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Robotics company unveils world’s first autonomous system for installing solar farm foundations

2023-03-17T08:30:00-04:00

San Francisco-based Built Robotics has announced the development of the “world’s first fully autonomous solar piling system.” The system, named RPD 35, is capable of constructing foundations for solar panel arrays up to five times faster than the traditional method.

The system was designed for integration into utility-scale solar projects, which require the support of steel H-beams measuring 12-16 feet in length. A typical solar farm requires tens of thousands of piles to be installed, each of which is driven approximately eight feet into the ground and positioned at an accuracy of less than an inch.

According to its creators, RPD 35 uses AI to conduct all steps in the piling process, including surveying, pile distribution, pile driving, and inspection. As a result, the system can enable a two-person crew to install over 300 piles per day.

"Solar piling is a tough, repetitive job, one well suited to automation," explained the company’s CEO and founder Noah Ready-Campbell. "Our pili...

Boston Dynamics’ humanoid robot Atlas lends a hand on the construction site

2023-01-19T11:49:00-05:00

Boston Dynamics has released a new video showcasing the capabilities of their humanoid robot Atlas. The one-minute-long YouTube video is set within a mock-up construction site, with Atlas seen assisting a human construction worker on scaffolding.

Playfully titled ‘Atlas Gets a Grip,’ the video shows Atlas moving a timber plank around the mock-up site before picking up a tool bag to toss up to a construction worker on an elevated single-story scaffolding platform. As with past Boston Dynamic videos, Atlas ends the sequence in style by performing a backflip off a wooden crate.

Video via Boston Dynamics on YouTube

Entertainment value aside, the video offers an insight into the evolving capabilities of Boston Dynamics’ humanoid robot and its ability to manipulate the world around it. By interacting with objects and modifying its surroundings in pursuit of a defined goal, the company seeks to demonstrate the evolving ability of robots to assist in heavy-duty human tasks, including compl...

Autonomous robot dog deployed at Denver construction site

2020-05-28T19:15:00-04:00

After months of testing by multiple general contractors, Boston Dynamics’ Spot the robot dog is being put to use in a real-world scenario, at the Denver International Airport’s multibillion-dollar expansion and renovation project.

According to Construction Dive, Hensel Phelps employees have used the autonomous machine to perform multiple scans at the airport's Great Hall jobsite. Using Spot Walk, an application developed by Boston Dynamics, the robot can travel the same preplanned route to document project progress on the jobsite.

Construction tech developer unveils nation's first fully autonomous construction equipment

2020-03-05T12:35:00-05:00

Construction tech developer Built Robotics’ fully autonomous construction equipment is now available to contractors and heavy machine operators. A software upgrade to excavating equipment will allow the machinery to operate autonomously or be piloted remotely, making it the first of its kind to be offered commercially in the U.S.

According to Construction Dive, Built Robotics' software enables its equipment to perform tasks fully autonomously. Digging trenches, excavating foundations, and grading building pads can all be managed remotely via a web-based platform.

Autonomous robot patrols and documents construction sites

2020-01-16T18:21:00-05:00

Ziva is a two-wheeled, image-capturing robot that Casta describes as a temporary closed-circuit TV for jobsites. The robot, which can travel up to 11 mph and has a 12-hour battery life, utilizes cameras and facial recognition software to identify people and vehicles present and if they’re allowed to be in the area

Developed by British company Casta Spes Technologies, the robot is designed for security surveillance and documentation of construction sites and can autonomously navigate the jobsite.

Autonomous crane technology receives investment boost

2018-09-27T14:52:00-04:00

With industrial robotics forecast to be worth $71.72 billion by 2023, it’s no wonder entrepreneurs are turning their attention to increasingly lucrative sectors, like warehouse automation, order fulfillment, and manufacturing. Tel Aviv-based Intsite is one of the latest examples. The startup today announced a $1.35 million pre-seed round led by Terra Venture Partners and the Israel Innovation Authority to fund what it claims is the world’s first autonomous crane technology.

Image: Intsite

AI-powered autonomous construction technology is poised to see enormous growth in the coming years, promising to significantly increase efficiency, cut costs & realization time, and reduce human errors as well as workplace-related injuries.

"According to McKinsey, about 98 percent of construction mega-projects go significantly over budget, in part as a result of heavy equipment inefficiencies," reports Venture Beat.

UCL unleashes an autonomous, roving 'garden sphere' for London

2016-10-05T13:25:00-04:00

Therefore, our general theme and approach in this set of projects is that plants should become part of our society as well as self-reliant, and be given the ability to autonomously interact and walk with us. [...] The prototype is seen as a larger scale architectural improvement. With the reduction of gardens as years pass on, the design represents a depleted Earth as it is regenerating and given new life.

Watch the making of the "garden sphere", Hortum Machina, B below:

First unveiled in April of this year, the Hortum Machina, B project is designed by architects William Victor Camilleri and Danilo Sampaio at the UCL's Bartlett. Covered in GCR, the "autonomy" is derived from the plants inside the sphere: "although flora lack nervous systems 'they can, much like animals, become electro-chemically stimulated by (their) environment'.

The designers have wired these botanical reflexes into the control-loop of the sphere’s 'autonomous robotic ecosystem', thereby allowing for autonomous travel. In fact, the plants are able to move the exoskeleton 'collectively and democratically'."

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Begin your week with this serene video of two drones building a bridge by themselves

2015-09-21T12:56:00-04:00

These magnanimous drones, themselves having no need for a footbridge, build a suspension bridge for their human underlings in the Flying Machine Arena laboratory of ETH Zurich.

Developed as part of ongoing research in aerial construction, these two quadrocopters are capable of building the entire bridge by dispensing a motorized spool of Dyneema rope between two scaffolding surfaces, using a combination of knots, braids and wraps. When the drones are finished, the triumphant researchers walk from one end to the other.

Video credits: Aerial construction is a collaboration between the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control and Gramazio Kohler Research at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, 2015

A competition entry for Evolo 2015 that doesn't include a skyscraper

2015-05-13T00:39:00-04:00

We have new technologies in architecture those makes us feel excited when we see them applied on a facade, a roof etc. or simply used for designing. That gives us ideas about what we can design with which technologies. And we honestly believe that designing a building with high ecologic qualities is the only responsibility we have. In most of the cases that's correct. But do you really not responsible what happens while that building is being constructed.

In a construction site thousands of vehicles brings you materials. Those lorries, trucks etc. are not eco-friendly at all! You construct support structures only to construct the main thing and you say you can recycle those. Recycling is a good deed but the process itself has lots of disadvantages like unsafe and unhygienic recycling sites, and the recycled materials starts to have a shorter lifespan. And do you have any excuse of having people work on dangerous construction sites, especially when you construct a skyscraper! Even tho...