Key Technological Advances and Deployment Challenges of Construction Robots in Intelligent Construction

Abstract

The construction industry faces persistent productivity, safety, and coordination problems that cannot be solved by equipment upgrades alone. Under the broader agenda of intelligent construction, construction robots are becoming cyber-physical execution units that connect Building Information Modeling (BIM), sensing, artificial intelligence, and on-site operations. This paper analyzes the technological progress and deployment challenges of construction robots from two interrelated perspectives: autonomous navigation and human-robot collaboration. It argues that multi-sensor perception, BIM-assisted localization, Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM), improved path planning, and digital-twin-enabled safety monitoring have improved the feasibility of robotic systems in complex construction environments. However, wide deployment is still constrained by unstructured site conditions, model-to-reality discrepancies, fragmented data interfaces, low collaboration maturity, high implementation costs, and uncertain business incentives. The paper proposes four implementation strategies: open communication and data-interface standards, construction-specific safety guidelines for human-robot collaboration, financial and rental mechanisms for lowering the adoption threshold, and joint pilot projects involving industry, universities, research institutions, and end users. The study concludes that construction robots should not be framed as simple substitutes for human labor. Their more realistic role is to augment workers in hazardous, repetitive, precision-demanding, and data-intensive tasks while supporting a gradual transition from experience-based construction management to data-driven intelligent construction.