Construction Drones - Greatly Accelerating And Reducing The Cost Of Infrastructure 

Summary:

The U.S. is falling substantially behind in the capacity to scale infrastructure, and this is becoming existential. It desperately needs to almost fully automate construction using AI enabled robotic systems that leap frog over existing solutions, including those entailing partial automation. U.S. average labor costs are ~5x what they are in many other countries which necessitates that U.S. laborers must be ~5x more productive in order to be internationally competitive. For example, AI dominance necessitates massively scaling energy production. The U.S. needs to install hundreds and potentially thousands of gigawatts of solar, the lowest cost source of energy, in the next few years, and it does not currently have a reasonable cost competitive pathway to doing so. In 2024 the U.S. installed around 50GW of solar while China installed around 277GW of solar. The U.S. needs to quickly catch up, but this also applies to the construction of manufacturing plants, houses, commercial and industrial buildings, data centers, industrial processes, civil works, and so forth. Construction is a ~$15 trillion dollar a year market.

Six axis construction drones can surpass humanoid robots on most performance metrics. Notably they are much faster, lower cost, well suited to outdoor operation, and terrain and reach independent. They include automatic charging or battery swapping and automatic tool and robotic arm changing. They can operate directly at height without scaffolding or a crane and can install solar farms very rapidly without ground preparation. They can be small and large and they are able to operate in swarms. Heavy lift drones might carry payloads of ten metric tons or more. Construction drones enable us to dramatically accelerate and lower the cost of infrastructure, including manufacturing, energy, and materials production, increasing self sufficiency and enabling the U.S. to catch up. We are seeking first adopters, open technology licensing, and supporting advisory roles. 

Concept:

The general concept and capabilities of six axis drones is described in more detail here. Simply put, construction drones are high performance and high flight precision six axis drones with automatic tool and robotic arm changing that can rapidly construct buildings, factories, energy systems, and so forth, at large scale and low-cost. 

Construction and manufacturing:

Construction drones might be expected to be very similar to manufacturing drones, including automatic tool and robotic arm changing, but be designed for outdoor use. Together construction drones and manufacturing drones can enable a dramatic reduction in manufacturing cost and a much faster scaling up of manufacturing capacity. Specifically, construction drones enable the rapid construction of new factories and the rapid adaption of existing factories to new product lines. Removing and installing manufacturing machinery, renovating spaces, reconfiguring utilities, and so forth. This also results in a virtuous loop, as increased and improved manufacturing capacity results in the faster scaling of manufacturing and construction drones, which results in yet greater manufacturing capacity. It is important to first focus on manufacturing as this enables the increased production of six axis drones, associated tools and robotic arms, and the low-cost energy systems to power them. We need to automate the process of automating, and this also provides a first market by which to refine and prepare six axis drones for rapid scaling in the larger world. 

Another realm in which manufacturing and construction drones might work together is prefabricated or manufactured construction. Where construction sub-assemblies might be manufactured in a factory using manufacturing drones and then flown to the construction site and installed via construction drone. Noting that heavy lift six axis drone payloads can potentially scale into the tens of metric tons and with tethered and/or swarm approaches very large payloads in the hundreds of metric tons might be possible. Air delivery also avoids the road transport size limits, for example, very large wind turbine blades could be manufactured, transported, and installed in this manner, without trucks or cranes. This would enable much larger land based wind turbines that could potentially be installed in hours at much lower cost. More typically this process might be used for housing, commercial buildings, industrial plants, solar farms, electricity transmission systems, and so forth. Ideally this could be developed to a level, perhaps with some modularity, where entire houses could be manufactured in a factory, using manufacturing drones and other automated systems, and transported directly to site and installed on a prepared helical screw pile foundation, perhaps of a standardized form. This would dramatically reduce the cost of housing, avoid a lot of permitting, and enable houses to be installed in hours. Houses could be regularly updated and changed to meet changing needs, like appliances or cars are, and houses would no longer be tied permanently to a given piece of land. This would enable an open market in used houses and also the easier recycling of old houses. Perhaps more notably, it could greatly accelerate the deployment of utility independent housing that also has much lower operating costs and is more resilient. Combining construction and manufacturing drones enables a future where the built environment can be continually upgraded and adapted to changing needs in a low-cost and automated fashion.     

Buildings:

It will take time to develop all of the tools and AI systems needed to fully automate building construction but once that process begins capabilities will evolve rapidly. Earth moving drones might first be used to prepare a site. This might be unintuitive, but drones, which can have cargo transport costs less than trucks, can potentially be more cost effective for moving earth than traditional earth moving machinery. Construction drones might then be used to build reinforced concrete foundations. Interestingly, it might be possible to use construction drones in a concrete 3D printing manner that avoids the need for formwork (boxing). Construction drone variants might also be used to install piles and ground screw anchors, which can bypass the need for concrete foundations in some cases and significantly speed up construction. For example, heavy lift construction drones can fly a large ground screw to the desired location and then screw it deep into the ground by using the equivalent of a large wrench and flying around in circles (or hold station and use a high torque motor), applying downforce and verifying installation torque in the process.  

Ideally houses and buildings will be rapidly assembled by construction drone using large manufactured/prefabricated modules, however more direct onsite construction is possible. This might be critical in the case of renovating older structures including many houses and buildings. Potentially manufacturing drones could be used for inside detailed work in smaller confined spaces and construction drones might be used for working on the building envelope, including roofs and external walls and windows. Construction drones might also be used to build the frame of a house or building. Construction drones are well suited to building tall buildings, including factories, commercial and industrial buildings, apartment buildings, data centers, and skyscrapers.  

Construction drones would be particularly enabling for retrofitting solar cladding to existing buildings. Solar cladding systems enable almost the entire building envelope to be covered in solar modules and can scale to provide the majority of global energy needs at very low-cost with minimal additional disruption to the environment. Indeed construction drones might be primarily powered by solar cladding systems as this would likely be the lowest cost energy that is directly available. Solar cladding is generally colocated with energy use, bypassing grid distribution costs, and given that solar modules are comparable in cost to building cladding materials the added cost is low, <$0.02/kWh appears possible direct to the customer. 

Construction drones enable a dramatic reduction in the cost of buildings and a dramatic increase in the speed at which buildings can be constructed. In China, a fifty seven story building was built in nineteen days, construction drones can surpass this at much lower cost. Construction drones can enable affordable buildings for all, bringing in an age of construction abundance. In not being limited by height and reach, drone construction can also better exploit the third dimension, mitigating sprawl, so that construction abundance does not come at the expense of nature.      

Energy:

One of the first markets for construction drones, and where they can have a big and immediate impact, is in the automated installation of large solar farms. Electricity prices as low as $0.01/kWh should be possible at the solar farm. This can directly address the almost insatiable energy needs of AI data centers, and greatly increase the physical scaling rate of AI. Super intelligence AI might end up consuming 99% of the world’s energy. Ideally this would be combined with manufacturing drones to increase the production and reduce the cost of solar modules and other solar farm infrastructure, with solar modules likely being manufactured and fabricated into arrays in a factory environment, which may or may not be onsite, and directly transported and installed onsite. As previously mentioned, helical ground screw anchors can be directly installed by construction drones, with a simple interface for solar arrays, and an advantage of this is that site preparation can largely be avoided. There is no need to grade the field or put in roads, which can be expensive and environmentally disruptive, perhaps incurring permitting costs. Six axis natural habitat management drones can be used to control plants, and this can even become an additional revenue source via farming or biomass harvesting. 

Construction drones might also be used to build an electrical distribution and grid connection system, although in some scenarios this may not even be desired. Data centers and other high energy users should ideally be colocated with solar farms as this greatly reduces electricity prices, and this is already starting to happen. Currently the U.S. electricity grid adds around an extra ~$0.08/kWh to the price of electricity on average - less for industrial users. Drones with any significant range might ideally recharge directly from solar farms. This dramatically lowers costs and required infrastructure, it also avoids the transformers need to increase voltage for transmission and bring it back down again, along with all the associated losses of power transmission and lack of resilience to natural disasters. In many cases it may actually be preferable to use battery delivery drones rather than electricity grid transmission. Over shorter distances, up to ten miles or so, this can be less expensive, but perhaps more significantly, it is highly adaptable and almost immediate, enabling rapid scaling. It can avoid grid connection delays which can take years. 

Construction drones enable large solar farms to cost as little as $0.01/kWh and be installed in days. They can also start generating revenue almost immediately, even before the solar farm is finished. Modular solar arrays being used to charge drones as soon as they are installed, some of which might be battery delivery drones that transfer energy to customers in the surrounding area.   

Industrial construction:

Construction drones, which can utilize a wide range of tools including cutting, welding, and grinding tools, enable the direct automated construction of large industrial objects. This can include roads, tunnels, bridges, railways, ships, wind turbines, and large industrial chemical and processing plants. Heavy lift construction drones can transport large objects into place while smaller construction drones might attach them. Noting that small construction drones will be adept with standard power tools, hand tools, fasteners, and so forth. With the cost of large scale construction dramatically reduced and the speed of large scale construction dramatically increased, the world will be a very different place. Humanity will be able to be far more ambitious and the economic and societal benefits will be substantial.   

Next steps:

This technology will scale incredibly rapidly, disrupting and automating existing construction practices, especially with respect to the scaling up of manufacturing capacity, renewable energy for powering AI, and data centers. Which might be initial markets where it has a big and immediate impact. This also suggests some degree of vertical integration with construction drones building factories, data centers, and energy production systems which in turn manufacture construction drones, develop the AI control systems, and provide the energy to power them. This will move as fast if not faster than AI - it is how we can rapidly scale AI. We are seeking first adopters, open technology licensing, and supporting advisory roles.