ARC Industrial Transformation Research Hub for Human-Robot Teaming for Sustainable and Resilient Construction

Overview

​The construction industry is moving into a new era of intelligent automation, where success depends as much on integration and collaboration as it does on technology itself. The Hub brings together expertise across engineering, computer science, social science, and management to ensure that innovation supports real-world needs, from workforce wellbeing to regulatory and industry expectations. Through research in intelligent robotics, human centred design, digital construction, and data driven quality assurance, we are building the foundations for a future where humans and robots work as genuine partners.

​Our ambition is to establish Australia as a world leader in sustainable, resilient, and human focused construction. By uniting seven universities and a broad network of industry and international collaborators, the Hub is creating the knowledge, methods, and tools that will enable safe, intuitive, and effective human robot collaboration, transforming both the capability and culture of the construction sector for the long term.

The construction industry accounts for an incredible 36% of worldwide energy use, 40% of CO2 emissions and 44% of all waste. The Australian construction industry generates over $360 billion in revenue, contributing 9% of GDP, and employing 1.14M people in 2021. However, due to its labour-intensive manual operations, the industry has experienced issues relating to low productivity growth over the past 80 years, severe shortages of skilled workers, workplace hazards, high injury and death rates, high energy use, and sustainability. Recent innovations such as building information modelling (BIM) and digital twins cannot by themselves solve these issues.

Deploying autonomous robots or machines is not a feasible solution, as existing robots cannot operate fully autonomously at construction sites, which are typically unstructured, chaotic, and dynamic. Fully autonomous robots also raise significant concerns about job security, quality assurance and societal value. An ideal solution to overcome these issues is Human-Robot Teaming (HRT), which combines the strengths of humans with the strengths of intelligent robots. HRT is humancentric and can enable the construction industry to become resilient and sustainable, and meet the three pillars of Industry 5.0.

Objectives

The objectives of this project aim to transform the construction industry by:

1. Developing human-centred technologies
2. Making the well-being of people the most important priority in developing technologies for the construction industry
3. Conducting truly interdisciplinary research for real practical applications.

Industry Outcomes

This project aims to deliver the following key industry outcomes:

1. Human-centred HRT technologies for smart construction and associated manufacturing
2. Human-friendly robotic systems for deployment in construction and prefabrication

AI and robotics enabled new methods for planning and managing construction projects.