Human–robot collaboration: a fabrication framework for the sequential design and construction of unplanned spatial structures

Robots in traditional fabrication applications act as passive participants in the process of creation—simply performing a set of predetermined actions to materialize a completed design. We propose a novel bottom-up design framework in which robots are instead given the opportunity to participate centrally within a creative design process. This paper describes how two 6-axis industrial robotic arms were used to cooperatively aggregate a collection of solid spherical units. The branching spatial structure being constructed is unplanned at the outset of this process, and is instead designed in pseudo-realtime during construction. This ‘design-as-you-build’ approach relies on robotic input, in the form of path-planning constraints, in tandem with human evaluation and decision-making. The resulting structure emerges from a human–robot design collaboration operating within the specified physical domain.