A fleet of 3D printing drones developed by researchers from Imperial College London can reportedly build and repair structures mid-flight.

Designed for possible applications in the construction and manufacturing sectors, Imperial’s fleet of drones, called Aerial Additive Manufacturing (Aerial-AM), mimic the building methods employed by bees and wasps that work together to build larger structures.

Source: Imperial College London

As such, the Aerial-AMs have been designed to autonomously work together from a single blueprint. In the lab, the drones successfully constructed and repaired buildings and promise to do so in hard-to-reach areas in the future, according to the researchers.

To accomplish this, the fleet of drones includes BuilDrones that reportedly deposit materials mid-flight and quality-control ScanDrones, which measure the BuilDrones' output and inform the next steps.

In the future, the researchers believe that their fleet of drones could reduce the costs and risks of future construction when compared to traditional manual methods.

For more information on the Aerial-AM fleet, watch the accompanying video that appears courtesy of Nature.

The study detailing the fleet of drones, Aerial additive manufacturing with multiple autonomous robots, appears in the journal Nature.