Members of the HBA are an innovative bunch and while some have invested in technological solutions which speed up housebuilding, or implement Modern Methods of Construction (MMC), most build ‘hybrid’ homes, which blend MMC and traditional build methods.

To ensure industry has the skills, capacity and innovation needed to retrofit the 16.5million homes built before national Building Regulations (1965) and 12.5million homes using traditional construction methods (pre-1950), this hybrid approach is a necessity to the UK economic and social structure. 

However, challenger housebuilders and construction innovators have been coming, going and slowly finding their way into the market and this article explores some of the technological advancement that are here, or exponentially approaching the sector.

AI will lead the way

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going through a development phase and the public are increasingly understanding it through conversational applications such as ChatGPT, Co-Pilot and GROK. This understanding has been furthered with video and image AI, producing movie like scenes from written prompts.

However, AI is the overarching term and underneath it sit several categories, such as Machine Learning (ML), deep learning, robotics, expert systems, and natural language processing.

And it is Machine Learning (ML) which is increasingly applicable to the construction industry. From humanoid robots to drone scanning, machine learning is the development of a task through pattern identification, without an attempt to mimic human intelligence.

As the AI categories slowly meld, the trajectory is a robot which can think and make decisions as humans do; however, the expertise and knowledge that human intelligence has remains difficult to recreate and therefore human programmed or guided ML is where most construction innovation resides. 

With super computers needing a few million watts to be powered, humanoid performance will need an incredibly high number of data centres and satellite connections to match the ten to twenty watts a human brain needs to function.

What’s here today?

Site printing

Even wanted your site, development or plans printing or 3D projected? HP, Mechasys and Dusty Robotics (to name a few) have you covered. Where HP prints construction plans directly onto floors with pinpoint accuracy, Mechasys laser projects full-scale plans on surfaces. 

Dusty Robotics has a ‘cuter’ approach, using what looks like a robot hoover and marking floor layouts from digital blueprints. Although mostly used in commercial projects, the advent of the Future Homes Standard (FHS) may change how interiors are delivered, with panelised and component systems growing in use.

Total Stations

A standard piece of kit for many projects to get the survey land and understand gradients, angles and distance, yet Total Stations have had quite the upgrade in recent years. The Leica Robotic Total Station works as part of a suite of solutions including augmented reality and panoramic imaging, hard to reach measuring through AP20’s tilt compensation, Infinity software plotting site measurements for CAD, GIS and BIM export, while permitting new points to be measured off-site.

Though an incremental change in this technology, the last five years has seen AI increasingly grow in its operation, to the point that total stations can now be operated successfully by one person.

Digital twins

A digital twin is a digital replica of a physical object, person, system, or process. Not only do they provide data about project post completion but are a monitoring tool to check progress throughout a build, which can simplify regulatory requirements, simulate scenarios and help project collaboration and scheduling. With Home User Guides (HUG) being standardised in new build, digital twins should be considered a natural progression to the handover progress, particularly with the push for Digital Log Books for all homes.

As much of the data is already available through CAD design, any supplementary evidence such as images of works should be a simple transition. Digital Twins are something HBA members are already implementing, and volume builders are increasingly exploring as a customer benefit.

Rebar laying and tying robots

Very simply, these robots either lay or tie rebar. With numerous solutions available, they considerably reduce the time taken for this strenuous task and can come in either manual or automated systems. Where the manual process uses a manually applied machine to tie rebar, the whole site solutions can operate in all weather, potentially up to 24 hours a day.

One such offering is Tybot and Ironbot, which can be used separately. Ironbot lays 9ft to 60ft rebar at a rate of 5,000 daily and Tybot can be brought in to span the site and horizontally tie, at an average of 1,200 ties an hour. 

What’s coming tomorrow?

Autonomous rebar tying

Staying on rebar, Max Ltd is previewing an autonomous rebar tyring robot, which rolls along the rebar grid and follows a path it determines as most efficient or available (if blocked). It can collaborate with other rebar tying robots to complete jobs as quickly as possible.

A health and safety officers dream!

Plasterboard installation and finishing

When HRP-5P has installed your plasterboard, you will need a robot to reach up to 12 feet and deliver L4 or L5 finishes, alongside vacuum sanding. Canvas 1200cx has it covered! Paired with HKCRC and Finish Robots, you can have a floor grinding and autonomous painting robot to finish the job, ready for furnishings.

Slightly less rare than UK big cats 

Component assembly robot

Tired of drilling, spraying insulation, sanding, and moving materials weighing up to 180kg? Concert Modular Robots think it has the solution. With interchangeable components, this robot can do all the above with a few changes in its configuration and settings. While it’s not in the wild just yet, it takes us closer to autonomous robotics.

Printed Homes

There are many different printed home solutions, though most have similar approaches and use concrete laid in layers. Where some have an arm which moves around printing layers, others span the width of a project to print locations, with a grid like understanding.

ICON Vulcan looks like the 3D printers the most tech savvy, or obsessed, sorts have, boasting a volume building approach and using lavacrete, an in house developed material. Frank, from Apis Core, is a fixed base moving ‘arm’ that prints layers and supported by Gary who mixes and provides Frank the correct consistency of concrete, and taken from Mary, which arrives on site with the materials in her tanker and just needing water to start your project off.

Disruptors are coming

Disruptors are coming and with most companies offering ‘as a service’ models, rather than purchases,  the more disruptors we have the cheaper construction is going to get. In the UK, the planning system will likely scupper the viability of volumetric systems and so efficiency savings through technology and individual building systems, such as 3D printed homes, have a definite future.

Does it mean robots are coming to do your job? Unlikely any time soon. They may make your work easier, or quicker but the limitations for autonomous robots aren’t just technical but on data and power because a human spotting an issue, or understanding why it exists, or how to fix it, remains something AI and robotics is some way away from delivering.

Keep an eye out for NFB’s ‘Building for an AI future’ (working title) report for a more detailed explanation of the above and many, many more robotic and AI solutions.

Rico Wojtulewicz, Head of Policy and Market Insight, NFB