According to Australian company Fastbrick Robotics, their innovative construction robot is capable of building a brick house in just 48 hours.
Consisting of a 30-metre-long three-axis robotic arm mounted on the roof of a truck, the Hadrian X is promising to be the automated future of the bricklaying industry.
After pulling up on-site, workers load the truck with pallets of bricks. The blocks are then transported along the robot’s telescopic arm to its claw-like head and placed with robotic precision.
As the bricks fall into place, the robot also applies a special adhesive, which the company claims is “twice as strong as traditional mortar”. In just 45 minutes, these blocks are secured and completely dry.
According to the company, the Hadrian X can handle up to 300 bricks per hour, meaning it only needs a day to erect the walls of an average-sized house – a job that would take most brickies a week and a whole lot of backbreaking labour.
And there’s potential for the robot to become even faster, with Fastbrick Robotics claiming the robots next generation will be able to handle 500 bricks weighing 45 kg each per hour.
The future is (almost) here
While the automated sci-fi tradie looks promising, the Hadrian X isn’t perfect. Like any other machine, it’s built to play indoors and can easily be damaged by Australia’s wet and wild weather conditions on the job.
But this is a problem the team at Fastbrick are hard at work overcoming. According to the company’s researchers, their goal is to have future models be able to build external and internal walls in just one day and mount walls up to 3 stories high in rain, hail or shine.
The Hadrian X has already been hard at work building townhouses in its first-ever outdoor test in Willagee, Western Australia. Working with prominent builder Inspired Homes, the robot constructed 16 townhouses and laid a total of 117,556 blocks.
While the builds revealed some imperfections in brick placement, the robot’s maiden voyage was deemed an overwhelming success and only produced less than 1 per cent of total waste per build.
FBR is already in the process of constructing a second and third robot, with the initial units setting sail to undergo their initial site testing with building material company CRH on projects in the USA.
Eduardo Gomez, head of CRH Ventures, said the collaboration presented an opportunity to innovate the industry.
“By leveraging FBR’s cutting-edge robotics and CRH’s position as the leading building materials supplier in the US, we aim to reinvent the way our world is built by redefining how homes are built, contributing to a more efficient and sustainable future.”
Mike Pivac, FBR’s managing director and chief executive, said they were eager to show the world what their technology could do.
“The agreements with CRH Ventures mark a significant milestone in FBR’s journey,” he said.
“We are eager to enter the US market with the support of one of the largest concrete block manufacturers, showcasing our technology’s capabilities and commencing our scaling plan.”
