Construction automation: Research areas, industry concerns and suggestions for advancement

Construction automation has shown the potential to increase construction productivity after years of technical development and experimenting in its field. Exactly how, and the possible benefits and challenges of construction automation, though is unclear and missing from current research efforts. In...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Automation in construction 2018-10, Vol.94, p.22-38
Main Authors: Chen, Qian, García de Soto, Borja, Adey, Bryan T.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Automation
Cluster mapping
Construction automation technologies
Construction industry
Data mining
Digital media
Documents
Productivity
Scientific papers
Social networks
Text mining
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Summary:Construction automation has shown the potential to increase construction productivity after years of technical development and experimenting in its field. Exactly how, and the possible benefits and challenges of construction automation, though is unclear and missing from current research efforts. In order to better understand the comprehensive potential of construction automation for increasing construction productivity and the associated possible ramifications, an objective and data-driven review of the use of automation technologies in construction was done. The review was accomplished by using text mining methods on publically available written documents, covering a wide range of relevant data including scientific publications and social media. The text mining software VOS Viewer and RapidMiner Studio were used to determine the most promising areas of research through the analysis of scientific publications, and the main areas of concern of industry through the analysis of text on social media, respectively. These research areas and concerns are summarized in this paper, and based on them suggestions for industry are made to help advance the uptake of automation in construction. [Display omitted] •Text mining provides an unbiased way to review the trends in construction automation.•Both social media and scientific publications are systematically analyzed.•Text mining provides clusters and association patterns for better interpretation.•Suggestions are provided to address benefits and challenges of implementation of automation.•Industry and academic efforts are aligned to advance construction automation.
ISSN:0926-5805
1872-7891
DOI:10.1016/j.autcon.2018.05.028