Robots to handle fabrics for rapidly deployed structures
The robots will position the structure’s textile materials, rotate them, and pull them taut while they are being heat sealed.
10th March 2021
Manipulating and joining together multiple pieces of large, heavy, waterproof fabric is being allocated to robots in a project aiming to improve the manufacturing of rapidly deployed structures.
Such structures could prove vital in addressing shortages of medical care and quarantine facilities – as well as temporary housing needs – following a future pandemic or disaster.
Pvilion, a Brooklyn, New York-based manufacturer of rapidly deployable robotic structures, is working with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on the project to use computer automation to improve the manufacturing process. Pvilion was recently awarded a Phase II, $1.5 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract by the US Air Force to deliver its rapidly deployable, flexible HEXT – the Hands-Off Expeditionary Tent.