Japanese construction equipment maker Komatsu Ltd. has come up with a new plan to replace men with drones in doing the early foundation work on construction sites.
Made by San Francisco startup Skycatch Inc., the drones will scan job sites from the air and send images to computers to build three-dimensional models of the terrain. Komatsu’s unmanned bulldozers and excavators would then use those models to carry out design plans, digging holes and moving earth, reports the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
The humans’ new job would be programming these machines and pushing a button that sends them on largely programmed routes, then monitoring their progress.
Akinori Onodera, president of the Komatsu unit overseeing Smart Construction told WSJ that “automating job sites will help mitigate any shortage due to Japan’s aging workforce, which is crucial as work ramps up on thousands of construction projects, including many tied to the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.”
“We have to improve productivity,” Mr. Onodera said.
He added that the Tokyo based company has tried to use ground based scanners, but using drones is much more efficient.
“If we want to measure a large construction site, measuring by air is much, much easier,” Mr. Onodera said. “The old way needed two persons for one week. The [drones] can do it in one or two hours” for a similar-size site.
Skycatch Chief Executive Christian Sanz said his company is hoping to provide drones “to scale to thousands of [Komatsu’s] sites all over the world, shaving costs and time for a safer work environment.”
Komatsu plans to lease and operate 200 Skycatch devices for customers over the next few years, a shift from its core business of selling heavy machinery. The program, dubbed Smart Construction, will begin next month in Japan.
“We believe there is big potential” in automation, Mr. Onodera said. “We think this is the future job site.”
