Overview
I was the lead on this project (Modular Inchworm Lattice Assembler robot aka MILAbot) and developed the hardware systems. This project explores a new approach to building large-scale structures with simple robots and interlocking lattice blocks. By voxelizing a design and using digital fabrication to create modular building blocks, we can scale up from small, intricate geometries to meter-sized structures. These blocks are assembled by mobile robots that can navigate the site and place new pieces in real time. We've developed a digital twin tool to control and coordinate the robots, enabling both global planning and real-time interaction with the structure. The system also features a modular robot designed for efficient assembly. Our method demonstrates how digital fabrication and robotics can come together to make large-scale construction faster, more flexible, and cost-effective. This work was presented at the ACM Symposium on Computational Fabrication. Our paper is available here: Hierarchical Discrete Lattice Assembly: An Approach for the Digital Fabrication of Scalable Macroscale Structures