Research X Construction to give bot situational awareness skills

19 July 2021

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Giving bot new navigation capabilities.

Luxembourg Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT) and construction company Stugalux have entered a three-year research partnership focusing on advancing navigation capabilities of mobile robots for 3D information collection on construction sites.

New SnT project, conducted in cooperation with Luxembourg-based construction company Stugalux, will provide the robotic dog with the ability to navigate autonomously in the construction site without prior site detection solely based on digital models.

The three-year project will add a new advanced situational awareness skill to the robot. This new capability will help the robot to understand Stugalux’s digital building plans and to navigate the construction site by relying solely on measurements from on-board sensors.

Artificial intelligence dedicated to robot dog training

The project seeks to build an artificial intelligence that allows the robot to move autonomously around a construction site to supervise the construction process.

Autonomous mobility means that the bot will no longer be remotely operated by a human agent nor will it need to perform and record the walking task beforehand.

Such intelligence means that the robot will be able to read the digital plans of a construction site. It will also understand where it is and move autonomously to acquire the data needed for the project. To continue to navigate as the environment changes, the bot will have to learn continuously from its environment.

Making robot dogs more accessible

The research partnership also aims to enable construction staff to use the robot and the data capture process. As such, the technology won’t be available solely to robotics experts. This means that the robot will be more accessible to the property development sector, as it will not require specialist knowledge. By the end of the project, the robot should save time in the construction sector, thus reducing project costs.