A 3-D imaging robot could help construction workers make fewer mistakes

Using lidar and a healthy dose of AI, a new robot can check that building projects are going to plan.

How it works: Once a construction site shuts down for the night, a small robot deployed by startup Doxel can get to work. Using lidar, it scans the site and uploads data to the cloud. There, deep-learning algorithms flag anything that deviates from building plans so that a manager can fix it the day after.

Why it matters: If errors aren’t noticed immediately on a work site, they can create compounding issues that take time and money to put right down the line. When a problem is solved instantly, the savings could be large.

The impact: A recent pilot test of the technology on an office building project increased labor productivity by 38 percent. The project as a whole came in 11 percent under budget.

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