Go to conquer the moon or Mars with hostile living conditions for the human body should be fully armed. Specialists around the world are already looking at the construction 3D printers who can compensate for the “boxes” of a variety of configurations for offices or housing. Researchers of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) also decided to contribute and developed a robot builder. The Digital Construction Platform (DCP) system is able to build a two -layer dome structure with a diameter of 15 meters in a state of 14 hours and 3 hours.66 meters from insulating foam. Subsequently, to ensure resistance, the space between the layers can be filled with cement or other material.
The Digital Construction Platform (DCP) robot is equipped with a caterpillar move and a huge robotic manipulator that extends at the right distance and is able to lift severity. The presented model works on batteries and weighs 3.7 tons. According to the project manager Stephen Kiss, the team plans to make a 3D printer as autonomous as possible so that it can independently receive energy from the solar panels, prepare the site for the constructed object and, if necessary, use materials available “at hand”, for example, ice or soil. This, according to the developers, will be cheap and fast, but about the safety of the materials used, experts apparently forget. However, the car has already become interested in Google and NASA. The cost of the demonstrated model is estimated at a quarter of a million dollars. It is assumed that the dwellings built by the 3D printer can be useful on Earth. For example, in Antarctica or in the zones where an earthquake occurred.
Source: MIT