AUTOMATION AND ROBOTICS FOR CONSTRUCTION.

The potential for automated real-time data acquisition, process control and robotics for remote, large-scale field operations, such as those on construction engineering projects, is addressed. Classifications of technologies for automation and robotics in such operations include hard-wired instrumentation, remote sensing, analog, and digital telecommunications, optical data transmission, and others. Combining selected technologies with microcomputer-based software could facilitate analysis, design and control decision-making, and could provide a means of coordinating various discrete automated components or machines that must work together to perform field tasks. This paper also mentions categories of needs for such technologies on field oeprations, and potential barriers to implementation.