebuilders in Australia and Mexico with a view to getting demonstration homes built. Fastbrick Australia, a joint venture between Hadrian X inventor Fastbrick Robotics (FBR Ltd) and Australian building supplies company Brickworks Building Products, hopes the agreements will get traction for its “Wall-as-a-Service” concept in the two countries’ sizeable home-building markets.

FBR's Hadrian X robots can build multi-room structures from 3D CAD models with no human intervention. In addition to new contracts with Australian and Mexican entities, the company has also inked deals with builders and fabricators in Saudi Arabia and Austria, among others.

A recent test using one of the Hadrian X robots, according to the FBR blog, built a three-bedroom, two-bathroom "full home structure" made up of 2,420 "Hadrian-optimised blocks" that generated only 5.5 blocks' worth of waste, or roughly 0.2% of the overall total.

This garbage can drives itself to your curb

2019-10-02T19:00:00-04:00

...the SmartCan is one of those rare home-focused robots that could...actually deliver some genuinely useful functionality...Using a companion app, the SmartCan will follow a pre-programmed schedule and automatically drive itself to a curbside drop off point on garbage pickup days, and then autonomously return to wherever you keep them parked the rest of the week

While the SmartCan may prove a pragmatic solution for some homeowners, there are still questions of price, which have yet to be revealed, and maintenance, such as charging, risked damage, and owners remembering to keep paths clear, reports Gizmodo.

NCARB is studying how technology and shifts in practice could impact the future of licensure

2019-07-26T19:30:00-04:00

In the span of 25 years, the profession has transitioned from paper-and-pencil drafting to Building Information Modeling (BIM). While no one technology will completely alter the architect’s role,...three technologies will have the greatest impact on the profession: generative design, computational analysis, and automation.

Established in 2017, NCARB's Futures Collaborative seeks to explore challenges and opportunities facing the architecture profession. It is composed of leading architects, experts in emerging technologies, and architectural licensing board members. For the past two years, the collaborative has been exploring how emerging trends in technology and practice will influence the future of licensure and the architect's role.

"Code compliance—previously considered one of the most important roles of an architect—is also being automated through BIM," NCARB writes, concluding that "technology has the potential to fully automate functions related to health and safety." This could result in the architects of the future focusing more time on aspects of welfare.

In the end, NCARB still needs to determine what "an architecture license of the future" will look like and what responsibilities will accompany it. The Futures Collaborative is still in the midst of its research phase. After further progr...

Are there more pros than cons to modular construction?

2019-07-23T09:43:00-04:00

“Timing in the apartment world is everything [...] The time of year we release a building and when we start putting tenants in it is critical for a project’s success.”

Behind every successful construction project lies a team of people working to complete a project deadline. However, with automation and building manufacturing on the rise, many question how these methods of construction will change the way buildings are designed and built in the future. Will these new methods become commonplace?

A recent article in Multi Family Executive talks about modular development and the advantages of modular construction. Using the multifamily development group Beverly Crossing as an example, writer Joe Bousquin showcases the company's positive experience with this building method with their 126-unit Canvas project in Beverly, Massachusetts.

"Modular buildings are constructed off site under controlled plant conditions, then shipped to the site for assembly, reducing the construction schedule." Courtesy of MFE. Image © Prefab Logic

Is modular construction the key to project turnover, and is it the answer? Curtis Fletcher, president and CEO of Prefab Logic, shar...

Architects in the UK reconsider their relationship with manufacturers and mass standardization

2019-07-12T13:49:00-04:00

It is now almost 80 years since the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act enabled the construction of the post-war prefab, but controversies and concerns about building a home in a factory have run deep ever since. While practically every other item we buy rolls off a production line, housebuilding’s transition to the factory remains, for many reasons, problematic.

With the rise of automation and advances in building manufacturing, architects have considered if machines can replace the profession. However, makes the job so rewarding is thinking of new and creative ways to execute ideas. This level of creativity and design distinction is something architects argue towards replacement by automation alone. However, in the UK, architects are learning to reassess their relationships with manufacturers and understand the silver lining in mass standardization. In 1944 the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act was passed by the British Parliament as a response to providing families with homes after World War II. Several decades later, the housing market is forcing architects to acquire new perspectives when it comes to manufacturing and how new relationships could foster better results.

According to Josephine Smit of the RIBA Journal, "with a skills shortage, a push from government and impetus from the build to rent sector, manufacturers and offsite s...

Amazon to re-program human workforce

2019-07-11T16:42:00-04:00

Amazon has increasingly turned to robots and automation technology to fetch products from the shelves of its warehouses to ship to customers. Now the company says it needs to help its workers adapt to the rapid change. The e-commerce giant said on Thursday that it planned to spend $700 million to retrain a third of its workers in the United States, an acknowledgment that advances in technology are remaking the role of workers in nearly every industry.

Amazon is planning to spend $700 million over the next five years retraining 100,000 human workers to help smooth a transition toward greater automation in its operations.

“When automation comes in, it changes the nature of work but there are still pieces of work that will be done by people,” Ardine Williams, Amazon’s vice president of people operations, told The New York Times. She added, “You have the opportunity to up-skill that population so they can, for example, work with the robots.”

The retraining effort, according to The New York Times, will include software engineering classes, part of the company's plan to fill a growing need for data mapping specialists, data scientists, security engineers, and logistics coordinators.

The port of Los Angeles is headed toward automation, like it or not

2019-06-28T13:47:00-04:00

In a letter Monday to Garcetti and the Los Angeles City Council, Maersk, the global shipping giant, announced it will move ahead with introducing driverless cargo carriers at its port terminal, the nation’s largest, regardless of the outcome of a City Council vote on the project scheduled for Friday.

Thousands of dockworkers at the Port of Los Angeles could be put out of work as Danish shipping giant Maersk moves to automate its operations at the terminal against the wishes of local unions and politicians.

In a letter explaining the decision, APM Terminals, the Maersk subsidiary that operates the port, writes, “[Maersk] has the undisputed right under its lease and its collective bargaining agreement to introduce automated technology of this sort and does not require any permit or any other port, city or state approval.”

The operator is planning to replace its diesel-fueled operations with 130 electric automated cargo carriers that will run 24 hours per day, The Los Angeles Times reports.

According to The Los Angeles Times, the ports not only handle 35% of U.S. imports, but are also the single-largest source of air pollution in Southern California, with economic trends projecting massive growth in terms of container volume over coming decades.

...

Meet the bricklaying robot that can build a house in 3 days

2018-12-20T11:56:00-05:00

The 180-sqm, three bedroom, two bathroom structure was completed in under three days by Hadrian X, a new version of the robot.

Designed by an Australian company, Fast Brick Construction, the first version of Hadrian X was unveiled in 2015. Today the robot is capable of building and assessing a house from start to finish. Throughout its testing at the factory, it succeeded at completing a two-course structure, involving all combinations of brick cuts, sizes, and layering configurations; a larger two-room house from CAD model as well as an eleven-course pillar built from slab to cap height.

When supplied with a 3D model, the machine converts it into code that then uses proprietary software to calculate the location of every brick in the building. Once a concrete slab is laid, the laser-scanning technology surveys the foundation and then loads and arranges bricks using a 28m articulated telescopic boom. The components are held together by a special adhesive applied to each block through the robotic laying head. Hadrian X's laser alignment system provides an accuracy of within 0.5 mm.