Construction is a kind of messy science. Materials bend. Sizes can be off and what looked good on paper can end up installed incorrectly on the work site. Robots aren’t equipped to deal with these changing elements in real time so they’ve never made an impact on the construction industry.

Until now.

“The project we are working on is called ‘dynamic manipulation’ and [it] gives the robot capabilities to program its own motions…by studying the work environment and creating the model of the environment in real time”.

-Professor Vineet Kamat, CEE

U-M researchers have developed modeling techniques that will help on-site construction robots with autonomous decision making. Real time sensing data is compared to the construction project’s original model while the robot adjust to the differences and updates its plan of action, all without additional programming.

Heading the project is Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Vineet Kamat and doctoral candidate Kurt Lundeen, with special thanks to Wes McGee and the U-M Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning Digital Fabrication Lab.