This proposal provides a CAD driven Robotic Application for Sprayfoam/ShotCrete for the construction of various sizes of residential Monolithic Dome Buildings. The intent is to provide via Computer Aided Design a Controller interface to automate the construction process. The Robotic arm would be fitted with a sprayfoam/shotcrete nozzle on the end effector and the spraying action controlled via a computer program which drives the Robotic Arm Controller and the action of the Robotic Arm rapidly and consistently creates the Monolithic Dome Building via the CAD. Features such as Door and Window openings would be automatically provided for during the spraying operation and this gives an accuracy and consistency in the building process enhancing quality in the end product.

Applying the methodology to a variety of similar requirements such as hallways, etc. is also projected for this system.

Although Robotic Sprayfoam/Shotcrete for Monolithic Dome construction will initially be product specific, the methodology is applicable for any industry which can make use of this approach. The learning curve for new employees will be greatly reduced because of the interactive nature of the methodology and since load carrying burdens are supported by the Robotic Arm, the fatigue consequences of previous manual methods is eliminated, increasing productivity and efficiency.

1...The Robotic Arm uses readily available components(or off the shelf Robots) which can be adapted for this project.
2...A typical Monolithic Dome design would be created in CAD (RhinoCad and/or Solidworks for example)
3...The Robotic Arm configuration would also be transferred to CAD and a simulation would track the build co-ordinates for the Dome.
4...The build sequences would be emulated using suitable software (such as Lidas) to trace out the elements for driving the Robotic Arm and end effectors
5...Programming is required to ensure that the connectivity of the components does not stray from the basic design intent.
6...Another scenario is to manually instruct the Robotic Arm (via an experienced operator) to build the Dome using reverse engineering techniques to record the operations necessary to construct the building.
7...It is also visualized that by installing probes on the end effectors of the Robotic Arm, an existing Dome building can be digitized to duplicate the database of that building in order to reproduce a similar building at another site.
8...The accumulation of various data as portrayed above provides an extensive database capable of Custom building a number of different Monolithic Dome themes at very competitive costs and with a significant economy of raw materials.
9...Since Monolithic Domes today go up in half the time, at half the cost, and last over 60 years their sustainability, and proof against tornadoes, hurricanes, fires, floods, termites and earthquakes are enhanced further by this automation which again lowers the cost and reduces the time to build.
10...Heating & Cooling costs for Monolithic Domes are easily 50% that of a conventional building which reduces greatly the energy costs to maintain comfortable living standards. Automating the build process provides consistency of that feature.