Theresa Arevalo works at Canvas, a company that’s built a robot using
artificial intelligence that's capable of drywalling with almost as much
artistry as a skilled human worker.
The robot has been deployed at several
construction sites in recent months, including the new Harvey Milk Terminal
at San Francisco International Airport and an office building connected to
the Chase Center arena in San Francisco.
About the size of a kitchen stove, the four-wheeled robot navigates an
unfinished building carrying laser scanners and a robotic arm fitted to a
vertical platform. When placed in a room, the robot scans the unfinished
walls using lidar, then gets to work smoothing the surface before applying a
near perfect layer of drywall compound; sensors help it steer clear of human
workers.
The Canvas robot can help companies do more drywalling in less time. It
requires human oversight, but its operator does not need to be an expert
drywaller or roboticist.
It has long been impractical to deploy robots at construction sites, because
the environment is so varied, complex, and changing. In the past few years
however, advances including low-cost laser sensors, cheaper robotic arms and
grippers, and open source software for navigation and computer vision have
made it possible to automate and analyze more construction.
The more advanced machines marching onto construction sites will help make
construction less wasteful. According to McKinsey, productivity in
construction has improved less than in any other industry over the past
couple of decades. The arrival of more automation may also alter demand for
labor in a number of building trades.
Kevin Albert, cofounder and CEO of Canvas, previously worked at Boston
Dynamics, a company famous for its lifelike walking robots, and in the
manufacturing industry. He says there’s great opportunity in construction,
which generates about $1.4 trillion annually and accounts for around 7
percent of US GDP but has seen relatively little use of computerization and
automation. “We really see construction as mobile manufacturing,” he says.
“There's this natural extension of what machines are now capable of out in
the real world.”
Canvas is part of a boom in construction technology, says Alex Schreyer,
director of the Building and Construction Technology Program at the
University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He says some of the biggest progress
is being made in prefabrication of buildings, using robotic processes to
construct large parts of buildings that are then assembled on-site. But
increasingly, he says, robots and AI are also finding their way onto
conventional work sites.
Autonomous vehicles made by Volvo ferry materials and tools around some
large sites. Technology from San Francisco startup Built Robotics lets
construction machinery such as diggers and dozers operate autonomously. A
growing array of robotic equipment can take over specialized construction
tasks including welding, drilling, and brick-laying. “There are some really
interesting things happening,” Schreyer says.
An IDC report published in January 2020 forecasts that demand for
construction robots will grow about 25 percent annually through 2023.
One big opportunity in construction, Schreyer says, is using computer vision
and other sensing technologies to track the movement of materials and
workers around a work site. Software can automatically flag if a job is
falling behind, or if something has been installed in the wrong place.
“There is so much potential to do something with that using AI,” Schreyer
says. “More companies are going to move into that AI space.”
Doxel, based in Redwood City, California, makes a mobile robot that scans
work sites in 3D so that software can calculate how the project is
progressing. A four-legged Boston Dynamics robot called Spot is being tested
for the same purpose at a number of sites. Several companies sell drones for
automated construction site inspection, including Propeller, vHive, ABJ
Drones, and DJI.
Buildots, based in Tel Aviv, Israel, sells software that uses cameras fitted
to the helmets of site managers, which automatically capture a site and
process the images to identify discrepancies between plans and ongoing work.
The technology is being used on several large European construction
projects.
Roy Danon, Buildots’ cofounder and CEO, says the goal is to use the data
collected from work sites to help companies design buildings and plan
construction schedules better. “We believe we can have a huge impact on
planning,” he says, “if we have enough projects that show how you plan and
how things actually turn out.”
“The adoption of technology in construction has lagged behind almost
everything except hunting and fishing for the past decades,” says Josh
Johnson, a consultant at McKinsey who follows the building industry.
A McKinsey report last month predicts a big shakeout across the construction
industry over the next decade, with companies adopting technologies and
methodologies from the manufacturing world. Things have already begun to
change, thanks to technological progress and an increasingly tech-savvy
workforce, Johnson says. The pandemic is accelerating the shift too, by
making it more difficult to bring workers to a site and forcing companies to
reevaluate supply lines and processes. “It’s forcing many of these legacy
[construction contractors] and large companies to begin investing,” Johnson
says.
Arevalo, who oversees deployments of Canvas’ robot, says the drywalling
robot cannot tackle corners or angles like a human; she says many
apprentices see working with the robot as an opportunity to learn how to use
more advanced robotic machinery.
The company also has the backing of the local union. “It’s critical for
skilled workers to have great resources in their tool kit, and we are
excited to be on the leading edge of technology in our industries by
partnering with Canvas,” Robert Williams III, business manager at District
Council 16, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, said in a
statement.
But this apparently hasn’t quelled concerns among construction workers
who’ve seen the robot in action. “They love the fact that it’s so
consistent, that the wall is gorgeous,” Arevalo says. “But then the next
question is, ‘When is it going to take my job?’”
Credit: wired.com
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