Toronto researchers are milling mass timber components to within 0.06 millimetres with a 3.5-metre KUKA Quantec KR210 robotic arm, among the largest ever installed at a Canadian university and the first industrial-scale robotic fabrication system the University of Toronto’s Department of Civil and Mineral Engineering has installed for mass timber construction.
That is according to Professor Aryan Rezaei Rad, who leads the Sustainable Structural Systems research lab at CivMin and oversaw the three-year procurement, design and approvals programme that has now delivered the platform into the Machine Shop at Galbraith Building.
The KUKA Quantec KR210 has a 3.1-metre robot length, a 3.5-metre reach with tool attachment, a 210-kilogram rated payload, 0.06-millimetre pose repeatability, a 15-kilowatt milling spindle, dual integrated robotic and fabrication controllers, and a precision workholding table installed alongside the arm. Wood Central understands the platform now ranks among the largest robotic arms ever installed at a Canadian university, with the cell bringing industrial-scale milling capacity to mass timber components for the first time at CivMin.
Rezaei Rad’s full-time graduate students and undergraduate summer research students are training on the system to translate computational mass timber designs into fabricated, full-scale building components. “This is the culmination of a three-year period of planning, applying, coordinating, designing, managing, seeking approvals and, of course, waiting,” Rezaei Rad said.
The cell sculpts solid timber blocks in three dimensions and carves interlocking shapes from sheet stock anchored to the workholding table, with previous Robot Made collaborations between CivMin and the Daniels Faculty of Architecture already proving the case for fastener-free mass timber assemblies. The 2025 Robot Made dome, fabricated under the same programme and displayed at the front of the Galbraith Building for most of the autumn, made the public argument for the industrial-scale capacity now installed in the Machine Shop.
It comes as Wood Central reported on the use of robotic milling and high-precision 3D modelling at Norway’s Oslotre studio, where Aanesland Treindustri and Sørlaminering are shaping six-metre laminated timber teeth for Kristiansand Zoo using newly installed robotic systems. The Toronto cell now runs solid timber blocks and sheet stock through the same digital-to-fabricated workflow, integrating robotic manufacturing into the design process for resource-efficient mass timber buildings with high-performance structural systems.
The project drew funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Ontario Research Fund, with Robotic Solutions Inc. supplying and integrating the system and contributing significant in-kind support. “It is very gratifying to see it finally in place and operational. I expect we will make fantastic use of this incredible new resource,” Rezaei Rad said.
With the three-year procurement closed and the cell delivered into the Galbraith Building Machine Shop, Rezaei Rad’s lab now feeds full-scale mass timber components through the platform at 0.06-millimetre repeatability, with the Toronto installation ranking among the largest robotic arms ever installed at a Canadian university.
