At a housing construction site in Gananoque, Ontario, a robot named Val plays a pivotal role in building 26 stacked townhouse units. Val has spent nearly two months laying concrete, performing a labor-intensive task essential to the project developed by Horizon Legacy, with a planned opening this fall.
Val's capabilities set her apart from typical construction workers; she can lift over 440 pounds and accomplish the work of approximately 20 tradespeople. While her employers acknowledge that she has room for improvement, they are optimistic that she can be trained to work more efficiently and eventually take on other repetitive tasks that she has not performed before.
Val is part of a broader movement towards incorporating robotics into construction, a sector that has been slow to adopt automated technologies. Horizon Legacy CEO Nhung Nguyen emphasized that Val handles the heavy lifting and repetitive work that many people prefer to avoid. She pointed out that employing robots like Val can significantly alleviate the labor shortages and high costs associated with traditional construction methods.
As Canada aims to build millions of homes in the coming years, the construction sector is urged to embrace innovative solutions, including the adoption of robotics. Val represents one of the few existing examples of automation in homebuilding. Nguyen stated that without Val, it would require three crews to handle the same volume of concrete, making construction slower and more complex.
In Sudbury, Ontario, researcher Steven Beites and his team are working on another prototype homebuilding robot capable of picking up, moving, rotating, and placing wall panels using automated processes and machine vision. Beites, an assistant professor at Laurentian University’s McEwen School of Architecture, noted that their goal is to create a system that can recognize which panel to handle and its appropriate position while avoiding collisions.
The urgency for integrating robotics in construction stems from an impending labor shortage in the industry. The Canadian Home Builders’ Association (CHBA) estimates that 22 percent of residential construction workers are nearing retirement within the next decade. An RBC report released last year projected a need for an additional 500,000 construction workers by 2030 to meet housing demands.
This labor crisis is particularly pronounced in regions like northern Ontario, where both trades shortages and increased labor costs intersect with limited construction seasons due to harsh winters. Beites pointed out that the construction industry is in decline, facing challenges in attracting younger, tech-savvy individuals.
CHBA CEO Kevin Lee highlighted the contrasting pace of robotics adoption between the auto sector and home construction, which primarily consists of smaller companies operating on-site rather than in large prefabrication factories. Lee expressed that the real estate industry's cyclical nature makes large investments risky, hence hindering innovation efforts.
Nonetheless, there is optimism within the industry as the cost of robotic technology decreases. Recent developments reveal initiatives such as Promise Robotics, a Canadian AI company that opened a new 60,000-square-foot warehouse in Calgary for off-site housing construction using AI-driven robots. This facility aims to produce up to one million square feet of housing annually, utilizing a "factory-as-a-service" model to allow homebuilders to access this technology without needing their own manufacturing capabilities.
Promise Robotics co-founder Ramtin Attar explained that their robots can perform tasks traditionally exclusive to human workers, including notching, cutting, nailing, screwing, and gluing. This technology enables the construction of housing components at a rate 60 percent faster than conventional methods, completing tasks that typically take three to four weeks in just two to three days.
Nguyen believes that robots like Val can revolutionize how homebuilders operate, potentially attracting individuals to the construction field by reducing the burden of menial tasks. She remarked that the construction industry has faced difficulty in attracting labor because many prospective workers are disinterested in monotonous jobs. Nguyen is confident that such innovations mark the future of construction, promising a shift in the industry landscape.
