The concept of fully autonomous construction vehicles holds great promise for addressing housing and infrastructure challenges. Despite significant advancements, achieving full automation on construction sites remains elusive. This blog explores the progress, challenges, and future prospects of autonomous construction machinery, highlighting efforts by industry leaders and innovative startups.
Automated construction vehicles like robot dozers and excavators could address U.S. housing and infrastructure deficiencies, similar to the early promise of autonomous cars reducing traffic accidents.
In 2017, Built Robotics began testing autonomous excavators for construction. Recently, they shifted to focus on installing solar farms, introducing RPD-35, a robotic pile driver for specific tasks.
Major companies like Caterpillar, Doosan, and Volvo have trialed autonomous heavy machinery. However, construction site automation remains challenging due to constantly evolving environments and complex three-dimensional tasks.
Caterpillar and Teleo suggest semi-automated machinery controlled remotely as a first step. Operators can control machines from anywhere, while AI identifies tasks suitable for full automation.
Though full automation is distant, companies focus on semi-automated features and specific tasks. Built Robotics now prioritizes robotic pile drivers, emphasizing solving significant pain points for customer adoption.