Expansion of the Earth Construction Lab (ECL)

Project summary

The Institute of Structural Design (ITE) at the Technical University of Braunschweig has been conducting systematic research on the digital fabrication of earthen structures since 2016. At the heart of these fundamentally new fabrication methods are the robot-assisted, automated processing of locally available materials and the intelligent, digitally controlled collaboration between humans and machines.

The all-new “Earth Construction Lab” (ECL) is currently being established at the Technical University of Braunschweig. Here, technologies already developed in the laboratory will be further refined for use in an operational environment. (TRL 6-7).

The focus here is on increasing cost-effectiveness and quality through robotic manufacturing processes, as well as on exploring new areas of application such as multi-story residential construction (RRE) and the raising of existing dike structures (SEAM).

While the robotic manufacturing processes for assembling components are automated with high quality and repeatability, the preceding processes of material mixing and conveying are still carried out manually, with the associated process uncertainties.

The goal is to expand the existing robotic manufacturing environment for earthen construction to include a research infrastructure for the digital control of material mixing and feeding.

The infrastructure expansion specifically includes:

• the mechanical processing and mixing of local clay material,
• the transport of material from the mixing station to the robotic end effector,
• the overarching digital process control of material mixing and feeding, and
• the digital integration of the process steps into a holistic digital workflow