Artificial intelligence meets 3D printing with spectacular results

London-based startup Ai Build has printed its 'Daedalus Pavilion', a 3D printed architectural installation built by robots. Ai Build teamed up with Arup Engineers for the project to showcase how the future of construction could be transformed by robotics and artificial intelligence.

The pavilion is 5m wide x 5m deep x 4.5m high, and consists of 48 3D printed pieces using a KUKA industrial robot. All pieces were 3D printed within three weeks, using 160kg of biodegradable filament material supplied by the Dutch manufacturer, Formfutura.

Ai Build also made use of NVIDIA GPUs for running a combination of computer vision and deep learning algorithms to increase the speed and accuracy of large scale 3D prints.

Jack Watts, NVIDIA’s deep learning start-up business manager for Northern Europe, says: “This collaboration between Ai Build and Arup is a strikingly tangible taste of how even established industries like construction will be transformed by artificial intelligence.”

Digital manufacturing is becoming increasingly common in the construction industry with Arup being an active forerunner in its development. Ai Build aims to help further transform the construction industry by using artificial intelligence and robotics, developing large scale 3D printing technology in combination with industrial robots and machine learning software to enable complex architectural forms to be quickly produced and at low cost.

Ai Build’s on-demand manufacturing service enables architects and engineers to design increasingly unique buildings, and contractors to speed up production, while reducing both costs and waste material.