McLaren Construction deploys autonomous robots on its sites

McLaren Construction will deploy autonomous four-legged robots, powered by technology from FieldAI, on its sites. Initially, McLaren will use Boston Dynamics Spot the robot dogs with FieldAI’s technology to capture 360-degree site imagery, generate point cloud data, and support progress verification, model-to-site deviation analysis, safety compliance patrols and quality assurance. The range of tasks that the robots will undertake will grow over time. McLaren expects the partnership to deliver more reliable project monitoring, earlier identification of installation issues and a stronger evidence base for compliance and quality assurance. The collaboration will also provide practical lessons that can inform wider deployment of robotics within the business. McLaren has tested the robot on several sites, including the Passivhaus refurbishment of the London School of Economics and Political Science’s building at 35 Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The two companies will work together to meet UK regulatory and data security requirements as deployments scale up. McLaren’s partnership with California-based FieldAI represents the latter’s entry to the UK. FieldAI’s Field Foundation Models are key to the robots’ autonomy: the models combine data-driven AI with physics-based reasoning and uncertainty quantification to unlock environments that are otherwise too complex and unpredictable for robots. One universal ‘brain’ enables robots of all shapes and sizes to perform a wide range of tasks in unstructured environments they have never seen before. Because the software does not depend on prior maps, supporting infrastructure or pre-planned routes, the robots can be deployed quickly and adapt as a site changes. Nasa background FieldAI, founded three years ago, is led by a team with backgrounds at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, DeepMind, Google Brain, SpaceX, Amazon and Tesla. Last summer, the startup raised $405m from the likes of Bezos Expeditions and Nvidia’s venture capital arm. It had already secured investment from Bill Gates’ venture capital business and Samsung. Its technology is already in use on “hundreds of sites” in Europe, Asia and North America. Adam Nicholson, group pre-construction director at McLaren, said: “The significance of this deployment for the construction industry is that we can move beyond machines that are remote-controlled or pre-programmed for a limited range of tasks and routes. Instead, we now have autonomous robots navigating stairs, doors and other obstacles and constantly working with our human teams to support productivity, safety and quality.” Patrick Purwin, vice-president of sales at FieldAI, added: “One of the impactful features of this partnership is McLaren’s willingness to expand use cases as general-purpose robots grow more capable. The work starts with monitoring and modelling missions and expands across the full spectrum of physical work, including site logistics, dexterous manipulation and multi-robot coordination.” - Subscribe to our newsletter here to receive construction news and insights from around the world straight to your inbox