Research Problem

This paper aims is to Theorise a perfect building Machine for AEC Industry, which allows Robot Human cooperation during all the process from the concept design to the actual construction site and the finished product. A lot has been written on this topic and the amount of effort put in years by Universities, Companies, Firms and Public Bodies has been growing in an exponential way since the advent of the first computers. Though probably is still unclear why the AEC Industry never fully accepted the use of robotics machines as it happened in other fields a lot more easily. To fully understand and analyse this problem it could be necessary a full understanding of Architecture, History, Engineering, Computer Science, Economics and Robotics. Still to gain all this expertise an entire life would not be enough, so the topic tackled in the research are going to be shrinked to a few of those fields.

As said a lot has been done in the past years, so it is important to check what has been done and tell what are “good” examples and what are “bad” examples, but even more significative it’s the reason why these cases fall in one bin or in the other. To do so some parameters has been sat, and these are going to be dictated by the fact that the research has and wants to be more of a study on what is the possible technological growth instead of what could be the economical aspect or even going to deep into fields the are too specific. The investigation is based on what is known and wants to “predict” the unknown putting deep roots in what a lot of researchers did. The implication of this exploration is to create a predictable future that could direct other researchers to go down this path and convincing other professionals that a future in which the AEC Industry is fully aided by machines and not only through software but also through hardware is possible.

Research Question

The main question is: Is it possible to design and program a machine that could develop the construction phase of a process aided by a software that controls the whole development making it faster and more precise? Or is always going to be a combination of different machines that hardly talk to each others leaded by different expertises?

Preliminary Hypothesis

Probably a single unit that does all this different tasks is to far away from where we are at now, so the conclusion could be developing more on a software level the communications between different tools.

Methodology

The best methodology to achieve the goal of my research is the Deductive one associated with a Qualitative one, indeed i’m starting from a large database of informations and through sat parameters i’m going to shape my final conclusion, which i would still be like to keep open for further deepening or for someone else to jump in and keep developing it.

Student: Riccardo Mura

Faculty: Ricardo Devesa