They observe upcoming storms, explore and map inaccessible terrain, deliver medicines to hard-to-reach areas or help with archaeological field research - drones have become indispensable in research and technology.

Researchers from Imperial College in London and the Swiss research center Empa present a new application for the flying robots in the current issue of the journal "Nature".

Mirko Kovac and his colleagues use drones to print structures.

Manfred Lindinger

Editor in the department "Nature and Science".

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The researchers working with Kovac were inspired by the working methods of natural master builders such as bees and wasps.

Their fleet currently consists of two drones, each with different tasks: while one drone is in flight spraying liquid construction material onto a base, which then hardens, another, smaller drone monitors the construction progress.

In doing so, she checks whether the specified construction plan is being followed.

She transmits her feedback to the construction drone.

If the control drone is satisfied, the construction drone continues to print, otherwise it changes its strategy.

In this way, the desired structure grows layer by layer.

The two drones essentially work autonomously, as the researchers write.

They are only overseen by a human controller who oversees the build process and only intervenes when necessary.

In a feasibility study, two drones printed a polyurethane-based tower around two meters high.

They then used a special mortar to create an 18 centimeter high cylinder consisting of 28 layers.

The manufacturing accuracy for both structures was five millimeters, as specified in the specification.

"We have shown that drones can work autonomously in tandem to construct and repair buildings - at least in the laboratory it is already working.

Our solution is scalable and could help us construct and repair buildings in hard-to-reach areas in the future,” says Kovac.

In a simulation, Kovac and colleagues demonstrated that, in principle, it is also possible to use several drones to print a structure.

Four drones flew around in a hall and bricked up a virtual structure that became visible on a monitor and grew.

Next, the researchers want to work with a construction company and subject their flying 3D printers to a practical test.