Automation of Whole House Construction Using Contour Crafting

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Conventional methods of manufacturing automation do not lend themselves to construction of large structures with internal features. This explains why the evolution of construction automation has been slow. A promising new automation approach is layered fabrication, generally known as solid free form fabrication or rapid prototyping, which uses an additive method and is capable of creating complex internal features. However, most of the current layered fabrication methods are limited by their ability to deliver a wide variety of materials applicable to construction. Additionally, they are severely constrained by the low rates of material deposition which makes them attractive only for the fabrication of small industrial parts. This project addresses a novel construction automation approach using a layered fabrication process called Contour Crafting (CC) which has been developed at the University of Southern California. The process aims at automated construction of whole houses as well as sub-components. Using this process, a single house or a colony of houses, each with possibly a different design, may be automatically constructed in a single run. The specific focus of the PIs' research plan is to extend their current research activities, which have so far concentrated on small scale parts, to build and test full-scale sections of houses using proper construction materials, and to investigate other pertinent scalability issues. Towards realizing these objectives, the PIs aim at conducting activities pertaining to: (a) development of crucial machine elements for construction of segments of full-scale houses, (b) software and control issues, and (c) experimentation, testing and analysis of constructed structures. It is anticipated that the research results will be also extendable to construction on other planets, and to the field of ceramic arts.