TECHNOLOGY
W
hether you believe in a utopian future of robots and
man working side-by-side in harmony, or envision a
more Matrix-style future controlled by robot over-
lords, one thing we cannot deny is that the future is getting
closer every day. Rapid technological advancement is already
having a significant impact on the mining and construction
industries, with the fields of artificial intelligence (AI), machine
learning, and augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR) being
of particular note. However, another area that is receiving less
attention at the moment, primarily because it is still in the
research phase and not yet ready to deploy on the ground, is
the field of robotics.
There are already robots working in factories, of course.
But these new robots are of a more interactive type than those
which can be programmed to carry out a single repetitive task at
high speed and with precision.
Then there are machines such as the one-armed bricklaying
robot from Australian company Fastbrick Robotics. The
USD2-million Hadrian X requires minimal human interaction
and works day and night, laying up to 1 000 bricks an hour.
The company’s first construction robot, the Hadrian 105,
successfully completed the first block printed structure from a
mobile base 20 meters away in 2015.
FEBRUARY 2018
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