Automation and Robotics in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction Industry

229 Pages·2022·8.053 MB·English

by  Houtan Jebelli (editor), Mahmoud Habibnezhad (editor), Shayan Shayesteh (editor), Somayeh Asadi (editor), SangHyun Lee (editor)

Houtan Jebelli 
Mahmoud Habibnezhad 
Shayan Shayesteh · Somayeh Asadi 
SangHyun Lee   Editors
Automation
and Robotics in
the Architecture,
Engineering,
and Construction
Industry
Automation and Robotics in the Architecture,
Engineering, and Construction Industry
Houtan Jebelli
Mahmoud Habibnezhad
Shayan Shayesteh • Somayeh Asadi
SangHyun Lee
Editors
Automation and Robotics
in the Architecture,
Engineering, and
Construction Industry
Editors
Houtan Jebelli Mahmoud Habibnezhad
Department of Architectural Engineering Department of Architectural Engineering
Pennsylvania State University Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA, USA University Park, PA, USA
Shayan Shayesteh Somayeh Asadi
Department of Architectural Engineering Department of Architectural Engineering
Pennsylvania State University Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA, USA University Park, PA, USA
SangHyun Lee
Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
Ann Arbor, MI, USA
ISBN 978-3-030-77162-1 ISBN 978-3-030-77163-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77163-8
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2022
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Preface
In the early twentieth century, construction witnessed the emergence of heavy
machines at job sites, a revolutionary transformation from animal and human-
powered machines to those powered by diesel engines, hydraulic pumps, and elec-
tric motors. A century later, yet another transformation began, this time directed at
adopting intelligent machines, autonomous vehicles, and perceptive cyber-physical
systems. This paradigmatic shift is intended to respond to stagnant productivity,
labor shortage, aging workforce, and unsafe environments of construction sites,
which has become possible due to the advent of sensing technologies, computer
processing powers, and artificial intelligence. In the last few years, the number of
start-up companies in robotics has multiplied, particularly in autonomous mobility.
Even the giants of construction machinery have started to make investments in
emergent technology and intelligent machines. Caterpillar Inc. has recently bought
a robotics-based company, Marble Robot, to boost its research efforts on the next
generation of unmanned heavy machines. Bobcat Company has teamed up with
QinetiQ North America to transform compact equipment into a remote-control
vehicle. Volvo Group has invested in Apex.AI to become one of the forefronts of
safety-certified autonomous systems. The exponential growth of robotic systems is
not limited to unmanned vehicles. 3D printing robots have already found their way
into the construction industry, with the capacity to build houses in a few days with
almost half the price of the comparable ones. Construction robotics has designed
and engineered a commercially available brick-laying robotic arm capable of laying
bricks with lower cost and labor. The same company has introduced a lift-assist
robot for lifting and placing heavy materials with minimal effort. These advance-
ments in construction robotics have provided an unparallel opportunity to automate
repetitive tasks with robots, handle strenuous activities using wearable and lift-
assist machines, replace ambulatory surveys and inspections with unmanned aerial
vehicles–based monitoring, and perform dangerous tasks remotely through
telerobotics.
As promising as these innovations appear to be, the scalability, extendibility, and
ubiquity of robotics systems are still unknown. Several ambiguities concerning the
role of the human workforce in future job sites need to be resolved, which merits
v
vi Preface
immediate attention and investigation. Suppose construction robots become preva-
lent in the fields. In that case, they will have sweeping effects on the physiological
and psychophysiological states of human workers, safety and productivity expecta-
tions, and human-robot trusts as well as the necessary competencies of workers,
engineers, and other construction personnel. Multiple questions need to be addressed
promptly. What are the societal, economic, and environmental impacts of these sys-
tems? How do workers perceive robots at the job sites and vice versa? What educa-
tion and training should be developed, and how they need to be conveyed? What are
the directions of improvements of construction robots, and how the related chal-
lenges can be timely and effectively addressed? What areas of construction can
most benefit from the adoption of robotics systems? These fundamental questions
help the industry prepare for introducing, implementing, and continuing robotics
solutions in construction working environments.
Moreover, the ever-existing safety challenges in the construction industry may
manifest themselves in new forms in construction robotics, with a myriad of uncer-
tainties and ambiguities. In the last 20 years, reports have unequivocally demon-
strated that the construction industry has not been able to reduce the number of
death and injuries at construction sites. Specifically, within the same time frame, the
statistics show that the fatality rates of fieldworkers have generally remained con-
stant, somehow invariable to the safety practices, regulations, and protocols in
place. This immutable safety condition has been mainly linked to the dynamic and
changing environment of construction sites wherein construction workers perform
an array of manual activities in isolation from or collaboration with heavy machin-
ery. While construction robotics aims to address these challenges, they require
human supervision/intervention to deliver the work. The reason lies in the design
complexities of robots in working or even surviving in the dynamically changing
environment of construction sites. As a result, human-robot interaction/collabora-
tion is required. Yet, as history teaches, these interactions can lead to accidents,
similar to those that occur every day at construction job sites. Aggravatedly, the
control of heavy machinery is by human operators, while the movement of robots is
based on predefined codes with possible model- and system-level errors. This can
have a detrimental effect on human-robot collaboration safety.
Moreover, accidents can happen due to the soar of cognitive workload and men-
tal and physiological stress during interaction with robots, possibly the direct effects
of the unparallel performance of robots compared to their human peers as well as
worker-robot mistrust and misadaptation. Furthermore, human workers cannot rec-
ognize or predict the robot’s motion legibility because of their expectations of the
robot’s human-like movement, which, of course, deviates from reality. These
remarks stress the need for comprehensive investigations to understand influential
factors affecting safety in human-robot interactions, which has not been most likely
contemplated at any depth by the early adopters of construction robots.
Based on these gaps, the editors of this book were persuaded that there is a need
for comprehensive, evidence-based insight and view of current and future automa-
tion and robotics in the architecture, engineering, and construction industry. As
such, the editors compiled this book to illuminate the challenges, opportunities, and
Preface vii
needs in adopting robots in the construction industry. This book attempts to con-
struct the road map and delineate directions of improvements for a successful transi-
tion towards construction robotization. It is the fruition of several scientific
investigations on priorities and barriers towards robotic technologies and deploy-
ment in construction. Notably, the collection leverages the research findings of sev-
eral contributors from the Pennsylvania State University, University of Michigan,
University of Florida, University of Alabama, University of Illinois at Chicago,
Wentworth Institute of Technology, Washington State University, and Institute of
Construction Materials.
Even though the contents and orders of the chapters follow a logical flow, the
book does not have a textbook structure. This allows the readers to jump to the pre-
ferred chapter and understand the deliverables without much hassle. The presented
knowledge in each chapter is supported by adequate explanation and elaboration,
making it easier for the layperson to understand. But, there are very few chapters
with algorithms and mathematical modeling that might be overwhelming for ordi-
nary readers. In those, the authors attempted to provide the importance of research,
the gaps in the existing methods, references to other work, in-depth discussion, and
thought-provoking conclusion, all to facilitate the comprehension of the presented
science.
We hope this book can deliver its message to a wide group of industry profes-
sionals and academic scholars and anyone interested in obtaining a better under-
standing of construction robotics and the potential opportunities and the daunting
challenges. By reading this book, learners can have a new insight into construction
robots and workplaces of tomorrow, which can help them make better decisions on
the required competencies for future jobs in construction. Similarly, educators and
practitioners can leverage the information presented in this compilation and appro-
priately infuse them into curriculums and training at different scales. Finally, it
could be of interest for field engineers who had come across smart machines, con-
struction robots, and aerial and terrestrial vehicles in the field but not studied them
beforehand.
University Park, PA, USA Houtan Jebelli
Mahmoud Habibnezhad
Shayan Shayesteh
Somayeh Asadi
Ann Arbor, MI, USA SangHyun Lee
Contents
1 Automation and Robotics Technologies Deployment Trends
in Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Fopefoluwa M. Bademosi and Raja R. A. Issa
2 Essential Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities Required for Talent
Cultivation in Construction Automation and Robotics . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Fopefoluwa M. Bademosi and Raja R. A. Issa
3 Robotics and Automation in Construction (RAC): Priorities
and Barriers Toward Productivity Improvement in Civil
Infrastructure Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Abolfazl Seyrfar, Hossein Ataei, and Ibrahim Osman
4 Construction Automation and Sustainable Development . . . . . . . . . . 73
Mohammadsoroush Tafazzoli
5 A Briefing on Technological, Societal, and Economical
Aspects of Automation in Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Farid Sartipi
6 Human-Drone Interaction (HDI): Opportunities
and Considerations in Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Gilles Albeaino, Masoud Gheisari, and Raja R. A. Issa
7 Safety Challenges of Human-Drone Interactions
on Construction Jobsites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Idris Jeelani and Masoud Gheisari
8 Assessing the Role of Wearable Robotics in the Construction
Industry: Potential Safety Benefits, Opportunities,
and Implementation Barriers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Ifeanyi Okpala, Chukwuma Nnaji, Omobolanle Ogunseiju,
and Abiola Akanmu
ix
x Contents
9 Worker-Aware Task Planning for Construction Robots:
A Physiologically Based Communication Channel Interface . . . . . . . 181
Yizhi Liu, Mahmoud Habibnezhad, and Houtan Jebelli
10 Workers’ Trust in Collaborative Construction Robots:
EEG-Based Trust Recognition in an Immersive Environment . . . . . . 201
Shayan Shayesteh, Amit Ojha, and Houtan Jebelli
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Chapter 1
Automation and Robotics Technologies
Deployment Trends in Construction
Fopefoluwa M. Bademosi and Raja R. A. Issa
Abstract The construction industry has remained very much less digitized than
similar mature industries, with a good number of its activities being laborious and
monotonous. With the construction industry gradually entering the era of industrial-
ization and digitization, there is an opportunity to increasingly change the tradi-
tional approach of designing, constructing, operating, and maintaining buildings
and infrastructure. The era of technological disruption ushers in the penetration of
innovative construction tools, including automation and robotics technologies, in
the industry. In construction, automation and robotics processes involve the autono-
mous execution of tasks and processes through intelligent programming and control
of machines. This chapter explores the current state of automation and robotics
technologies deployment in the construction industry and discusses potential auto-
mation and robotics applications in different aspects of construction projects.
Construction companies can use these technologies to benchmark their technology
adoption efforts.
Keywords Construction · Automation · Robotics · Industrialization · Digitization ·
Industry 4.0
F. M. Bademosi ()
Wentworth Institute of Technology, Boston, MA, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
R. R. A. Issa
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 1
H. Jebelli et al. (eds.), Automation and Robotics in the Architecture, Engineering,
and Construction Industry, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77163-8_1