Fastbrick Robotics’ Hadrian X robot needs little human interaction and can lay up to 1000 bricks per hour. The one-armed robot in action. (Photo from Fastbrick)
Australian Robotic technology company Fastbrick Robotics (FBR) Limited has created a robot that’s out for our construction jobs. The one-armed bricklayer, dubbed Hadrian X, recently built its first house in under three days making it a world first. The bot built a 180-square meter three-bedroom, two-bathroom in less than the targeted three days. And while the house isn’t much of a looker, it does meet relevant building standards.
The Hadrian X, a commercial version of FBR’s robot, first completed the Factory Acceptance Testing before finishing the house. The bot doesn’t need a lot of human interaction and works day and night, laying up to 1000 bricks an hour. In comparison, that’s what two human bricklayers can complete in a day.
During the building process, the robot showed it could successfully create an 11-pillar structure demonstrating its ability to build from slab to cap height, finishing a structure using a combination of brick sizes, cuts, and laying configurations, and showed its ability to build a larger structure on a slab from a 3D CAD model with the required accuracy.
The team celebrated the breakthrough by issuing 6.6 million shared under the company’s performance rights plan. Now, the team plans to take what they’ve learned from Hadrian X and tweak it before they bring both versions of the robot back to their High Wycombe facility for demonstration to key commercial stakeholders.
"We are all justifiably proud and excited to have achieved this world first milestone for FBR," chief executive Mike Pivac said. "We now have the world’s only fully automated, end-to-end bricklaying solution, with a massive market waiting for it.”
Earlier this year, FBR teamed up with construction machinery company Caterpillar in July to work on the development of the one-armed bricklayer. This deal extends a memorandum of understanding the two signed last year. Caterpillar then invested $2 million in FBR.
While this a great feat for construction, you have to wonder how many jobs this will replace. On one hand, the robot is fast and efficient cutting down the time it takes to complete a project. On the other hand, it potentially means the loss of jobs for construction workers. It makes you think about how robots are infiltrating various industries and the effect they have on human workers.
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