The Hadrian X robot can build a complete house from standardized bricks. It works significantly faster than humans and requires only minimal personnel. In many countries, new construction projects are stalled due to a lack of available craftsmen. To address this issue, the company FBR has developed a robot that can build a complete house from standardized bricks based on a CAD file. The Hadrian X construction robot consists of a truck that transports the blocks and an extendable arm that places them on the foundation. The robot, which is about to be commercialized, is controlled via a tablet.
The standardized bricks have a size of 60 cm × 40 cm × 30 cm and weigh around 45 kg. While the robot is working, they can be positioned on pallets in the truck. Hadrian X removes the bricks from the pallets and cuts them to size if necessary. The bricks are transported within the robot arm via shuttles, and a fast-curing construction adhesive is applied, which reaches its strength after only 45 minutes. To keep the construction process as short as possible, no mortar is used. At the end of the robot arm, a gripper takes the bricks and places them at the appropriate building locations. During a test run, the Hadrian X construction robot was able to process 300 bricks in an hour. In the future, FBR expects up to 500 bricks per hour to be possible. The robot can construct buildings with up to three floors and requires no additional personnel apart from those needed for loading and operation.
FBR is currently developing a second and third model of the Hadrian X robot. The company plans to adapt the robot for different brick formats, especially for European market specifications. After these adaptations, the company plans to launch the robot in additional global markets. FBR has been developing robots since 1994 and has held the patent for a robot system that can lay bricks since 2005. In 2017, the company reached an agreement with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to build 50,000 single-family homes with the robot. The Hadrian X robot built its first house in 2019.
