Fastbrick to build commercial bricklaying robot

Listed Perth company Fastbrick Robotics is moving a step towards disruption in the construction industry, with the company building a commercial prototype of its truck-mounted bricklaying robot.

The company said the robot, Hadrian X, would be able to lay about 1,000 standard bricks per hour, which is well above the reported average for a human, about 500 bricks per day.

It follows the development of the Hadrian 105, which demonstrated the concept and could lay bricks based on a computer design in what Fastbrick deems “3D printing brick construction”.

The latest model will have a 30-metre extendable boom and be truck mounted for movability.

Fastbrick chief executive Mike Pivac said it was a significant milestone.

“We are a frontier technology company, and we’re one step closer to bringing fully automated, end-to-end 3D printing brick construction into the mainstream,” he said.

“We’re very excited to be taking the world-first technology we proved with the Hadrian 105 demonstrator and manufacturing a state-of-the-art machine using the latest componentry.”

The new model will use an adhesive rather than the usual mortar, and can cut and grind bricks to size prior to laying.

It will be assembled in Perth.

A US-based company, Construction Robotics, has commercialised a similar product, the Semi-Automated Mason robot.

That robot requires human coworking, although the company touts a saving on labour costs of around 50 per cent.

Shares in Fastbrick were up 4 per cent to 2.4 cents at the time of writing.