Built Robotics Unveils Autonomous Pile Driving Robot, Expediting Solar Rollout

Built Robotics has introduced an autonomous pile driving robot that will help build utility-scale solar farms in a faster, safer, more cost-effective way, and make solar viable in even the most remote locations. Called the RPD 35, or Robotic Pile Driver 35, the robot can survey the site, determine the distribution of piles, drive piles, and inspect them at a rate of up to 300 piles per day with a two-person crew. Traditional methods today typically can complete around 100 piles per day using manual labor.

The RPD 35 was unveiled today at CONEXPO-CON/AGG in Las Vegas, the largest construction trade show in North America and held every three years.

The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act “Building a Clean Energy Economy” section includes a goal to install 950 million solar panels by 2030. With solar farms requiring tens of thousands of 12- to 16-foot-long piles installed eight feet deep with less than an inch tolerance, piles are a critical component of meeting that target.

Tyler Parker is Construction Tools and Technology Manager for Black & Veatch, a $4.3 billion Kansas City-based contractor that installed over 3.5 million kilowatts of solar by 2021, some of that with Built Robotics. ”Utility solar construction is ripe for disruption, and automation will be critical to get us to our clean energy goals,” he said. “Automation in solar farm construction — for example pile driving — frees up skilled labor to focus on more complex tasks and increases the speed and accuracy of building power infrastructure. Pile driving is a difficult and dangerous task, with tens or hundreds of thousands of piles to install on a single solar farm. Automation helps us build faster, safer and more accurately.”

Built Robotics founder and CEO Noah Ready-Campbell said, “The RPD 35 is our second fully-baked commercial product, after the our trenching product. Like many autonomy and robotics companies, we spent the first couple of years prototyping. The RPD 35 builds on our Exosystem autonomous platform, which is really the brain of the system. We use the Exosystem along with a number of other components to transform an excavator into a pile driving robot.”

Built Robotics made the strategic decision to focus on the solar industry rather than across multiple verticals. Ready-Campbell explained, “The demand for solar in particular is just off the charts. It’s very much becoming the dominant use case for us from a trenching standpoint. If we look forward over the next five or ten years, we think that it’s going to grow tremendously. The RPD 35 isn’t just an automation success story, but it’s also an electrification and renewable energy story.”

Construction labor shortages are significant, with The Homebuilder’s Institute’s 2022 Construction Labor Market Report estimating a shortage of 300,000 to 400,000 positions each month. An aging workforce and difficulty recruiting newcomers to the industry means that too many workers are leaving, and there aren’t enough new workers coming in. The result is not only project delays and cost escalation, but additional strain on existing workers that can lead to overwork, fatigue, worksite injuries, and those workers leaving construction. These shortages, and their impacts, are exacerbated at remote sites such as solar farms, threatening the nation’s ability to meet the Inflation Reduction Act’s goal.

In addition to alleviating the staffing shortage, construction automation is viewed by many as a means to keep workers safe while improving productivity. Automation and technology can also be used as a recruiting tool for digitally native younger workers to join an industry traditionally viewed as being very labor intensive and a challenging career choice. In fact, in a National Association of Home Builders survey, 63% of adults ages 18 to 25 who have not yet selected a career industry say there is little or no chance they would consider a construction career.

While construction robots first began showing up on the jobsite in the 1960s and 1970s, their use and applications have broadened in the recent past. Advanced Construction Robotics has a reinforcing bar (rebar) tying tool called TyBOT and a rebar carrying and placement robot called IronBOT. Built Robotics’ Exosystem is an aftermarket upgrade for excavators that allows them to operate autonomously. The company recently acquired Roin Technologies, known for its concrete robots. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has even been developing autonomous technologies to build structures on the moon.

Despite the significant labor shortage, a natural tension exists about job security and workers being replaced by robots. Construction robotics companies are proactively addressing these concerns by focusing their efforts on repetitive and hazardous tasks. Construction Robotics offers a weightlifting robot and a semi-automated masonry (SAM) robot, and is quick to note, “There’s no substitute for experienced workers: we designed SAM to assist your team, not replace them. SAM reduces physical wear and tear, allowing employees to focus on exceptional results every day.” Built Robotics has even partnered with the International Union of Operating Engineers. Since 2020, the IUOE and Built Robotics have been working together to develop a new curriculum for autonomous training called a “Robotic Equipment Operator” for IUOE’s 400,000 members.

IUOE General President James Callahan asserts that training workers helps their careers, saying “Together with Built Robotics, we have pioneered a model of engagement between the Union and advanced technology providers to give our members continued opportunities to learn and develop their careers. Our partnership with Built has and continues to receive very positive feedback.”

Ready-Campbell adds, “Robots are just tools for the next generation of construction workers. If you look at the canal age, the Erie Canal was built in the 1800s with pickaxes, shovels, mules, and wheelbarrows. It was an extremely manual task. A few decades later you got to steam shovels. Fast forward again you got to diesel equipment, but it was cable-driven rather than hydraulic. And then in the 1970s and 1980s is really when you saw hydraulic equipment begin to dominate construction. So this has happened before and we’re just in the middle of the next renovation in construction equipment. We’re going from human-operated hydraulic equipment to computer-operated hydraulic equipment. If you look at it in that context, it doesn’t feel quite so new or quite so scary. It’s just the fourth wave of new means and methods that can be used for construction.”

The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. Check out my other columns here.