No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Visions of Process—Swarm Intelligence and Swarm Robotics in Architectural Design and Construction
Abstract
This chapter discusses and reviews the application of swarm intelligence (SI) and swarm robotics (SR) to architecture and construction from a history of science and technology perspective. In a first step, it explores the conceptual entanglements of swarm intelligence and adaptive environments and situates them in the context of a recent theoretical discourse about “media ecologies”. The second part provides a critical overview of seminal SI approaches for architectural design. These scrutinize novel connections between architecture as a site of material composition and as a site of spatial practices by computer experiments in software environments. Its guiding hypothesis is that SI technologies here are primarily used to create diversity. Subsequently, the third part of the chapter examines in which ways recent advances in collective robotics lead to further materializations of the adaptive capabilities of swarming that go beyond software applications. It presents three state-of-the-art examples of SR for architectural construction and demonstrates that SR in architectural construction—in contrast to the paradigm of diversity discussed in the context of architectural design—work best in context with a high degree of standardization and pre-defined modularization, or, on the basis of regularity.
... Machina speculatrix (Tortoises), by W. Grey Walter (1949). Walter's tortoises are the antecedents of practical commercial robots like the Roomba (Brooks 1986(Brooks , 1990Marsh 2020;Nilsson 2009), and architectural research into mobile, distributed, crawling, climbing, and swarming robotics with varying levels of autonomy for on-site construction and fabrication, see (Augugliaro et al. 2013(Augugliaro et al. , 2014Kalantari et al. 2018;Leder et al. 2019;Łochnicki et al. 2021;Vehlken 2018;Yablonina 2020;Yablonina andMenges 2019a, 2019b) for some examples. Distributed mobile robots in architecture and construction are characterized by the ability to reach difficult or dangerous locations (Yablonina and Coleman 2021) and to react to and navigate their surroundings in real time, with little or no pre-programmed information about the environment. ...
In architectural and construction robotics research, we now have powerful technologies whose histories are only partially understood. Their ubiquity is matched by persistent historical narratives around their invention that have built up over time through repetition. Appearing in historical surveys and background research for theses and dissertations, the narratives of these tools are infrequently challenged—a situation that has implications for the conception and execution of the research projects that employ them. How do we begin to center narrative and politics in the context of a specialized area of research like construction robotics? In this investigation, we interrogate a set of iconic and influential robotics projects to expand the knowledge base around them and avoid inadvertently perpetuating harmful practices: Ross Ashby’s Homeostat, Grey Walter’s Tortoises, George Devol’s Programmed Article Transfer (Unimate), and Stanford Research Institute’s Mobile Automaton (Shakey). To arrive at a different understanding of these familiar works, we propose an alternative framework—a reconfiguration of definitions of efficiency and utility that we refer to as “robot excess.” Employing the novel method of movement as a hermeneutic device to examine these, we find that certain movements were interpreted as valuable and worthy of study and documentation, while others were considered excessive and, therefore, practically irrelevant. Further, we show that the observation, characterization, and interpretation of these excess movements relied as much on qualitative factors—in conjunction with the narratives we uncover—as on the definition and quantification of traditional machine attributes like efficiency or utility. This research aims to uncover less conventional takes on some commonplace historical narratives and, through doing so, to foster more informed (and inclusive) approaches to the implementation of constantly evolving technologies.
In this paper we present an approach to designing swarms of autonomous, adaptive robots. An observer/controller framework that has been developed as part of the Organic Computing initiative provides the architectural foundation for the individuals' adaptivity. Relying on an extended Learning Classifier System (XCS) in combination with adequate simulation techniques, it empowers the individuals to improve their collaborative performance and to adapt to changing goals and changing conditions. We elaborate on the conceptual details, and we provide first results addressing different aspects of our multi-layered approach. Not only for the sake of generalisability, but also because of its enormous transformative potential, we stage our research design in the domain of quad-copter swarms that organise to collaboratively fulfil spatial tasks such as maintenance of building facades. Our elaborations detail the architectural concept, provide examples of individual self-optimisation as well as of the optimisation of collaborative efforts, and we show how the user can control the swarm at multiple levels of abstraction. We conclude with a summary of our approach and an outlook on possible future steps.
The claim is frequently made that, as cities become loaded up with information and communications technology and a resultant profusion of data, so they are becoming sentient. But what might this mean? This paper offers some insights into this claim by, first of all, reworking the notion of the social as a spatial complex of ‘outstincts’. That makes it possible, secondly, to reconsider what a city which is aware of itself might look like, both by examining what kinds of technological practices are becoming commonplace and by considering the particular case of spatial awareness. In turn, this leads to a third rumination on how cities might become aware as different kinds of sprite, channelling outstincts in spatially variable ways. Whatever the case, it is clear that new technical-artistic interventions are required if these sprites are not to become simply servants of the security–entertainment complex. Some of these interventions are examined in the fourth part of the paper.
This essay interrogates the new forms of experimentation with urban territory emerging as a result of ubiquitous computing infrastructures. We label these protocols “test-bed urbanism.” Smart, sentient, stupid, and speculative all at once, these new methods for spatial development are changing the form, function, economy, and administration of urban life.
The world around us is evolving. We are living inside evolution. As a practicing architect I find nothing more natural than to look around me and implement relevant changes into my own profession. Taking this seriously means implementing new digital technologies in the very fabric of design methods, from the first conceptual thought and from the first accurately described design proposal. Mass production is soon to be overhauled by the principles of customization, in the form of both industrial mass customization and in the form of distributed small scale household fabrication. Customization, which is the modern made to measure, will change architecture from its very foundations. A completely new esthetic will be the natural outcome of the digital parametric design process that connects the file to factory CNC production methods— a new kind of beauty for a new kind of building. Complexity based on simple rules characterizes the dramatic paradigm shift from mass production to customization. The new kind of building is complex yet systemic in its design method. The new kind of building dramatically enhances the potential of today's architectural expression while keeping strict control on its data, including costs. Truly nonstandard architecture is cost-effective and simply complex.
The goal of creating machines that autonomously perform useful work in a safe, robust and intelligent manner continues to motivate robotics research. Achieving this autonomy requires capabilities for understanding the environment, physically interacting with it, predicting the outcomes of actions and reasoning with this knowledge. Such intelligent physical interaction was at the centre of early robotic investigations and remains an open topic.
In this paper, we build on the fruit of decades of research to explore further this question in the context of autonomous construction in unknown environments with scarce resources. Our scenario involves a miniature mobile robot that autonomously maps an environment and uses cubes to bridge ditches and build vertical structures according to high-level goals given by a human.
Based on a “real but contrived” experimental design, our results encompass practical insights for future applications that also need to integrate complex behaviours under hardware constraints, and shed light on the broader question of the capabilities required for intelligent physical interaction with the real world.
Swarm robotics is an approach to collective robotics that takes inspiration from the self-organized behaviors of social animals. Through simple rules and local interactions, swarm robotics aims at designing robust, scalable, and flexible collective behaviors for the coordination of large numbers of robots. In this paper, we analyze the literature from the point of view of swarm engineering: we focus mainly on ideas and concepts that contribute to the advancement of swarm robotics as an engineering field and that could be relevant to tackle real-world applications. Swarm engineering is an emerging discipline that aims at defining systematic and well founded procedures for modeling, designing, realizing, verifying, validating, operating, and maintaining a swarm robotics system. We propose two taxonomies: in the first taxonomy, we classify works that deal with design and analysis methods; in the second taxonomy, we classify works according to the collective behavior studied. We conclude with a discussion of the current limits of swarm robotics as an engineering discipline and with suggestions for future research directions.
Inspired by the construction behavior of social insects we have developed a
computational model of a swarm to build architectural idea models in virtual
three-dimensional space. Instead of following a blueprint for construction, the
individuals of a swarm react to their local environment according to an innate
behavioral script. Through the interplay of the swarm with its environment, interaction
sequences take place that give rise to complex emergent constructions. The
configuration of the swarm determines the character of the emerging architectural
models. We breed swarms that meet our expectations through artificial evolution,
a very general framework for computationally phrased optimization problems.We
present several evolved, swarm-built architectural idea models and discuss their
potential in regards to modern ecological architecture.
Keywords: swarm grammar, ideal model, ecological architecture, bio-inspired
computing, computer-aided design, computer-aided architectural design, generative
representation, swarm intelligence, collective intelligence, artificial intelligence,
artificial life, evolutionary computation, stigmergy, collaborative algorithm.
1 Introduction
Flocks of birds, schools of fish and bee hives are prominent examples of
swarm systems. In these, large numbers of individuals interact by following simple
stimulus-reaction rules. Globally, the swarm exhibits collectively intelligent
behavior. Examples of their emergent abilities are nest constructions of social
insect swarms, like termite mounds, wasp nests and ant galleries [1].
We describe a system in which autonomous robots assemble two-dimensional structures out of square building blocks. A fixed set of local control rules is sufficient for a group of robots to collectively build arbitrary solid structures. We present and compare four versions in which blocks are (1) inert and indistinguishable, (2) uniquely labeled, (3) able to be relabeled by robots, (4) capable of some computation and local communication. Added block capabilities increase the availability of nonlocal structural knowledge, thereby increasing robustness and significantly speeding construction. In this way we extend the principle of stigmergy (storing information in the environment) used by social insects, by increasing the capabilities of the blocks that represent that environmental information. Finally, we describe hardware experiments using a prototype capable of building arbitrary solid 2-D structures
The robot construction crew (RCC) is a heterogeneous multi-robot system for autonomous construction of a structure through assembly of long components. The two-robot team demonstrates component placement into an existing structure in a realistic environment. The task requires component acquisition, cooperative transport, and cooperative precision manipulation. A behavior-based architecture provides adaptability. The RCC approach minimizes computation, power, communication, and sensing for applicability to space-related construction efforts, but the techniques are applicable to terrestrial construction tasks.
In the past few years, there have been significant advances made in the design and engineering of “intelligent” workplaces, buildings that not only accommodate major advances in office technology but provide better physical and environmental settings for the occupants. This paper will briefly present recent approaches to the creation of innovative environments for the advanced workplace. The architectural and engineering advances demonstrated in Japan, Germany, North America, the United Kingdom, and France can be summarized in four major system categories: (1) enclosure innovations including approaches to load balancing, natural ventilation and daylighting; (2) heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) system innovations including approaches to local control and improved environmental contact; (3) data/voice/power “connectivity” innovations; and (4) interior system innovations, including approaches to workstation and workgroup design for improved spatial, thermal, acoustic, visual and air quality.In-depth international field studies of over 20 intelligent office buildings have been carried out by a multidisciplinary expert team of the Advanced Building Systems Integration Consortium (ABSIC) based at Carnegie Mellon University. ABSIC is a university-industry-government partnership focused on the definition and development of the advanced workplace. The ABSIC field team evaluated the component and integrated system innovations for their multidimensional performance qualities, through expert analysis, occupancy assessments and field diagnostics.Based on the results of the case studies and building on the most recent technological advances, the ABSIC team developed the concepts for the Intelligent Workplace, a 7000 square foot living laboratory of office environments and innovations. This project is now under construction at Carnegie Mellon University and its features are discussed in the second section of this paper.
Swarm robotics is a novel approach to the coordination of large numbers of relatively simple robots which takes its inspiration from social insects. This paper proposes a definition to this newly emerging approach by 1) describing the desirable properties of swarm robotic systems, as observed in the system-level functioning of social insects, 2) proposing a definition for the term swarm robotics, and putting forward a set of criteria that can be used to distinguish swarm robotics research from other multi-robot studies, 3) providing a review of some studies which can act as sources of inspiration, and a list of promising domains for the utilization of swarm robotic systems.
We consider swarms as systems with partial random synchronicity and look at the conditions for their convergence to a fixed
point. The conditions turn out to be not much more stringent than for linear, one-step, stationary iterative schemes, either
synchronous or sequential. The rate of convergence is also comparable. The main result is that swarms converge in cases when
synchronous and/or sequential updating systems do not. The other significant result is that swarms can undergo a transition
from non convergence to convergence as their degree of partial synchronicity diminishes, i.e., as they get more “disordered”.
The production of order by disordered action appears as a basic characteristic of swarms.
The term “swarm” has been applied to many systems (in biology, engineering, computation, etc.) as they have some of the qualities
that the English-language term “swarm” denotes. With the growth of the various area of “swarm” research, the “swarm” terminology
has become somewhat confusing. In this paper, we reflect on this terminology to help clarify its association with various
robotic concepts.
This paper presents the visions and initial results of the I-SWARM project funded by the European Commission. The goal of the project is to build the first very large-scale artificial swarm (VLSAS) with a swarm size of up to 1,000 micro-robots with a planned size of 2×2×1 mm3. First, the motivation for such a swarm is described and then first considerations and issues arising from the robots' size resembling “artificial ants” and the MST approach taken to realize that size are given. The paper will conclude with a list of possible scenarios inspired by biology for such a robot swarm.
Sensors are increasingly present in our environments and technologies. At the same time, environmental sensing is a set of practices meant to provide more information on environmental change, while enabling new forms of environmental citizenship. Program Earth documents and discusses the ways in which new environments and citizen-sensing practices are emerging along with environmental sensing technologies. Through discussing specific instances where sensors are deployed for environmental study and citizen engagement across three areas of environmental sensing, from wild sensing to pollution sensing and urban sensing, Program Earth asks how sensor technologies are generating distinct ways of programming environments and environmental relations. What are the implications for wiring up environments in these ways? How do sensor applications not only program environments, but also program the sorts of citizens and collectives we might become? Working across digital media theory, science and technology studies, and environmental studies, Program Earth takes up these questions to examine the distinct environments, exchanges, and entities that take hold through these sensorized projects. This study develops the concept of the becoming environmental of computation in order to map the ways in which sensors are used to understand ecological processes, to track the migration of animals, to monitor pollutants, to facilitate urban participation, and to program infrastructure. Through these examples, Program Earth suggests that the programming of Earth yields processes for making new environments not necessarily as an extension of humans, but rather as new “techno-geographies” that emerge across technologies, people, practices, and more-than-human entities.
A proposal that algorithms are not simply instructions to be performed but thinking entities that construct digital spatio-temporalities.
In Contagious Architecture, Luciana Parisi offers a philosophical inquiry into the status of the algorithm in architectural and interaction design. Her thesis is that algorithmic computation is not simply an abstract mathematical tool but constitutes a mode of thought in its own right, in that its operation extends into forms of abstraction that lie beyond direct human cognition and control. These include modes of infinity, contingency, and indeterminacy, as well as incomputable quantities underlying the iterative process of algorithmic processing.
The main philosophical source for the project is Alfred North Whitehead, whose process philosophy is specifically designed to provide a vocabulary for “modes of thought” exhibiting various degrees of autonomy from human agency even as they are mobilized by it. Because algorithmic processing lies at the heart of the design practices now reshaping our world—from the physical spaces of our built environment to the networked spaces of digital culture—the nature of algorithmic thought is a topic of pressing importance that reraises questions of control and, ultimately, power. Contagious Architecture revisits cybernetic theories of control and information theory's notion of the incomputable in light of this rethinking of the role of algorithmic thought. Informed by recent debates in political and cultural theory around the changing landscape of power, it links the nature of abstraction to a new theory of power adequate to the complexities of the digital world.
This paper investigates the application of swarm intelligence in the field of architecture. We seek to distinguish different fields of application by regarding swarm intelligence as a potential tool to support the design process, to improve architectural use and further create novel building systems, based on self-organization principles. In architectural applications, swarm intelligence offers a high potential of resilience, and solutions that are fit to the task. We analyze two case studies, one concerning adaptive buildings with intelligent behavior, and one in the field of algorithmic design which makes use of agents during the planning process. Regarding their potentials and deficits, we propose a broader perspective on agent based architectural design. By integrating self-organized construction processes that are related both to the design process and to the usage, we propose combining the different tendencies to a more resilient system that covers a buildings ontogeny from beginning to end.
Current implementations of decentralized multi-robot construction systems are limited to construction of rudimentary structures such as walls and clusters, or rely on the use of blueprints for regulation. Building processes that make use of blueprints are unattractive in unknown environments as they can not compensate for heterogeneities, such as irregular terrain. In nature, social insects coordinate the construction of their nests using stigmergy, a mechanism of indirect coordination that is robust and adaptive. In this paper, we propose the design of a multi-robot construction platform called the Swarm Robotics Construction System (SRoCS). The SRoCS platform is designed to leverage stigmergy in order to coordinate multi-robot construction in unknown environments.
Extensive work has been devoted recently to the development of 3D printing or additive layer manufacturing technologies, as well as to the field of flying robots. However, to the best of the authors7 knowledge, no robotic prototype has been presented so far that combines additive layer manufacturing techniques with aerial robotics. In this paper, we examine the feasibility of such a hybrid approach and present the design and characterisation of an aerial 3D printer; a flying robot capable of depositing polyurethane expanding foam in mid-flight. We evaluate various printing materials and describe the design and integration of a lightweight printing module onto a quadcopter, as well as discuss the limitations and opportunities for aerial construction with flying robots using the developed technologies. Potential applications include ad-hoc construction of first response structures in search and rescue scenarios, printing structures to bridge gaps in discontinuous terrain, and repairing damaged surfaces in areas that are inaccessible by ground-based robots.
In this paper, we develop an autonomous
construction system in which a self-contained ground robot builds a protective barrier
by means of compliant pockets (i.e., filled bags). We present a stochastic control algorithm based on two biological mechanisms (stigmergy and templates) that takes
advantage of compliant pockets for autonomous construction. The control algorithm guides the robot to build the structure without relying on any external motion capture system
or external computer. We propose a statistical model to represent the structures built with the compliant pockets, and we provide a set of criteria for assessing the performance of the proposed system. To demonstrate the feasibility
of the proposed system, real-robot experiments were carried out. In each experiment, the robot successfully built the structure. The results show the viability of the proposed autonomous construction system.
This contribution examines the media history of swarm research and the significance of swarming techniques to current socio-technological processes. It explores how the procedures of swarm intelligence should be understood in relation to the concept of cultural techniques. This brings the concept into proximity with recent debates in posthuman (media) theory, animal studies and software studies. Swarms are conceptualized as zootechnologies that resist methods of analytical investigation. Synthetic swarms first emerged as operational collective structures by means of the reciprocal computerization of biology and biologization of computer science. In a recursive loop, swarms inspired agent-based modelling, which in turn provided biological researchers with enduring knowledge about dynamic collectives. This conglomerate led to the development of advanced, software-based 'particle systems'. Swarm intelligence has become a fundamental cultural technique related to dynamic processes and an effective metaphor for the collaborative efforts of society. © The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav.
We present a model of construction using iterative amorphous depositions and give a distributed algorithm to reliably build ramps in unstructured environments. The relatively simple local strategy for interacting with irregularly shaped, partially built structures gives rise to robust adaptive global properties. We illustrate the algorithm in both single robot and multi-robot cases via simulations and describe how to solve key technical challenges to implementing this algorithm via a robotic prototype.
This paper takes a first step in characterizing a novel field of architectural research - aerial robotic construction (ARC) - where aerial robotics is used not only for construction, but as a guiding principle in the design and fabrication process. Featuring autonomous flying vehicles that lift small building elements and position them according to a precise digital blueprint, ARC offers a comprehensive new approach to architecture research and technology. Developed by the research groups of Gramazio & Kohler and Raffaello D'Andrea at ETH Zurich, ARC offers unique advantages over traditional approaches to building: it does not require scaffolding, it is easily scalable, and it offers digital integration and informational oversight across the entire design and building process. This paper considers 1) research parameters for the individual components of ARC (such as module design, connection methodologies, vehicle cooperation, and construction sequencing/synchronization), and 2) the architectural implications of integrating these discrete components into a systemic, unifying process at the earliest stages of design. Fidelity between the design concept and the full-scale construction is of particular concern.
In this paper, viable applications for mobile robotic units on construction sites are explored. While identifying potential areas for in-situ fabrication in the construction sector, the intention is also to build upon innovative man-machine interaction paradigms to deal with the imprecision and tolerances often faced on construction sites. By combining the precision of the machine with the innate cognitive human skills, a simple but effective mobile fabrication system is tested for the building of algorithmically designed structures that would not be possible through conventional manual means. It is believed that this new approach to man-machine collaboration, aimed at a deeper integration of human ability with the strengths of digitally controlled machines, will result in advances in the construction sector, thus opening up new design and application fields for architects and planners.
We present and compare three different amorphous materials for robotic construction. By conforming to surfaces they are deposited on, such materials allow robots to reliably construct in unstructured terrain. However, using amorphous materials presents a challenge to robotic manipulation. We demonstrate how deposition of each material can be automated and compare their material properties, cost, and cost in time in order to evaluate their suitability for developing amorphous robotic construction system.
This paper presents the building of lightweight tensile structures with quadrocopters. The construction elements (such as ropes, cables, and wires) in this kind of structure are subject to tension forces. This paper identifies the basic building elements (nodes, links) required for the construction of tensile structures, and translates them into meaningful trajectories for quadrocopters. The use of a library of building elements is suggested. Hybrid force-position control strategies based on admittance control are exploited. Prototypical tensile structures are built by quadrocopters to validate the proposed approach. An accompanying video shows the building process.
Complex systems are characterized by many independent components whose low-level actions produce collective high-level results.
Predicting high-level results given low-level rules is a key open challenge; the inverse problem, finding low-level rules
that give specific outcomes, is in general still less understood. We present a multi-agent construction system inspired by
mound-building termites, solving such an inverse problem. A user specifies a desired structure, and the system automatically
generates low-level rules for independent climbing robots that guarantee production of that structure. Robots use only local
sensing and coordinate their activity via the shared environment. We demonstrate the approach via a physical realization with
three autonomous climbing robots limited to onboard sensing. This work advances the aim of engineering complex systems that
achieve specific human-designed goals.
Specialized elements of hardware and software, connected by wires, radio waves and infrared, will be so ubiquitous that no one will notice their presence.
In current robotics research there is a vast body of work on algorithms and control methods for groups of decentralized cooperating robots, called a swarm or collective. These algorithms are generally meant to control collectives of hundreds or even thousands of robots; however, for reasons of cost, time, or complexity, they are generally validated in simulation only, or on a group of a few tens of robots. To address this issue, this paper presents Kilobot, a low-cost robot designed to make testing collective algorithms on hundreds or thousands of robots accessible to robotics researchers. To enable the possibility of large Kilobot collectives where the number of robots is an order of magnitude larger than the largest that exist today, each robot is made with only $14 worth of parts and takes 5 minutes to assemble. Furthermore, the robot design allows a single user to easily operate a large Kilobot collective, such as programming, powering on, and charging all robots, which would be difficult or impossible to do with many existing robotic systems.
As dense human settlements, cities can be regarded as manifestations of emergent behaviour - not unlike like that of a colony of ants or a flock of birds. Neil Leach explores how software programs that display a similar emergent logic to cities might lend themselves to the development of a new computational methodology for modelling urban form. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The characteristic round combs of social wasps contain individual cells for brood. Although the coherent and well-organized structure of this construction suggests its adaptive value for the colony, several mechanisms of comb building have not yet been elucidated. A self-organization model is presented here to demonstrate how the comb structure development arises from the dynamic interactions between wasps and the previously constructed comb. The model involves both the structuring of the environment by the group of wasps and the strong random component of the members of the individuals. It is assumed that every wasp has the same building program based on stigmergic script and that the walls of the cell can trigger further building, if their local configuration provides suitable stimuli. The comb structure is formed only by the accumulation of material. The building modes of wasps resulted in a more even surface and circumference, where the probability of further building becomes smaller. Simultaneously, with these events new cells emerge which produce new irregularities. Computer simulations depict some illustration of how the wasps can create an overall, global pattern of which they have no concept, using only local cues and simple behavioural rules.
An important application of virtual reality environments in architecture are real-time design environments. In this article, a tool set for architectural design exploration based on swarming point clouds is presented. The toolset consists of the BehaviourLinks method to shape the point cloud, the SpaceQueries method to map the space spanned by the point cloud as a relational graph of geometric entities given by its partitioning, and the SpaceQuery method for deriving subsets of geometries from the SpaceGraph. All method can be applied simultaneously or in turn, resulting in a tool which allows for multi-directional design exploration. Ways of representation of and interaction with the complex spatial data contained within the tool set are discussed.
Though parametricism has its roots in the digital animation techniques of the mid-1990s, it has only fully emerged in recent years with the development of advanced parametric design systems. Patrik Schumacher explains why parametricism has become the dominant, single style for avant-garde practice today and why it is particularly suited to large-scale urbanism as exemplified by a series of competition-winning masterplans by Zaha Hadid Architects. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
This paper is concerned with forging new links between geography and biology and technology by delivering a set of shocks to the meaning of accepted categories like ‘nature’ and ‘technology’. To achieve these dual aims, the paper will double click on the icon ‘intelligence’. ‘Intelligence’ prioritizes the active shaping of environments. It thereby allows space for the spaces of the world to themselves become a part of intelligibility and intellect as elements of distributed cognition and, as will become clear, pre-cognition. The paper argues that such a conception of sentience can provide a series of new perspectives, as well as a pressing ethical challenge.
Cellular Robotic Systems are capable of ’intelligent* behavior. The meaning of this intelligence is analyzed in the paper.
We define robot intelligence and robot system intelligence in terms of unpredictability of improbable behavior. The concept
of unpredictability is analyzed in relation to (1) statistical unpredictability, (2) inaccessibility, (3) undecidability,
(4) intractability, and (5) non-representability. We argue that the latter two type of unpredictability, when exhibited by
systems capable of producing order, can result in a non-trivial, different form of intelligent behavior (Swarm Intelligence).
Engineering problems related to Swarm Intelligence are mentioned in relation to Cellular Robotic Systems which consist of
collections of autonomous, non-synchronized, non-intelligent robots cooperating to achieve global tasks.
This chapter introduces various construction automation concepts that have been developed over the
past few decades and presents examples of construction robots that are in current use (as of 2006) and/or in various stages
of research and development. Section47.1 presents an overview of the construction industry, which includes descriptions of the industry, the types of construction,
and the typical construction project. The industry overview also discusses the concept of automation versus robotics in construction and breaks down the concept of robotics in construction into several levels of autonomy. Section47.1 also presents traditional and advanced concepts for sensing systems in construction, which enable the use of robots and various
forms of automation. Section47.2 discusses some of the economic aspects of implementing robotics in construction, and Sect.47.3 presents examples of robots from various construction applications. Section47.4 discusses unsolved technical problems in construction robotics, which include interoperability, connection systems, tolerances,
and power and communications. Finally, Sect.47.5 discusses future directions in construction robotics and Sect.47.6 gives some conclusions and suggests resources for further reading.
We describe decentralized algorithms by which a swarm of simple, independent, autonomous robots can build two-dimensional structures using square building blocks. These structures can (1) exactly match arbitrary user-specified designs, (2) adapt their shape to immovable obstacles, or (3) form a wall of given minimum width around an environmental feature. These three possibilities span the range from entirely prespecified structures to those whose shape is entirely determined by the environment. Robots require no explicit communication, instead using information storage capabilities of environmental elements (a form of "extended stigmergy") to coordinate their activities. We provide theoretical proof of the correctness of the algorithms for the first two types of structures, and experimental support for algorithms for the third.
Collective and swarm robotics explores scenarios involving many robots running at the same time. A good platform for collective-robotic experiments should provide certain features among others: it should have a large battery life, it should be able to perceive its peers, and it should be capable of interacting with them. This paper presents the marXbot, a miniature mobile robot that addresses these needs. The marXbot uses differential-drive treels to provide rough-terrain mobility. The marXbot allows continuous experiments thanks to a sophisticated energy management and a hotswap battery exchange mechanism. The marXbot can self-assemble with peers using a compliant attachment mechanism. The marXbot provides high-quality vision, using two cameras directly interfaced with an ARM processor. Compared to the related work, the marXbot has better energy management, vision, and interaction capabilities. By allowing complex tasks in large environments for long durations, the marXbot opens new perspectives for the collective-robotic research.
Although automation has advanced in manufacturing, the growth of automation in construction has been slow. Conventional methods of manufacturing automation do not lend themselves to construction of large structures with internal features. This may explain the slow rate of growth in construction automation. Contour crafting (CC) is a recent layered fabrication technology that has a great potential in automated construction of whole structures as well as subcomponents. 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, imbedded in each house all the conduits for electrical, plumbing and air-conditioning. Our research also addresses the application of CC in building habitats on other planets. CC will most probably be one of the very few feasible approaches for building structures on other planets, such as Moon and Mars, which are being targeted for human colonization before the end of the new century.
