Safety of Ground Robot Operations in Construction Job Sites: A Qualitative Approach

Unmanned vehicles (UVs) are extensively used in the built environment on daily basis. Unmanned marine vehicles (UMVs), unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have helped construction managers in marine, ground, and aerial missions. While recent developments in the information technology have amplified the use of UAVs on construction job sites, use of UGVs and ground robots is still uncommon in construction. Historically UGVs were the main type of UVs that developed to take over dangerous or highly repetitive tasks in various industries. In the construction industry, UGVs have been mainly found helpful in post-disaster operations including structural health assessment. It is believed that UGVs will advance soon and replace construction equipment on job sites. Prior to bringing UGVs to construction job sites, it is important to develop risk assessment schemes that can help safety managers to decide on safe operability of UGVs. This paper presents a risk assessment scheme for UGV operations in construction environments by proposing a qualitative risk assessment model that integrates physical characteristics of the UGV and operation environment. These characteristics include UGV dimension, operation environment specifications, risks that exist within the environment, and construction workers proximity to the UGV. The paper further proposes the use of Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) technique to estimate the risks of UGV operations in less-known situations. A case study that shows use of a UGV on a job site is presented to show the applicability of the proposed model.