Automated%20Construction%20by%20Contour%20Crafting%20Berok%20Khoshnevis%20University%20of%20Southern%20California

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Automated Construction by Contour
CraftingBerok KhoshnevisUniversity of Southern
California
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Fabrication Processes

• Subtractive (milling, turning, chiseling,
  sawing,..)
• Formative (pressing, forging, bending,..)
• Additive
• Casting (requiring mold)
• Traditional Layered Fabrication in manual
  construction
• Modern Layered Fabrication (SFF or RP)
  Technologies

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Commercialized RP Technologies
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SIS Selective Inhibition Sintering
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What is Contour Crafting?
CC is a layered fabrication method which combines
ancient surface forming concepts with modern
robotics technology
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A Scalable Process Ideal for Large Objects
Layer Height Several Centimeters Surface
Quality About 2 microns
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A CC machine for thermoplastics
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Nozzle Assemblies
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Plastic Parts
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CC Machine for Ceramics
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Process Machine Design Research
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Movable Side Trowel
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Building Various Surface Slopes
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2.5D and 3D Objects
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Slant Wall Fabrication
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Application in Construction
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Why automate construction?

• Labor efficiency is alarmingly low
• Skilled workforce is vanishing
• Work quality is low
• Control of the construction site is insufficient
  and difficult
• Accident rate at construction sites is high (gt
  400,000 / year in US)
• Waste and trims are high (3 To 7 tons per average
  home 40 of all materials used worldwide are
  for construction)
• Low income housing and emergency shelters are
  critical
• Construction is the largest sector of almost all
  economies
• All other products are fabricated automatically
  construction is still largely a manual task

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What constitutes construction cost?
Portion Due to If Automated by CC
20-25 Financing Short project length and control of time to market will dramatically reduce this cost
25-30 Materials Will be a wasteless process
45-55 Labor Will be significantly reduced
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Concrete filling
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Insulation
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Construction by Contour CraftingCCC
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Cavities made with CC and filled with concrete
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Creating hollow depositions
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Embedding Reinforcement
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A straight wall builder
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Full scale wall sections
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Conventional Structure Construction
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Adobe structures Ageless comfort and beauty
House of Brojerdi Kashan
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Interior of an Adobe house CalEarth Design
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House made with vaults and domes
Interior of an Adobe house CalEarth Design
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Ingenious methods
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Supportless structures created by CC
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Adobe house Construction
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CRAFT Center for Rapid Automated Fabrication
Technologies

• University of Southern California
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Purdue University
• California State University, Los Angeles

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Grand Challenge

• The grand challenge for CRAFT is building a
  custom-designed house in a day while radically
  reducing the costs, injuries, waste and
  environmental impact associated with traditional
  construction techniques. The goal is a revolution
  in housing construction, whether it be to
  provide
• affordable housing for the 30 million U.S.
  households facing cost burdens or overcrowding
• emergency housing for victims of natural (and/or
  man-made) disasters
• extraterrestrial buildings constructed from in
  situ materials
• new styles of housing based on curved rather than
  straight surfaces or
• inexpensive first ownership housing for an
  emerging middle class in the developing world
• With national construction-related expenditures
  currently totaling close to 1 trillion annually,
  the potential impact is enormous.

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Vision and Goals
More broadly the vision is to develop the science
and engineering needed for rapid automated
fabrication of structures of various scales, up
to large objects such as buildings. To achieve
this, CRAFT will develop a unique academic
environment blending fundamental research with
the development of large-scale engineered
systems engineering with computer science and
architecture, and environmental, regulatory,
labor and economic expertise partnerships with
industry and educational and outreach programs.
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Grand Challenge a house in a day
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Development Phases
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Extraterrestrial Construction
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Deployable CC
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Lunar Construction
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Free-standing Objects / Industrial parts
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Interrelationships among the three research
thrusts
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Extrudable materials fabrication

• Perform underlying basic research necessary to
  develop the materials and structures for
  automated mega-scale fabrication
• Integrate materials into ultra-efficient
  structures
• Integrate materials with delivery systems and
  robots from other thrusts

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Materials to Structures
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Co-extrusion of outer and filler materials A
6DOF Nozzle Assembly
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Faculty
Steve Nutt Materials Science USC
Mike Kassner Aerospace and Mechanical USC
Julian Domaradzki Aerospace and Mechanical USC
Henryk Flashner Aerospace and Mechanical USC
Yan Xiao Civil and Environmental USC
Behrokh Khoshnevis Industrial and Systems USC
George Bekey Computer Science USC
Peter Will ISI USC
Neil Gershenfeld Media Arts and Sciences MIT
Larry Sass Architecture MIT
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Robotics fab, modular components assembly

• Perform research and develop various mono and
  distributed robots, tools, software and their
  integration into systems for assembling modules
  in situ to form functional attributes of
  structures
• Robots locations, movements and working areas
  are dynamically changing along with environment.
  Develop a mathematical / geometric model of
  environment and a robot coordination protocol.
• Perform the fundamental research in the modules
  to be placed internal to the extruded material
  that transform an extrusion into a functional
  wall or roof of a mega-scale structure. The
  modules that make a post-modern interactive
  structure include
• normal reinforcing, plumbing, and electricity
  conduits
• Integrated communication, interactive sensing and
  displays
• Integrate the Modules and Assembly Thrust with
  Extruded Materials and Software

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Modules and Assemblies
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Automated Painting
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Dynamic Control
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Faculty
George Bekey Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering USC
Peter Will ISI, Industrial and Systems Engineering, Materials Science, Astronautics USC
Phillip Dunston Civil Engineering Purdue
Henryk Flashner Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering USC
Neil Gershenfeld Center for Bits and Atoms MIT
Sami Masri Civil Engineering USC
Maja Mataric Computer Science USC
Gerard Medioni Computer Science USC
Shimon Nof Industrial Science Purdue
Miroslaw Skibniewski Civil engineering Purdue
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Goals

• Perform the fundamental research and develop the
  software components for automating mega-scale
  fabrication
• Integrate components with each other and with
  robots from other thrusts

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Faculty
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Four Classes of Software
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Industrial Sectors

• Materials
• Construction
• Equipment
• Software
• Architects
• Real Estate
• Other application sectors

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Industrial Membership

• Industrial membership 3 tiers
• Senior Member - 100,000
• Regular Member - 20,000 to 50,000
• Technology Associate small business
• Benefits to Industry
• Seat on CRAFT ERC industrial advisory board
  Senior Member
• Licensing (Senior Member exclusive)
• Focused research projects
• Access to cutting edge research
• Access to center facilities and expertise for RD
  projects
• Contact with graduate students
• Industry-University exchange program
• SBIR and STTR partnerships
• Industry-University Company Day Senior Member

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Expressions of Support

• Materials
• Degussa Corporation (committed)
• Maxit Group (committed)
• CEMEX
• Elotex
• ECRA (European Cement Research Academy)
• VDZ (German Concrete Research Academy)
• Equipment
• Siemens
• John Deere
• Parker-Hannifan

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Expressions of Support

• Construction
• Shea Homes
• Parsons
• Shimizu
• Bechtel
• Boeing (space)
• Government
• NASA (committed)
• U.S. Army

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Expressions of Support

• Architects
• GL Forms (Greg Lynn)
• Gehry Technologies
• Cal-Earth
• Real Estate
• ConAm (builds low income housing in Mexico)
• Regency Outdoor Advertising

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Management Plan
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• Thank you
• please visit
• www.contourcrafting.org