Autonomous excavator constructs a six-metre-high dry-stone wall
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Re: Autonomous excavator constructs a six-metre-high dry-stone wall
#2Re: Autonomous excavator constructs a six-metre-high dry-stone wall
#3Considering it scans all the rocks, you'd think it would be able to fit the rocks together better. I don't expect a Incan wall, but I think it would be able to construct a tighter fitting wall if it were programmed to care.
Re: Autonomous excavator constructs a six-metre-high dry-stone wall
#4I was once on a mountain top composed almost entirely of rocks like these. I'd like to give a sand castle artist this excavator and ask them to turn it into a fairy tale.
Re: Autonomous excavator constructs a six-metre-high dry-stone wall
#5I was once on a mountain top composed almost entirely of rocks like these. I'd like to give a sand castle artist this excavator and ask them to turn it into a fairy tale.
Anyone under the age of 20 is a Minecraft artist already
Re: Autonomous excavator constructs a six-metre-high dry-stone wall
#6Considering it scans all the rocks, you'd think it would be able to fit the rocks together better. I don't expect a Incan wall, but I think it would be able to construct a tighter fitting wall if it were programmed to care.
It could perhaps if it had all rocks available up front to scan and plan the entire wall with. But it retrieves one rock at a time and can only place on the top row somewhere. Given the geometries are random I wouldn’t expect it to reliably have tight fits given how it’s sampling and placing.
Re: Autonomous excavator constructs a six-metre-high dry-stone wall
#7Considering it scans all the rocks, you'd think it would be able to fit the rocks together better. I don't expect a Incan wall, but I think it would be able to construct a tighter fitting wall if it were programmed to care.
It could perhaps if it had all rocks available up front to scan and plan the entire wall with. But it retrieves one rock at a time and can only place on the top row somewhere. Given the geometries are random I wouldn’t expect it to reliably have tight fits given how it’s sampling and placing.
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Re: Autonomous excavator constructs a six-metre-high dry-stone wall
#8This seems like game changing technology. There are a heap of such walls around here, some built long ago by Dalmation immigrants (and some allegedly by German POWs). It's quite labour intensive and highly skilled to create them.
We have some on our property, used to retain the hillside after land slips. They were built with an excavator by a gnarly old guy who was unbelievably skilled.
One thing I wonder is whether these are safe. These things terrify the shit out of me, as one toppling rock of that size could instantly kill a child.
Walls built by human operators of sufficient skill are safe (I know, I went around and tried to wobble every single rock to make sure). But are these built to the same level?
Re: Autonomous excavator constructs a six-metre-high dry-stone wall
#9This seems like game changing technology. There are a heap of such walls around here, some built long ago by Dalmation immigrants (and some allegedly by German POWs). It's quite labour intensive and highly skilled to create them. We have some on our property, used to retain the hillside after land slips. They were built with an excavator by a gnarly old guy who was unbelievably skilled. One thing I wonder is whether…
You could potentially shotcrete (spray it with concrete to reinforce) the wall after the robotic excavator is done if you’re concerned about stability. I can’t speak to whether you can highly automate this as well, but it seems possible with current state robotics with human operators.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shotcrete
https://www.geostabilization.com/technology/shotcrete-robot/
https://dawinvehicles.en.made-in-china.com/product/jBMnaOKdL...
Re: Autonomous excavator constructs a six-metre-high dry-stone wall
#10Considering it scans all the rocks, you'd think it would be able to fit the rocks together better. I don't expect a Incan wall, but I think it would be able to construct a tighter fitting wall if it were programmed to care.
An Incan wall is much "easier" (airqoted qualifier).
There's much effort required to square up stone and shape faces, a lot of drilling, wedges, and precision chisel finishing.
However, once it comes to the stacking it's been reduced to a bricklaying exercise (already solved for robots and posted to HN).
Traditional drywall evolved from field clearing, stacking rocks to get them out of the way and to reduce wind across exposed otherwise rocky potential fields.
Stacking and balancing "as they come" or with relative minimal look ahead | reshuffle queuing is a tougher proposition; this is impressive work.