Self Repairing Cities: 3D printing repair drones

Broken roads, potholes and lengthy construction work in connection with road closures or traffic jams is probably something everyone knows too well. Using 3D printing in combination with drones and robotics could soon make this problem a thing of the past. A new project at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom is using drones in conjunction with 3D scanning and 3D printing to make construction work on the streets at night completely autonomous, thus creating “Self Repairing Cities”.

3D printing alone has already produced incredible projects, especially in the construction industry, such as 3D printed houses in Dubai and Eindhoven, or the 3D printed bridges in the Netherlands. The combination of these two technologies, 3D printing, and drone technology has also fueled the development of a flying 3D printer called the Fly Elephant.

Over the next few years, robotic 3D drones will be tested on British roads (© Bernd Wustneck).

Combining 3D printing, robotics and drone technology to create self-repairing cities

The idea of the University of Leeds is to equip the drones with an autonomous robot so that the roads can be repaired without human help. This means that a 3D scan of the road surface has to be made first. After the 3D scan, the drone then flies to the location and repair the damage autonomously with 3D printed asphalt. The main focus of the drones, in the beginning, w ill be on small road damage and cracks in the asphalt, which could develop without repair to cause greater damage.