This project aims to examine the challenges of human-robot partnership in the inspection and monitoring of industrialized construction. The construction industry in the United States faces two significant issues: declining productivity over the years and a lack of automation compared to other industries. To address these problems, construction automation using robots has the potential to improve productivity and efficiency. However, there are fundamental factors limiting the integration of robotics in construction, and there is a lack of studies on human-robot teaming in construction environments, particularly in the context of inspection and monitoring.
Construction inspection and monitoring are crucial for ensuring project adherence to requirements, schedules, and regulations. Currently, human inspectors perform these tasks, but the manual process is inefficient, leading to delays and cost overruns in many construction projects. Accurate and timely data collection during construction is essential for effective inspection and monitoring.
A new human-robot teaming model for construction inspection and monitoring has been developed, which reconfigures the sequence of work tasks to facilitate collaboration between humans and robots. However, the construction industry has shown resistance to adopting new technologies in the past, highlighting the need to address barriers to technology adoption.
This project aims to investigate the socio-economic challenges affecting individuals, organizations, and the industry in the evolution of construction inspection and monitoring within future human-robot teaming. The research objectives include examining existing challenges identified in the literature, conducting a multidisciplinary workshop involving academic researchers and industry experts to identify barriers to human-robot partnership, and conducting experiments with users to explore the application of robotic technologies for inspection and monitoring.
The multidisciplinary workshop focuses on understanding how human-robot teaming can impact construction inspection and monitoring, identifying institutional barriers to adopting robotic technology, and identifying training and educational needs for the future. The results of this investigation provided a deeper understanding of the societal infrastructure accompanying new work technologies in construction and identify specific socio-economic barriers for implementing robot-enabled construction inspection and monitoring.
