A new automated, truck-mounted robot can build a house in two days, moving four times faster than human construction workers. Hadrian X by the Australian company Fastbrick Robotics Limited can reportedly lay as many as 1,000 bricks per hour and, because robots don’t need lunch breaks, Hadrian X can work around the clock. The company’s impressive prototype demonstrated its abilities on a small-scale build inside a warehouse, which you can see in a time-lapse video after the jump.

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Hadrian X is the truck-mounted robot with a 98-foot retractable arm that can do everything human brick-layers can do, but faster and for much longer periods of time. The machine is quite large, but gains easy access to any construction site since it can simply be driven up and parked where it is needed. The robot can cut, grind, mill, and route bricks prior to laying, and the base of the robot remains stationary while its enormous arm works to stack the bricks into place.

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The process is actually fairly straightforward. The truck is loaded with pallets of bricks, and the robot places each one on a conveyor belt. Hadrian X automatically spreads adhesive on each brick, and then relies on instructions from 3D CAD software, along with its laser-guided system, to direct the arm and place each brick precisely where it is supposed to go, with no exceptions. The adhesive eliminates the need for mortar, so the robot can build wall after wall in no time without human assistance.

“People have been laying bricks for about 6,000 years and ever since the industrial revolution, they have tried to automate the bricklaying process,” Fastbrick Robotics founder Mark Pivac told Perth Now. “We’re at a technological nexus where a few different technologies have got to the level where it’s now possible to do it, and that’s what we’ve done.”

Via DailyMail

Images via Fastbrick Robotics