Computational Design of Robotically Assembled Spatial Structures: A sequence based method for the generation and evaluation of structures fabricated with cooperating robots

Abstract

Cooperative robotic fabrication enables the development of new types of spatial structures, provided that assembly sequence and robot path-planning is considered in the design process early on. This paper presents a design strategy for a lightweight steel structure assembled by two robots. The developed structure describes a novel typology of spatial structures and consists of steel tubes that form spatial configurations through their three-dimensional aggregation. The bars are joined notch-free through welding and without additional connecting elements. Besides fabrication-driven constraints, the design process is informed by functional, geometric and structural parameters. The paper presents the development of a novel connection system and the resulting dependencies for the geometric and structural system, as well as a four-step computational design method that allows to explore a large area of the design space of such structures. Optimisation methods are employed to solve the complex dependencies of the presented structures and find a valid design.