Automation & Robotics Research

Long perceived as a technological hold-out, the construction industry is making a turn in its trajectory. We need to create a sustainable built environment for growing populations, while simultaneously facing a shortage of skilled craft workers and increasingly constrained resources. These types of challenges require transformational-thinking from us as researchers—and from those we prepare to serve as our next generation of researchers and innovators.

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Smart Building Skins

Engineering Smart Building Skins for Cleaner, Greener Architecture

Funded by the National Science Foundation EAGER # 1548243 CMMI (SAE)

PIs: Zofia Rybkowski (lead), Ergun Akleman, Tahir Cagan, Terry Creasy, and Negar Kalantar

Engineering Smart Building Skins for Cleaner, Greener Architecture-Science Nation (NSF)

Smart materials research by PhD candidate, Maryam Mansoori. Maryam impregnated kerfed wood with a smart material she developed to provide the structure for a self-mobile building skin that can open and close when exposed to heat.

Sustainable Large-Scale

3D Printing

Utilization and Reconfiguration of Soils into Construction Materials for the Additive Manufacturing of Buildings

Funded by the X-GRANT President’s Excellence Fund Initiative

PIs: Zofia Rybkowski (lead), Sarbajit Banerjee, Bjorn Birgisson , Manish Dixit, Negar Kalantar, Arthur P. Schwab

CIR Ongoing Research at the AIMM Lab

Research (above) by PhD candidate, Mehdi Farahbakhsh using a six-access robot to manipulate geometries to enhance lateral strength of large scale 3D-printing of low CO2 emitting materials.

Building with Robotics

Self-Standing Modular Interlocking Vault Structures

Funded by the Department of Construction Science, Texas A&M University

Experimental robotic team project at the Autodesk Build Space in Boston

Above (Left to right): Neeraj Yadav, Amir Behzadan, Julian Kang, William Palmer, Zofia Rybkowski, Negar Kalantar, Alireza Borhani

Learn More About Our Lab

Our AIMM lab at the Center for Infrastructure Renewal includes an ABB 6-Axis robot and features some of the work of our architectural collaborators, Dr. Negar Kalantar.

Visit AIMM lab for the virtual 360 tour