Surveying for a Construction Robot —True Human-Machine Collaboration

Author:Richard Ostridge

Every time I look at my social media feeds, I see at least one post about Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning. However, I recently read about an equally impactful technology revolution that seems underrepresented in such discussions — robot builders.

Previous technological advances already reduce the effort required to build – diggers, cement mixers, jackhammers, electric drills and screwdrivers, to mention just some equipment, that simplifies construction tasks. In the last few years, though, another significant advance has started to come into focus — automation.

Automated Synthesis

世界经济论坛的一篇文章“由机器人建造：这家瑞士公司可以永远改变建筑行业”，这使我想到了建筑的基本面如何迅速变化。该文章以瑞士的三级“ DFAB”房屋的概念证明，其中包括3D打印的天花板，能节能的墙壁和由机器人在现场组装的木梁。负责本文中引用该项目的研究人员Matthias Kohler对机器和人类将来将如何共同努力有一个清晰的看法。根据科勒的说法，不应期望机器人综合人类的工艺，而是人类应该对设计进行反向工程，以允许机器人建造适合其优势的材料和结构。

现场房屋建设并不是什么新鲜事物 - 在过去的20年中，像Huf Haus这样的品牌刷新了公众对预制建筑的热情。DFAB房屋的不同之处在于3D打印和基本机器人组件的规模使用，这省略了人类为创建建筑物的元素的全部努力。当然，这些要素仍然需要人类的组装，但是如果建筑师和建筑商完全采用Kohlers的视野，则可以简化建筑物的设计，因此机器人也可以完成一些组装。

Automated Assembly

Automated assembly is not something to expect to see happening on a large scale in the next 20 years, but there’s growing examples of the edge cases of robots doing more kinetic labour. For example, Construction Robotics’ Semi-Autonomous Mason, the Sam100, is currently at work on a handful of building sites across the U.S. It can apply mortar to any size brick and place one every 8.5 seconds. Where a human mason can lay 300-600 bricks in an eight-hour shift, the Sam100 can lay more than 3,000. Videos of Sam100 in action get millions of views on video-sharing platforms, indicating that there is interest and excitement in this topic.

SAM100加入了来自澳大利亚快速机器人技术的Hadrian X，这两种印刷品都可以在短短两天内完成常规砌体房屋的上层建筑。高级施工机器人的另一个有趣的例子是丹麦公司Odico的机器人热线切割机器人，该机器人使用电加热的电线切开工业泡沫，通过给定的CAD模型复制几何形状。此外，来自法国效率的Effibot可以跟随携带工具和材料的工人。自然，任何行业都对机器人自动化更多的工作量有犹豫。尽管如此，尽管上面描述了令人惊奇的例子，但机器人数年来不会建造房屋。当然，可以轻松地确定许多积极因素，例如成本，时间和对环境的影响。但是，某些缺点也是如此，诸如劳动力部分的重新培训之类的问题确实需要被认为是长期接受和成功的关键。

As a surveyor reading about technology like this, I don’t immediately think about the impact on construction projects. Instead, I think what does this automation mean for the survey industry? The good news is that with rising expectations to design better and construct faster, I believe that there will likely be plenty of opportunities for surveying businesses providing services to building construction companies.

Hybrid Surveyors

如果一个机器人会产生一个对象,准确sizing information is mandatory. If a robot is going to place something into the correct location on site, accurate position information is required.

Tolerances will be tight, accuracy and precision will be demanded, compromise won’t be an option — and that sounds like the calling card of a surveyor to me.

尽管建筑工地上的人可以看到很小的差异，并且本能地知道如何解决问题，但我不相信机器人能够自行解决这个问题。也许它将检测到问题，然后请求人类援助 - 降低效率增长，这是首先使用机器人的动机之一。不可否认，最大化机器人效率的最佳方法是为他们提供真正代表现实的质量信息。

So, will a survey ever be captured without a human? Well, in some data capture scenarios it can be argued that the role we play has already slightly shifted — for example, shifting from selecting which exact points to measure towards picking an area and density to let the instrument capture. Mainly, this is thanks to the advancements, acceptance and use of technology, like the Leica RTC360 3D laser scanner, or mobile technology, such as the Leica BLK2GO, which automatically capture 3D point clouds as an operator walks through and around a site.

也许没有人类的数据收集 - 但是，调查（包括可交付成果），没有。但是，我们的测量师可能必须调整成为“测量师”的含义。

What’s Next for Surveyors?

For years surveyors have been valued on deciding where to set up, what control to use, and what checks to build in. More recently, additional emphasis has been put on deciding which technology to use, how to measure, and how to process the data.

For the next generation of surveyors, it seems likely that even more weight will be put on sifting through data, identifying quality, understanding what is relevant, and deciding how to present it.

Maybe the job will have more of an emphasis on determining what checks to build in, or how to evaluate and process data. And most likely, more weight will be put on deciding what data is relevant and how and when to present it.

我相信，现在是评估我们的工作流程，评估新方法并拥抱新技术的合适时机。然后，我们可以将自己确立为生产最佳数据的服务提供商，即可以信任的人来评估和验证其他数据的质量，以及那些可以从所有这些数据中提取有意义结果的人。

如果我们这样做,我们会在位置not only protect our own short-term employment future but also to ensure the future of the survey industry — even when we are surveying for construction robots to use our data.