Construction companies PCL and Pomerleau Construction are teaming up with Intel, Microsoft and internet-of-thing (IoT) company Latium to bring innovation to construction in Canada. To start, the two construction companies and three tech companies brought Boston Dynamics’ ‘Spot’ robot dog to Cadillac Fairview’s 160 Front Street project in Toronto.
Spot first appeared on a Pomerlau site in Montreal back in 2019, and now PCL will send it to a couple of job sites to further study how Spot can help improve workflows.
While on job sites, Spot will sport several add-on technologies, all of which feed data into Latium’s ‘Job Site Insights’ smart construction platform. For example, Spot will have 360-degree cameras, a Leica RTC360 laser scanner, Latium’s environmental air quality sensors, GPS sensors and more.
Additionally, Latium enabled Spot’s data to be aggregated and displayed “on a single pane of glass,” which appears to mean tablets judging by the below video. That allows job site personnel to view real-time information and quickly respond to changing job site conditions and events. There’s a strong safety aspect too, with Spot able to get into dangerous or hard-to-reach spaces.
The Spot tests could lead construction companies to invest in robotics and other technology to help modernize job sites, improve worker safety and more.
Previously, Spot was deployed to monitor factories in South Korea and also saw a stint in the French army.