Four-legged robot Spot to be project manager’s best friend

Aaron Morby 4 years ago
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An advanced dog-bot has been let off the leash at the Battersea Power Station project in London to track construction progress on the vast site.

The agile inspection robot, known as Spot, is being tested on phase 3 of the project to track workers’ progress and ensure as-built meets as-designed.

Architect Foster is working with US robotics expert Boston Dynamics to trial the dog-bot in a live construction environment.

Foster’s Applied Research + Development group is exploring the potential of Spot in a construction site to audit progress

Spot climbs stairs and crosses rough terrain with ease as a tool to capture and monitor progression on-site.

The team devised a map to roughly set up the missions Spot needed to follow on site tasking it to scan certain areas and capture specific data.

Returning to the site on a weekly basis allowed Spot to re-run the same missions with the process yielding a sequence of highly comparable, consistent models.


Martha Tsigkari, Partner, Foster + Partners said: “The ability of Spot to repeatedly and effortlessly complete routine scans, in an ever-changing environment was invaluable not only in terms of the consistency but also the large amount of high-quality data collected.

“Through this process we developed a sequence of scans that may help us track the project progress against timeframes as well as facilitate regular comparisons against the BIM model.”

Spot has helped to construct a digital twin of the Foster + Partners campus in London.

Spot’s Autowalk functionality allowed the team to build up a four-dimensional model, showing how the space changes over time.

Scott Grant, Head of Phase 3 at Battersea Power Station, said, “We were delighted to assist Foster + Partners in using Battersea Roof Gardens as a test bed for Spot.

“The team explained how the robot can be used on a construction site and the various benefits it could bring. We were excited to see it in action and have enjoyed having Spot on site.”

27 kilo dog-bot Spot tucks up when at rest

 

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