Deep Neural Networks for Unsupervised Robotics in Building Constructions: A Priority Area of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR)

Abstract

Many effective quality systems to maintain the robots’ autonomous task expansion process in construction industries for various applications over the years have yet to be well established. This study, therefore, presents a simple deep/neural network algorithm to diverse robotics tasks on building construction—bricklaying, grasping, cutting materials, and aerial robot obstacle avoidance and highlight the strengths of these algorithms in real-world robotics applications in building sites. Our findings revealed that the amount of tasks robots encountered in real-world environments is extremely challenging for existing robotic control algorithms to handle. Also, our algorithm when evaluated against other conventional learning algorithms can be a more powerful tool with the capacity to learn features directly from data, making it an excellent choice for such robotics applications in building construction. In other words, our algorithm can teach robots the ability to “work,” “think,” “know,” and “understand” their surroundings. It can also improve customer satisfaction, speed up the building process, and improve the productivity of building development teams. This chapter, however, contributes to classifications of autonomous robotics application development in construction literature. Although the problem addressed in this chapter is based on building construction, the algorithms presented are designed to be generalizable to related tasks.