Vision-guided autonomous drone construction system for standardized bricklaying

Abstract

As the construction industry advances toward intelligent automation, traditional ground-based robots face limitations in flexibility when dealing with tall structures and complex terrains. To address these challenges, this paper introduces BrickPilot, an aerial autonomous bricklaying system that combines the high mobility of drones with the precision of computer vision to automatically identify, grasp, and accurately place standard bricks. The system features custom-developed hardware, including a flight platform, compensation mechanism, and gripper, and uses a depth camera and pre-trained vision model to recognize brick positions and orientations in real time. Demonstrated at the 2024 China Architectural Design Expo, BrickPilot successfully completed the construction of a standard brick wall. Results show that the system achieves high precision, stability, and robustness, with promising potential for large-scale construction projects and extraterrestrial habitat assembly.