# Tensegrity Applications to Architecture, Engineering and Robotics: A Review
## 1 Introduction
This same author stated their high deflections and low material efficiency, when compared with other conventional structures with a rigid geometry. Another limiting fact is their fabrication complexity because spherical and domical structures are complex and this can lead to problems in production and assembling processes. In order to support critical loads, the pre-stress forces should be very high, which could create strut buckling and be difficult to implement in larger-size constructions [15]. In addition, for many years, there was a lack of design and analysis techniques for these structures, given that the existing calculus and form-finding methods were inadequate, slow and powerless, which has been solved by the current computational tools and methods: analytical, dynamic relaxation, force density, energy, reduced coordinates, group theory, algebraic, evolutionary, finite element, Monte Carlo, genetic algorithms, reference joints of symmetry orbits, etc. [16]. Lately, structure calculations can benefit from the development of tribo-fatigue as the new section of mechanics, the science unifying fatigue, friction and wear [17]. The authors of the present paper have found an important gap in the literature that they would like to fill. Up to now, there have not been many reviews about tensegrity structures. Some of them have been devoted to structural analysis, either static [18] or dynamic [19], and another one has focused on tensegrity structures-based robots [20]. There are also some titles with the word \"review\" [21] that are not really an analysis of the state of the art of these kind of structures. [PERSON]'s recompilation [22] should be taken into consideration, although this work was written 14 years ago and there are some interesting innovations that have arisen in the last decade; furthermore, his review is more focused on historical facts, form-finding, calculation methods and control issues, rather than on real built applications. Therefore, we have performed an exhaustive search to gather the most relevant applications of tensegrity structures. The methodology for performing this review has been based on revisiting the most important publications in several scientific databases (Web of Science, Scopus, Engineering Village, IeeeXplore and Google Scholar). The main search was performed by looking for works including the terms \"tensegrity\" AND \"application\" AND (\"built\" OR \"constructed\") AND (\"robotics\" OR \"anatomy\" OR \"architecture\" OR \"engineering\" OR \"space\"), as well as their translations in French and Spanish. Many of these publications led to others by searching for other interesting links in their reference lists. Finally, more than 500 papers have been revised, although approximately 20% of them were relevant for the purpose of the present review. Thus, the aim of this article is to show all the real possibilities, actually built, that these structures have been opening up over the last years. We have not included many theoretical proposals that have been designed but never brought to reality. As the reader will see in the following pages, tensegrities have become innovative solutions to new or even early engineering issues from the architecture, civil engineering or robotics to medicine scope. By showing all the applications and the different areas that they have been involved in, we intend to declare their potential and encourage their inclusion in other areas or with different purposes. The structure of this paper is as follows: an introduction to tensegrity structures, as well as their advantages and problems, and the methodology carried out in this research, are briefly reported in the present section. Then, Section 2 introduces the applications for AEC, which includes some of the fields explained in the title: architecture and engineering related to the construction field. Spatial engineering has been considered relevant enough for being developed and explained in an independent section, the third one.