While Google has been testing their driverless car for months and months, with mixed results, the construction industry will actually be the first to enjoy the benefits of the developing technology.
Royal Truck & Equipment has developed a driverless Truck Mounted Attenuator (TMA) truck that they hope will save lives and reduce injury of construction workers on highway work zones. We see the non-driverless trucks everywhere, their purpose is to follow behind a road crew as a highly visible warning sign to other drivers on the road. They have an impact absorbing attachment on the back of the truck that reduces the damage from impact that these trucks experience daily.
The Autonomous TMA (ATMA) truck was created because Royal Truck & Equipment realized that it was a bit silly that in order to protect drivers and workers ahead of the truck, they had a human driving the truck whom would be susceptible to injury.
“I can tell you that these things (TMA trucks) are hit almost on a daily basis and they actually save lives,” said Robert Roy, President of Royal Truck & Equipment.
With the help of Micro Systems, developer of many different unmanned military vehicles which also save many America lives, the ATMA has become a reality and will hit streets soon. It works by using GPS data from the vehicle in front of the leader car, which tells the ATMA how fast and in which direction the leader car is moving.
Removing humans from being a shield for injury is obviously a step in the right direction, though it is still a bit scary to trust a vehicle driven by a computer system. It will be interesting to see if and how this technology could be adapted to other situations in the construction industry in years to come.
According to NBC News, the first ATMA truck is expected to be on Florida streets later this year.
Video below shows a demonstration of the ATMA in action:
Back in 2015, engineers at MX3D made a huge announcement: they were going to 3D print a steel pedestrian bridge on-site. That plan has been altered slightly in the nearly 3 years since the announcement, but the group recently completed printing the full span of the bridge.
[guest post] The “fatal four” are falls, electrocutions, struck by an object, and caught in/between. Falls alone cause over half of the deaths in construction. With today’s technology, the fatal four could be a thing of the past.
Once upon a time, Dropbox was a place to store your files on the cloud. Now, users are demanding much more collaboration with their files and their teams, so Dropbox has been evolving to meet those needs. Much like other technology companies in Silicon Valley, Dropbox has taken note of the opportunity for growth that the construction industry offers due to general unwillingness to adopt new technologies in the past. The company recently announced that they are forming partnerships with several construction technology companies like PlanGrid and Aconex.
Setting up the software environment for construction projects in your organization should be fast and easy. Learn how to get started and align it with your company & team structure.
The construction industry uses too much paper. Ignoring any environmental impacts that may cause, the continued widespread use of paper in the industry is terrible for productivity and efficiency. Construction companies are burdening their employees with tedious paperwork instead of allowing them to excel at their actual jobs. It also greatly hampers collaboration with other team members or customers.
As the construction industry moves further away from handshake deals and getting work solely based on relationships, the importance of marketing your construction company outside your core customers is becoming more and more important. While many companies still don’t have a website, most have at least some sort of online presence.
Over the years, the World of Concrete has become one of the premier construction events across the country. The name may make you think it’s strictly related to concrete, but the truth is that anyone in the industry can find value in attending the massive event. Each year, the Most Innovative Products featured at the World of Concrete are chosen and Hanley Wood, a construction information and marketing company, recently announced the winners.
Caterpillar, a company known for their rugged heavy construction equipment, made headlines in the construction technology world in 2016 when they released the first ever smartphone with a built-in thermal imaging camera, the CAT S60. The company announced on Thursday that its ultra-rugged flagship smartphone would be getting an upgrade with the upcoming release of the new CAT S61.
Tracking progress on any jobsite is extremely important for your schedule and budget. But, as the project grows larger, tracking progress becomes that much more difficult. How do you accurately determine the percentage of work that the subcontractors have completed across 10 stories and hundreds of thousands of square feet?