This may seem like an ordinary house in a normal-looking neighbourhood - but it’s
not… because it was built, by a great big robot.
With our planet battling a housing crisis, tech companies have been trialling new ways
to build faster and more efficiently by automating those repetitive and time-consuming tasks
- like bricklaying - using robotics.
Several firms have now figured out how to do this with their own unique tech, but this
bit of kit from Australia is truly something else.
It built the walls of a three-bedroom home in under four days - and real people have
bought it with real money and are about to move in.
It’s undoubtedly a landmark moment that could change everything in construction. But
is this really any better than conventional building? Will we see this on lots of sites
in the future and is a world where the robots build our homes for us
one we actually want to live in?
Robots are on the rise in construction.
Tunnel excavation, site surveying and precision drilling are just some of the jobs now being
done with the help of automated machines -
but it’s housing where the biggest shift is happening.
Loads of companies have now invented their own tech in an attempt to transform house
building - each claiming increased productivity, higher quality, improved safety and more.
They’re all trying to address the central problem that construction currently faces.
It needs to build more buildings, especially homes, in a faster, better and more sustainable way,
but it has a shrinking workforce. The natural reaction to that is to look to
automation and robotics.
All sorts of cool and sometimes gimmicky stuff has already come onto the scene, but the Hadrian X
system from Australian firm FBR is pretty jaw-dropping.
The only machine of its kind in the world, Hadrian X consists of a huge telescopic robotic
arm for laying specially designed bricks, mounted on the back of a truck.
The Hadrian X is our first robotic bricklaying machine. It deploys to site and with the aid
of laser tracking on the laying head we are able to place bricks very accurately
at distances of about 25 metres.
When in position, the system uses information from a 3D model to build the main structural
walls of a building using specially optimised blocks.
Made from a mixture of clay and concrete, they’re about 12 times bigger than normal bricks,
which gives them a much higher lay rate.
The system takes up a bit of space on site but it can put down more than 200 bricks every hour -
and that’s a lot compared to how it’s usually done with the humble house brick.
When you consider they have to do it all by hand and you factor in all those tea breaks,
a human brickie will typically lay around 500 standard bricks - but that’s in a full day.
Because it’s entirely mechanical the speed is much greater than a human to the point
where we’re about roughly ten times faster than a human.
Robots are able to handle quite heavy bricks – much heavier than what a human can.
At the moment we're only limited in size by the availability of bricks from mass manufacture.
The robot’s lightning pace isn’t just down to how fast it moves.
The blocks are fed up through the arm - similar to a conveyor belt - so it doesn’t need
to waste time reaching for a new one each time a brick is laid.
Like the blocks that are used, the structural adhesive that sticks them in place is customised
too and that comes from a special nozzle attached to the arm.
The cement-based mortars used in conventional builds can take days to dry, but FBR’s formula
takes just 45 minutes to set and the company claims that it’s stronger too.
Also at the business end of the arm is the claw.
It's fitted with motion sensors that respond to a digital blueprint of the planned structure.
That's how it understands exactly where to place each block, and it can auto correct
its position 1,000 times a second, which makes it extremely accurate.
Because the machine knows the detailed site measurements, and the size of the blocks it’s using,
it even cuts them up to fit exactly, using any bits left over on other parts of the build.
The result is almost zero waste.
All of these factors meant Hadrian X was able to build the structural walls of this three-bedroom,
two-bathroom house on the outskirts of Perth in just three and a half days.
Once finished, teams of tradesmen – human ones, not androids – moved in to complete
all the other jobs that need to be done to make a home, such as wiring and plumbing.
Regular bricks were only used for the outer face layer of the building – and these were
all laid manually, but off the critical path. Work could get cracking inside because the
frame was already up.
It’s this overall time-saving on site where the potential for lower construction costs lies.
Now, you might expect a robot house to look different to a conventional one, but
as these pictures show, it’s almost identical to the traditionally built homes around it.
That house has been sold and is about to settle so that will have people moving into it very soon.
During the display opening period most people remarked ‘Wow, we can’t tell any difference
between this and the other display houses we’ve looked at.' Well, that’s the point.
With the end finished product there’s no difference between a human construction and
a robotic construction except the robotic construction is overall a little more accurate.
It’s a perfectly nice home that many of us would be happy to live in, but the single
storey might put some buyers off.
That doesn’t mean adding a second one is too much for Hadrian X - in fact, it’s already
proven it can be done.
Unveiled in October 2020, this two-storey house was built over at FBR’s HQ and shows
how design elements like steel-reinforced concrete columns, floor slabs and rebar can
all be integrated as part of the process.
On that two-storey build we actually precast a slab on the ground adjacent to the building
so as soon as the first storey was constructed, we lifted the slab up and onto the first floor
and then Hadrian was able to carry on basically straight away as soon as the crane had left the site.
The house was built in a similar style to what’s common in the developing markets
that FBR wants to target, including Latin America and areas of the Middle East,
North Africa and Asia.
It all sounds great but what about those questions that are now playing on your mind?
Is it actually better than a highly-skilled, human bricklayer? Will there be job losses?
What about regulations? Could the system go rogue and embark on some kind of terrifying rampage?
On the jobs front, while it could mean that some roles are effectively replaced, new positions
are being opened up too - like in operating and maintaining the equipment and preparing
the 3D model - which those workers could be retrained to do.
Also, human bricklayers are still likely to be needed in some capacity at least for now
- to complete those external layers or for when more detailed or bespoke brickwork is required.
There’s also no hiding the fact there’s a serious skills shortage in construction
- not just in Western Australia but worldwide – and technologies like this are well-placed
to help tackle it.
It’s safer too, as workers no longer need to work at height and the physical act of
laying thousands of bricks can take its toll on the body over time.
As for complying with regulations, FBR’s situation isn’t as challenging as with other
technologies trying to break into construction - like 3D printing.
That’s because even though a giant robot is building the walls, which is admittedly
a pretty big change, the materials used and the end result are not that different to what
authorities are used to.
We’ve passed all the local building requirements with engineers’ sign-off and
municipal building authority approval.
We’re also getting our wall-as-a-service system approved in the Middle East, North
North America and Europe so we really don’t see a problem with engineering certification around the world.
FBR is now looking to build more robots and scale their tech, though as usual the
deep-rooted behavioural preferences of the construction industry will take some time
to overcome. It’ll need to seriously prove itself on multiple buildings in multiple markets to get there.
But it’s on the way and given that the system appears to address some of construction’s
biggest challenges in a way that doesn’t really appear to compromise on cost, performance
or appearance, this robot-built home could actually have a serious impact on how we build
in the future - and it’s new residents might end-up owning a piece of history.
We don’t know who they are so we’re showing you some highly stereotypical stock footage
of an Australian couple instead.
Perhaps it really is time we welcomed our robot overlords after all – or at the very
least let them build us some much-needed places to live.
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