Autonomous 360° reality capture comes to construction projects
SpotWalk, a product integration with Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot, brings autonomous 360° reality capture to construction projects. The construction progress documentation solution for the Spot robot, says the company, addresses core productivity inefficiencies that continue hampering the construction industry.
“With SpotWalk, we can now enable our customers to capture data much more frequently and more precisely to get an even clearer picture of what the site’s progress is,” says Christian Claus, CMO and Head of Partnerships at HoloBuilder. “We are very excited to release SpotWalk and to continue our very positive collaboration with Boston Dynamics to not only support the industry but to also drive digitization and automation forward.”
Controlled by HoloBuilder’s SpotWalk app, the Spot robot can walk job sites autonomously, capturing 360° images that record the progress of a construction project over time. The process, allows for quality and accuracy control, giving contractors, trade partners, and owners a living digital record of the project. The integration, says the company, creates repeatable, actionable data, addresses all phases of a construction project, and improves productivity.
HoloBuilder’s machine learning engine, SiteAI, analyzes images captured by SpotWalk to get “unprecedented” insight into the job site. The project site data combined with the quantifiable analysis enables contractors and owners to report on progress continuously.
The SpotWalk app has two general modes: The first mode enables project teams to teach Spot the capture route simply by driving the robot via an intuitive smartphone interface, while the second mode drives Spot autonomously on its trained path, taking pictures along the way at defined capture locations.
Michael Perry, Vice President of Business Development of Boston Dynamics says, “The SpotWalk app is a first of its kind integration for Boston Dynamics’ robots. Our efforts have been to create a highly mobile robotics platform that can easily navigate unstructured or unknown environments. HoloBuilder’s SpotWalk app takes this a step further by creating an easy-to-use interface that fits seamlessly into construction workflows.”
The companies have announced that they will partner with other innovative companies willing to provide feedback and continue advancing Spot and SpotWalk together. SpotWalk is available through a six-month early adopter program in which customers will receive two Spot robots, the full HoloBuilder technology suite, and on-site training.
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