Adaptive robotic stone carving: Method, tools, and experiments

Stonework is a longstanding construction tradition, encompassing a multitude of manual tools and techniques for transforming raw material into building elements. Advancements in robotic fabrication allow revisiting these practices using digital tools. However, stonework is complex to automate due to unpredictable material behavior. Therefore, there is a continued demand for skilled stone-carvers to perform custom tasks. The paper addresses this challenge by presenting and demonstrating adaptive robotic stone carving. Expanding existing research on digital stonework, human-robot craft transfer, and robotic fabrication, it puts forth a computational strategy for documenting, analyzing, and simulating manual stonework and their transfer to adaptive robotic carving protocols for surface finishing and detailing. Custom tools developed to this end, including a multi-tool end-effector and supporting middleware, are presented alongside experiments. The results indicate the potential of automating complex stonework and augmenting the sensibility and the skill of craftsmen to increase the resilience of future construction. •Existing digital stonework methods lack human sensitivity.•Adaptive robotic fabrication incorporates sensitivity in carving processes.•The presented method responds to the unpredictability posed by robotic stone carving.•Custom middleware and end-effector enabled adaptive robotic stone carving.•Adaptive carving augmented human craft by combining stone finishing and detailing.