Water and Effluent Treatment Magazine
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/843774
6 WET NEWS JULY 2017 News+ Let's get digital • Digital engineering techniques, such as drones, building information modelling, and data analytics, are fast becoming common things but Balfour Beatty is predicting human-free construction sites by 2050. Maureen Gaines takes a look in the company's crystal ball. P icture the scene, if you will, a construction site that is human-free as robots work in teams to build complex structures using dynamic new materials. Unmanned aerial vehicles, bet- ter known as drones, fly over- head scanning the site, inspect- ing the work and using the data collected to predict and solve problems before they arise. Then drones will send instructions to robotic cranes and diggers and automated builders with no need for human involvement. The role of the human overseer will be to remotely manage multiple projects simultaneously, accessing 3D and 4D visuals and data from the on-site machines, ensuring the build is proceeding to specification. The very few people accessing the site itself will wear robotically enhanced exoskeletons and will use neural-control technology to move and control machinery and other robots onsite. Sound far-fetched? Not to international infrastructure group Balfour Beatty. This scenario is the scene-setter in the group's new paper Innovation 2050: A Digital Future for the Infrastructure Industry, where it has examined the pace and rate of change within the industry, with digital technology the catalyst and driver to such change; change that is already happening and is inevitable. Balfour Beatty says: "Technology has already revolutionised contemporary life to such an extent that it's not so hard to imagine radical changes for construction not least the emergence of new roles and the requirement and evolution of new skills to support delivery of the future pipeline of construction projects."