Aerial additive manufacturing: Toward on-site building construction with aerial robots

Yusuf Furkan Kaya; Lachlan Orr; Basaran bahadir Kocer; Vijay Pawar; Robert Stuart-Smith; Mirko Kovač

doi:10.1126/scirobotics.ado6251

Aerial additive manufacturing: Toward on-site building construction with aerial robots

Yusuf Furkan Kaya, Lachlan Orr, Basaran bahadir Kocer, Vijay Pawar, Robert Stuart-Smith, Mirko Kovač

School of Civil, Aerospace and Design Engineering

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review

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Abstract

Recent advancements in large-scale additive manufacturing have extended its application in the building industry, delivering notable gains in productivity, efficiency, environmental sustainability, and safety compared with traditional construction methods. Aerial additive manufacturing (aerial AM), which uses aerial robots for unbounded construction tasks, offers distinct advantages, such as scalability at height, enhanced access to remote or challenging locations, and rapid on-demand repair capabilities. Despite several small-scale demonstrations, deploying aerial robots in construction still presents critical challenges and unresolved scientific questions. This Review provides a comprehensive analysis of current aerial AM research, highlights key opportunities and challenges at large scales, and introduces an autonomy framework aimed at clarifying the overarching challenges inherent in the technology.

Original language	English
Article number	eado6251
Number of pages	13
Journal	Science Robotics
Volume	10
Issue number	101
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1126/scirobotics.ado6251
Publication status	Published - 23 Apr 2025

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Copyright © 2025 The Authors, some rights reserved.

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10.1126/scirobotics.ado6251

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This is the accepted author manuscript (AAM) of the article which has been made Open Access under the University of Bristol's Scholarly Works Policy. The final published version (Version of Record) can be found on the publisher's website. The copyright of any third-party content, such as images, remains with the copyright holder.
Accepted author manuscript, 31.5 MBLicence: CC BY

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title = "Aerial additive manufacturing: Toward on-site building construction with aerial robots",

abstract = "Recent advancements in large-scale additive manufacturing have extended its application in the building industry, delivering notable gains in productivity, efficiency, environmental sustainability, and safety compared with traditional construction methods. Aerial additive manufacturing (aerial AM), which uses aerial robots for unbounded construction tasks, offers distinct advantages, such as scalability at height, enhanced access to remote or challenging locations, and rapid on-demand repair capabilities. Despite several small-scale demonstrations, deploying aerial robots in construction still presents critical challenges and unresolved scientific questions. This Review provides a comprehensive analysis of current aerial AM research, highlights key opportunities and challenges at large scales, and introduces an autonomy framework aimed at clarifying the overarching challenges inherent in the technology.",

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AU - Kocer, Basaran bahadir

AU - Pawar, Vijay

AU - Stuart-Smith, Robert

AU - Kovač, Mirko

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AB - Recent advancements in large-scale additive manufacturing have extended its application in the building industry, delivering notable gains in productivity, efficiency, environmental sustainability, and safety compared with traditional construction methods. Aerial additive manufacturing (aerial AM), which uses aerial robots for unbounded construction tasks, offers distinct advantages, such as scalability at height, enhanced access to remote or challenging locations, and rapid on-demand repair capabilities. Despite several small-scale demonstrations, deploying aerial robots in construction still presents critical challenges and unresolved scientific questions. This Review provides a comprehensive analysis of current aerial AM research, highlights key opportunities and challenges at large scales, and introduces an autonomy framework aimed at clarifying the overarching challenges inherent in the technology.

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DO - 10.1126/scirobotics.ado6251

M3 - Article (Academic Journal)

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JO - Science Robotics

JF - Science Robotics

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ER -

Aerial additive manufacturing: Toward on-site building construction with aerial robots

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