Robot builders will kill human bricklayers, highway pavers and drywallers, consultants predict
Robot builders could accidentally kill their human colleagues, researchers have warned.
It says there is an “urgent” need for safety guidelines for robots working on construction sites. Boffins are worried ‘Bot the Builders – increasingly deployed as bricklayers, road pavers, drywallers and demolishers – cannot detect human counterparts accurately enough with current technology.
As a result health and safety experts said it was critical to know how hard robots can bump into real colleagues without causing harm.
READ MORE: World War 3 has ‘already started’ this year, says top Ukraine commander in chilling warning
READ MORE: UK Storm Shadow missiles ‘kill’ 500 North Korean troops and Russian general in Russia
Click for more of the latest news from across the world from the Daily Star.
(Image: Getty Images/Cultura RF)
Researchers from the Division of Safety Research at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Department of Civil Engineering, Stony Brook University, US, and PILZ Automation Safety warned robots could injure workers by unexpected contact.
‘Bots therefore need to be operated under specific safety procedures to safeguard lives.
Researchers noted ‘bots have tools to help them detect human colleagues – including computer vision devices that sense movement and allow them to calculate how to avoid humans.
But the study found the tech does not work well in construction where environments are less structured and tasks complex.
“An open jobsite such as a construction site is often not an ideal environment for robots to have all necessary sensors to detect workers’ movements and environmental changes,’’ it said.
(Image: Getty Images/Tetra images RF)
“Environmental disturbance, noises, and an insufficient number of sensors can greatly affect the ability of the robot to detect surrounding hazards and movements of existing objects in the construction space.’’
While robots may be able to detect the presence of workers they may not be able to monitor them continuously from all directions on a building site.
If they cannot recognise the human worker’s movements that means it is less likely ‘bots can perform all the required safety operations to avoid them.
To mitigate the danger boffins said the industry needs to regulate “energy transfer between the human worker and the robot or the construction material carried by the robot” so collisions do not result in tragedies.
(Image: Getty Images)
The study – presented at the 41st International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction – considered two cases of ‘bots carrying masonry blocks making an unexpected impact with workers.
In the first the worker was struck and forcibly pushed away and in the second the ‘bot hit the builder from behind bending them forward at the waist.
Researchers developed complicated mathematical equations to calculate the maximum speed the ‘bot must travel at and payload it should carry to avoid causing injuries.
The study found the maximum speed of a masonry ‘bot should be less than 700mm per second if it is carrying a 17kg block and 570mm per second with a 25kg stone.
(Image: Getty Images)
At that speed human injuries from collisions could be `adequately prevented’, researchers said.
“This approach can provide reference values for safely operating robots on construction sites,’’ the study said.
“In the future dynamic models for different scenarios and different operational environments could be developed, such as rainy weather and muddy ground.
“The construction industry urgently needs safety guidelines for the use of robotic equipment on open construction sites.”
For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.
