Silk-Spinning Aerial Bridge Robot SilkLift Prototype: Weaving a Load-Bearing Pedestrian Bridge Between Two Buildings

SilkLift, released by the Architectural Robotics Lab at Politecnico di Milano, is a robot that mimics the silk-spinning principle of silkworms to weave load-bearing structures in the air. Through two cooperating machines, the robot weaves a high-strength fiber network between two buildings, which forms a load-bearing pedestrian bridge after curing, without requiring scaffolding or large lifting equipment.

The design inspiration for SilkLift came from silkworm spinning behavior. When silkworms spin cocoons, they spin silk from both sides simultaneously, forming a solid three-dimensional network structure. The SilkLift team engineered this principle: two robots are respectively fixed on the rooftops of two buildings, each carrying a high-strength polyester fiber spool, and spin silk simultaneously from both ends toward the middle according to a preset algorithm, with cross-reinforcement at key nodes.

The prototype test was conducted on the Politecnico di Milano campus. The two robots wove a pedestrian bridge 2.4 meters wide between two buildings 18 meters apart. After the fibers cured, the bridge's load test reached 300 kilograms, 1.5 times the design ceiling. Dr. Marcos Dönitz, who heads the Architectural Robotics Lab, said this kind of aerial weaving technique is particularly valuable for bridge restoration in historic building protection zones, avoiding the damage to historic buildings caused by traditional bridge construction.