Robotic quadrocopters — that is flying machines with four rotors — have built a 20-foot-tall tower of polystyrene blocks at a museum in France.

This may come as bad news for unemployed construction workers hoping for a bright future building next-generation skyscrapers, but it's yet another way robots are aiming to re-shape the global workforce.

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In this case, an architect still draws up a blueprint for the building, but computers and robots do the rest — interpreting the blueprint and controlling the crew of robotic copters, for example. 

The first public job for this system was the "Flight Assembled Architecture" exhibit at the FRAC Center Orleans, billed as the "first installation to be built by flying machines."

The exhibit is the work of ETH Zurich roboticist Rafaello D'Andrea and architects Fabio Gramazio and Matthias Kohler.

Like any construction site, a safe operating environment is essential. To avoid collisions, the robots reserve air space on one of two "freeways" before they fly. 

"The system ensures that while a space is reserved, only the reserved flying vehicle has access — all other vehicles must wait before flying through the space," the team explains in a media release.

This system also prevents collisions with the tower, since the tower itself is considered reserved airspace.

Each robot has a specially designed gripper to hold and place the bricks. The researchers also figured that quick flights are essential to prevent factors such as air turbulence resulting in a misplaced brick.

Perhaps the speed will also cut down on construction delays, giving the robotic workforce another edge over their human counterparts.

The tower on exhibit is 20 feet tall and made of 1,500 blocks. It's a model of a futuristic 2,000-foot tall "vertical village" that could house 30,000 people — assuming 30,000 people want to live in a building assembled by robots.

[Via CNET]

More on the robotic workforce of the future:

• More work for robots in China
• Nine jobs that humans may lose to robots
• In the near future, robots will work on farms
• Your new co-worker may be a robot
• Meet FRIDA, your robot co-worker

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John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.

 

 

 

A spherical flying machine that can take off and land just about anywhere, roll along walls and hover like a helicopter was recently unveiled by Japan's Ministry of Defense. 

The beach-ball-size machine consists of commercially available parts that cost about U.S. $1,400. The researchers built it to study a problem associated with their aircraft R&D, as explained in the video above from DigInfo. 

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"We have a plane that can stand up vertically after flying horizontally. But the problem with that plane is take-off and landing are very difficult," the researcher explains. "As one idea to solve that problem, we thought of making the exterior round."

Since the flying ball works like a propeller plane, it can fly forward at high speed using wings, which a helicopter can't do, DigInfo notes. And three gyro sensors keeps it moving along even after bumping into an obstacle.

Ultimately, an aircraft developed with this technology could be used for search-and-rescue missions in otherwise hard-to-reach places. For more information, check out the video above. 

More on defense robots:

• Robots hook up to fly as a single unit
• Man flies with jet pack at the London boat show
• Robotic insects take flight on wings made using printers
• Dude, where's my flying car and jetpack?

John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.