Industrial construction works

Industrial work is expensive, and so are construction mistakes. There is a reason construction has become the next big target for the robotics and automation industry, with a number of start-ups competing to build solutions that can continuously monitor sites and catch errors before it is too late.

Construction has become one of the key areas of robotics investment in recent years, with examples such as Built, Toggle and Dusty. Even Boston Dynamics is getting involved, mounting lidar sensors on top of its Spot robots, with construction listed as one of the main use cases for the commercial version of the product.

The Scaled robot sits low to the ground on four wheels. It is topped with lasers and cameras that use SLAM technology to build a 3D point map of the space. The map is then compared with the building model of the space, and discrepancies can be detected down to the centimetre. Because the robot is mobile, builders no longer have to carry a tripod around, as they do with standard stationary laser scanners. More details in the TechCrunch review.