Development of Robotics & Automation Roadmap for Road Construction/Maintenance Projects

Over the past decades, construction industry has gained a growing momentum to develop and implement innovative technologies driven by the market pressure to improve productivity, efficiency, safety, and quality. One of the most noteworthy emerging technologies, which demonstrated its great potential to abate the high labor intensity, is construction robotic technologies. Effectiveness and availability of robots motivate an imperative research question: how can the civil infrastructure industry utilize the robotic solutions in the construction and maintenance process? To answer this question, it is essential to explore not only what robotic technologies are appropriate to adopt but also how these technologies can be seamlessly integrated into the current practices to form an effective human-robot team. To this end, this study aims to understand the current existing road construction operations, identify the needs and expectations from the various stakeholders, and propose a decisionmaking framework for road construction robot adoption model from the user-centric perspectives. To do so, this study proposes to leverage the knowledge and insights from construction professionals in addition to robotic developers via in-depth interviews and surveys. The findings, as well as expertise cultivated from this study, will boost our knowledge about designing efficient and effective road construction and maintenance work environment and support the development of an advanced innovative road construction operation which can address the challenging issues we face today. It provides a fundamental foundation on the determining contextual factors from various view points for designing the shared construction work environment for human and robot. Thus, the findings of this study will be of interests to both organizations and professionals for better integrating robotic solutions to the workplace, accelerating the development and implementation of construction robots. Also, this study contributes to the body of knowledge in the field of human robot interaction by analyzing primary factors that affect robot adoption decision in the road construction and maintenance. It also provides recommendations for robot adoption roadmap harnessing the perception of the potential users.

• Record URL:
  https://transet.lsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2021/08/21COLSU06.pdf
• Supplemental Notes:
  • 21COLSU06

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $120000
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3551747106

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Transportation Consortium of South-Central States (Tran-SET)

  Louisiana State University
  Baton Rouge, LA  United States  70803
• Project Managers:

  Mousa, Momen

• Performing Organizations:

  Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge

  P.O. Box 94245, Capitol Station
  Baton Rouge, LA  United States  70803
• Principal Investigators:

  Ahn, Changbum

• Start Date: 20210801
• Expected Completion Date: 20230801
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers Program

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Construction; Highways; Robotics
• Subject Areas: Construction; Highways; Maintenance and Preservation; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01833052
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Transportation Consortium of South-Central States (Tran-SET)
• Contract Numbers: 69A3551747106
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Jan 20 2022 5:03PM