In situ robotic construction is a type of construction where mobile robotic systems build directly on the building site. To enable on-site navigation, industrial robots can be integrated with mobile bases, while mobile, high-payload construction machines can be adapted for autonomous operation. With parallel advances in sensor processing, these robotic construction processes can become robust and capable of handling non-standard, local, as-found materials.

The potential of using autonomous, mobile robotic systems for the development of innovative circular construction processes is presented in three exemplary case studies:(i) robotically jammed structures from bulk materials, (ii) robotic earthworks with local and upcycled materials, and (iii) robotic additive manufacturing with earth-based materials. These processes exemplify key strategies for a circular industry through the utilisation of materials with low embodied greenhouse gas emissions and the implementation of fully reversible construction processes.

For each case study, we describe the robotic building process, the enabling technologies and workflows, and the major sustainability and circularity benefits compared to conventional construction methods. Moreover, we discuss the difficulty of industry transfer, considering challenges such as detailing, integration, and engineering validation. We conclude with an outlook towards future research avenues and industry adoption strategies.

Landscape erosion processes can be problematic and are universal in their effect on all forms of landscape contexts and conditions. Hydrological erosion processes are important features of ecologies, yet are often extremely problematic, and can be exacerbated by climate extremes, weather events, animal and human activities, and especially transformations through agricultural processes. This research documents and proposes computational design tools and methods for erosion simulation in realworld scenarios. While there are many examples of soil erosion modelling in the life sciences and engineering fields, they are rarely applied at the detailed scale of the landscape-, architecture-and design disciplines. The work attempts to leverage erosion processes for design by creating new workflows inside familiar design and modelling programs. Applications may vary between agricultural land and areas of accelerated climate change, however, the test case for this application is in a fire-affected landscape particularly prone to erosion. This research seeks to unite site investigation and survey techniques with interactive erosion modelling within AEC design software. By introducing intuitive ways to model erosion processes mitigation becomes possible within the landscape analysis and design process, creating opportunities to avoid erosion before it occurs.

Automated building processes that enable efficient in situ resource utilization can facilitate construction in remote locations while simultaneously offering a carbon-reducing alternative to commonplace building practices. Toward these ends, we present a robotic construction pipeline that is capable of planning and building freeform stone walls and landscapes from highly heterogeneous local materials using a robotic excavator equipped with a shovel and gripper. Our system learns from real and simulated data to facilitate the online detection and segmentation of stone instances in spatial maps, enabling robotic grasping and textured 3D scanning of individual stones and rubble elements. Given a limited inventory of these digitized stones, our geometric planning algorithm uses a combination of constrained registration and signed-distance-field classification to determine how these should be positioned toward the formation of stable and explicitly shaped structures. We present a holistic approach for the robotic manipulation of complex objects toward dry stone construction and use the same hardware and mapping to facilitate autonomous terrain-shaping on a single construction site. Our process is demonstrated with the construction of a freestanding stone wall (10 meters by 1.7 meters by 4 meters) and a permanent retaining wall (65.5 meters by 1.8 meters by 6 meters) that is integrated with robotically contoured terraces (665 square meters). The work illustrates the potential of autonomous heavy construction vehicles to build adaptively with highly irregular, abundant, and sustainable materials that require little to no transportation and preprocessing.