Robots + 3D Printing = Tomorrow’s Habitats

Contour Crafting is the brain child of Behrokh Khoshnevis, a professor of industrial and systems engineering at USC. Knoshnevis' idea is to scale up 3D printing technology to the point where whole houses can be manufactured within the span of a single day. In the past we've seen ambitious projects that are attempting to use rapid prototyping to build houses, but what sets "Contour Crafting" apart is its close association with robotic systems. 

By using automated robotic systems similar to that of an automotive assembly line, Contour Crafting "…has great potential for automating the construction of whole structures... Using this process, a single house or a colony of houses, each with possibly a different design, may be automatically constructed in a single run.”

Image what a technology like this could do for places like China and India where migration from the country to cities is happening at rates unsurpassed in human history. Manufacturing houses in this fashion might be the key to sustainable urban growth in the next century.

But if that idea isn't impressive enough Khoshnevis believes that Contour Crafting could be utilized in the construction of habitats on the Moon and Mars... Pretty amazing stuff.