# Tensegrity Applications to Architecture, Engineering and Robotics: A Review
## 6 Conclusions  
The present work has intended to fill the lack of compilations and reviews about applications of tensegrity structures. Therefore, the authors have given an overview of all their actual applications, at the same time exposing their potential in all the fields they have contributed to (AEC, robotics, space, etc.) With this paper, we have explained the impact that tensegrity structures have been making in the different fields explored in the little time since their first official appearance in the late 1940s. In fact, we have found proof from 1921 that states that they are in fact more than 100 years old. Additionally, thanks to the analysis of many publications for this review, we have concluded, to the best of our knowledge, that [PERSON] had already designed a prototype for a cable dome or wire wheel dome in 1949, before the works by [PERSON] in the 1980s and [PERSON] in the 1990s. Several artists, architects and engineers have been captivated by their special properties and managed to give them a lot of different, creative and useful applications. Many of these studies are still open to further investigation, which will probably lead to more applications in the future. We have also explained which are the main advantages of these kinds of structures (deployability, lightness, low control cost, etc.) and also their main disadvantages (high deflections, fabrication complexity, difficulty in form-finding and prestressed states, etc.) The former have helped to find some of the applications identified in this review and some others, but the latter are still a barrier to obtaining suitable solutions to real problems in architecture and engineering. To conclude this review, we present all the data previously exposed in an easy and eye-catching way with some graphics shown below. Figure 37: (**a**) Tensegrity skull model [110] (**b**) Diagram showing how a geodesic tensegrity icosahedron: \(a\), irregular icosahedron; b, expanded cuboctahedron and \(c\), expanded cuboctahedron with curved struts (Images courtesy of [PERSON]). Taking a look at Figure 38, we can extract the following conclusions. First of all, the number of applications of tensegrity to these areas of knowledge have grown significantly from 2000 until now. Due to this fact, we are encouraged to believe that it will keep becoming more and more important in the future. In some cases, especially in architectural constructions for towers, domes and roofs, where the last examples of erected projects are not very recent, it may seem as though there is no active research on this topic. However, as can be seen in this histogram, interest is increasing continuously. The point is that there are many construction projects that have not been brought to reality yet due to the difficulty of building them at big scales. Another direct conclusion is the fact that, although architectural applications have been the first to appear, tensegrity structures are still finding solutions to problems in the architectural field these days. Robotics is a field that has been gaining more importance in the last years, probably becoming the leader application for tensegrity structures by now. In the last 20 years, the number of publications about tensegrity robots is the same as those about AEC applications since mid-20 th century. In addition, biotensegrity has led to the application of these structures in human anatomy, the last field in which tensegrity has been introduced. Another indicator of the evolution of the interest on applications for tensegrity structures can be reflected in the number of patents published in the world. The Espacenet database maintained by the European Patent Office gives us the possibility of analyzing this progress. Figure 39 shows the histogram of the accumulated number of published patent applications with the term \"tensegrity\" in their title. It is evident that the number has increased exponentially during the last decade, which proves that this topic is gaining more and more attention among academics, industry and society.