4th Workshop on Future of Construction: Safe, Reliable, and Precise Robots in Construction Environments

May 19, 2025 Georgia World Congress Center, Atlanta, USA

Overview

The $10 trillion global construction industry has traditionally been a labor-intensive industry, yet it stands to benefit from autonomous robots that promise to deliver construction work that is more accurate and efficient compared to manual or conventional methods. However, the integration of automation and robotic technology into the construction workplace is faced with significant barriers including high cost of entry, safety concerns, inadequate training and knowledge about robotics, and poor performance of robots in dynamic, cluttered and unpredictable environments such as construction sites.

To tackle these challenging issues, this workshop aims to facilitate discussion on technology that will enable advanced robotics for future construction workplaces with an emphasis on robust perception and navigation methods, learning-based task and motion planning, and safety-focused robot-worker interactions. In line with the ICRA's theme, this workshop will provide a venue for academics and industry practitioners to create a vision for robotics in construction work and ensure equitable participation in planning for the future of construction workplaces. The full-day workshop will feature presentations by distinguished speakers from both industry and academia as well as interactive activities in the form of a SLAM challenge, poster sessions, debate, and panel discussions

The workshop will be held as a hybrid event, and the session will be live-streamed to an online audience. All participants (in-person or online) must register for the workshop and tutorial through the ICRA registration page.

Workshop Papers

This workshop will solicit contributions in two tracks: (i) the Paper Track and (ii) the Poster-only Track.

Paper Track: This track consists of contributed papers that constitute novel, original research in construction robotics or closely related fields. Contributed papers cannot take the form of an existing paper that is published or under review. Contributed papers should be in the form of extended abstracts (about 3-4 pages in ICRA paper format, including references). Authors are encouraged to also submit an optional 2-3 minute video presentation of their paper if their work involves visualization, robot operation etc. The accepted contributed papers will be made publicly available on the workshop website. Authors of selected papers will be invited to extend their work into a journal paper for an upcoming special collection at the Journal for Computing in Civil Engineering.

Poster-only Track: This track consists of posters that can be either based on a prior publication or novel work. Authors with an original paper may submit it to both tracks (paper and poster). Accepted posters will be presented during the poster session on the day of the workshop in the hallway outside the conference room. Authors are expected to print out and bring their own posters to the workshop, though poster boards will be provided. Poster boards are 4'x 4'. There is no specific template for the posters. You should choose the format that best represents your research work.

Submissions can be made through this Google Form, where the paper or poster can be uploaded in PDF format. Deadlines given below are in Anywhere on Earth Time. Questions regarding the paper submission should be directed to chenjingdao@cse.msstate.edu.

Paper/Poster Submission Deadline: April 11 April 18, 2025, 11:59 PM AET

Paper/Poster Acceptance Notification: April 25, 2025, 11:59 PM AET

Camera Ready Paper/Poster Deadline: May 9, 2025, 11:59 PM AET


If you require an early decision notification due to having to apply for a visa, please contact chenjingdao@cse.msstate.edu


The topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Safe human-robot collaboration in construction tasks
  • Manipulation, path planning, navigation in dynamic and cluttered environments
  • Robust perception algorithms in cluttered and unstructured environments
  • Collaborative automation technology for heavy construction equipment
  • Automation in construction logistics
  • Wearable robotics / exoskeleton for construction workers
  • Drone technology for construction applications

Paper / Poster Awards

Submitted papers (Paper Track only) will be considered for the best research awards based on technical merit, originality, and potential impact on the field. In addition, submitted posters (Poster Track only) will be considered for Best Poster Awards, and in-person judging will take place on the day of the workshop. Best research awards come with $500 in total cash prizes generously sponsored by XYZ Reality (First place: $300, Second place $200). Best poster awards come with $1000 in prizes (claimable in the form of travel reimbursement), sponsored by the IEEE Technical Committee on Construction Robotics (First place: $500, Second place $300, Third place $200). Winners will be announced along with the NSS Challenge winners during the day of the workshop. Best research award winners will also be invited to give a 10-minute presentation on their paper during the workshop.

NSS Challenge

Nothing Stands Still 2025 Challenge: HILTI and the Gradient Spaces group from Stanford University are announcing the new Nothing Stands Still 2025 Challenge to tackle the critical task of seamlessly integrating progress scans from various stages of construction. Specifically, the challenge targets the task of multiway spatiotemporal 3D point cloud registration of data collected over time at construction sites. The goal of the challenge is to achieve a global spatiotemporal map of 3D point clouds collected at any time and location at the same construction scenes, as the latter evolve. The challenge website may be accessed here.

  • Challenge Starts: March 6th, 2025
  • Challenge Ends: May 7th, 2025, 11:59pm PST
  • Prize for the winner: $4,000 USD
  • Prize for the runner-up: $1,000 USD


Speakers

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Ayoung Kim

Seoul National University

Ayoung Kim works as an associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering at Seoul National University since 2021 Sep. Before joining SNU, she was at the civil and environmental engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) from 2014 to 2021. She has B.S. and M.S. degrees in mechanical engineering from SNU in 2005 and 2007, and an M.S. degree in electrical engineering and a Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan (UM), Ann Arbor, in 2011 and 2012. Her talk is titled "Enhancing LiDAR SLAM for Construction Sites: Ensuring Robustness and Versatility".

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Adrian Ferrier

Trimble

Adrian Ferrier is the Engineering Director for Civil Construction Field Systems at Trimble, one of the largest software companies building navigation and positioning systems for building & construction, agriculture, geospatial, and transportation sectors. His current research focus is automation on earthworks construction sites. His talk would cover recent experiences within Trimble on Autonomous Compacting and Trenching (Excavation), comparing construction vehicle automation with autonomy in agriculture, including deterministic vs nondeterministic path planning, and how machine work groups are tightly or loosely coupled.

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Borja Navas

HP Siteprint

Borja Navas is the Robotics Architect / Technologist and co-founder of Siteprint. HP SitePrint is a robotic solution designed to automate site layout in building construction. HP is combining its printing knowhow and robotics technology to revolutionize construction site layouts, bringing breakthrough efficiency.

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Lluis Abello

HP Siteprint

Lluis Abello is the Distinguished Technologist for the HP Construction Services division. HP SitePrint is a robotic solution designed to automate site layout in building construction. HP is combining its printing knowhow and robotics technology to revolutionize construction site layouts, bringing breakthrough efficiency.

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Val Tzvetkov

Skanska

Val Tzvetkov is the Director of VDC and Emerging Technology, overseeing the construction and emerging technology department for Skanska Metro New York's $800M -$1.2B yearly construction project portfolio.

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Sagar Manglani

Teleo

Sagar Manglani is the Perception Lead at Teleo Inc. where he is advancing autonomy for heavy machinery in construction by developing vision perception models for off-road environments. Prior to Teleo, he was a Senior Engineer at Ford and has studied artificial intelligence at Stanford University. His talk is titled "Leveraging Vision Language Models (VLMs) for Automated Image and Video Data Annotation for Construction Environments".

Program

09:00 AM

Workshop introduction and opening remarks

09:10 AM

Invited speaker

Adrian Ferrier - Trimble
09:35 AM

Invited speaker

Ayoung Kim - Seoul National University
Enhancing LiDAR SLAM for Construction Sites: Ensuring Robustness and Versatility
10:00 AM

Coffee break | Poster session #1

10:20 AM

Poster session #1 + poster competition

10:40 AM

Invited speaker

Borja Navas and Lluis Abello - HP Siteprint
11:05 AM

Industry lightning talks

Mihir Somalwar - Innovation Lead at Hensel Phelps
Henning Roedel - Founder at Hardhat Robotics
Bjarne Johannsen - CTO and Co-Founder at Sensmore
Cynthia Brosque - Founder and CEO at SafeAI
Conley Oster - Co-Founder at Raise Robotics
12:00 PM

Industry panel

12:30 PM

Lunch break | Poster session #2

01:30 PM

Poster session #2 + poster competition

01:50 PM

NSS challenge results

02:10 PM

NSS challenge winner award + presentations

02:30 PM

Invited speaker

Val Svetkov - Skanska
02:55 PM

Invited speaker

Sagar Manglani - Teleo
Leveraging Vision Language Models (VLM) for Automated Image and Video Data Annotation for Construction Environments
03:20 PM

Coffee break

03:45 PM

Best research award and best poster awards announcement

03:55 PM

Spotlight paper presentations

04:15 PM

Breakout groups

05:15 PM

End of workshop

06:00 PM

Social event - happy hour

Organizers

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Dr. Jingdao Chen

Mississippi State University

(Primary Contact Person) chenjingdao@cse.msstate.edu

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Dr. Yong K. Cho

Georgia Institute of Technology

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Dr. Inbae Jeong

North Dakota State University

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Dr. Chen Feng

New York University

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Dr. Liangjun Zhang

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Dr. Maurice Fallon

University of Oxford

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Michael Helmberger

HILTI

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Kristian Morin

XYZ Reality

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Borja García de Soto

NYU Abu Dhabi

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Iro Armeni

Stanford University

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Xi Wang

Texas A&M University

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Ci-Jyun Liang

Stony Brook University

Sponsors


This workshop is made possible thanks to the generous sponsorship of the following organizations: