How Robots Can Build Large Structures with Modular Lattices

This is our video attachment for our paper at the ACM Symposium on Computational Fabrication (SCF '25). We present an automated system that voxelizes a target structure with a discrete lattice, groups voxels into hierarchical modular blocks, and uses mobile relative robots that traverse and assemble these blocks into load-bearing meter-scale structures. The workflow combines: • Voxelization and hierarchical blocking of complex geometries • Digital twin simulation for live planning, design, and coordination • Mobile modular robots for physical assembly at scale We validate this method by demonstrating the fabrication of multiple meter-scale lattice structures using autonomous robotic assembly. Our paper is titled Hierarchical Discrete Lattice Assembly: An Approach for the Digital Fabrication of Scalable Macroscale Structures and is available here: https://cba.mit.edu/docs/papers/25.11.... This work was developed at the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms by Miana Smith, Paul Richard, Alexander Htet Kyaw, and Neil Gershenfeld. #robotics #engineering #digitalfabrication #constructionautomation