Construction robots are coming, but not to take your job.

Construction robotics isn’t about the human-like creatures seen in movies. Rather, it’s about the automation of machines to do repetitive tasks that may be tedious, difficult, or dangerous for real humans to perform. In short, construction robots aren’t coming to take your job, just make it safer, easier, and more productive.

That’s the take-away message of a recent article on the development of construction robotics in Construction Technology magazine. The key concept, industry representatives emphasise, is autonomy – performing a task without human intervention.

Some of those tasks may be as simple as automating data collection on a job site, while others may involve heavy construction operations performed by large mobile machines. But whether it’s finishing drywall or excavating a foundation, the machine does the work while the humans monitor and supervise the activity.

So, don’t be surprised if a robot dog shows up on a job site with a laser scanner attached. It’s only collecting data the robotic telehandler needs to deliver the materials you need to complete your work.