Autonomous construction equipment is often discussed as a new technology, but its development and use have actually been going on for more than 20 years, starting with the U.S. military.
On this episode of The Dirt, we learn how the past two decades have been shaping today’s autonomous equipment - not only making it safer and more productive, but also saving money.
It’s also getting more affordable, according to our guest, Bibhrajit Halder, founder and CEO of SafeAI. His company converts construction equipment into autonomous machines. That means no humans on the equipment at all, enabling them to work in places too dangerous for people.
These dozers, loaders and dump trucks can do everything by themselves, but they aren’t a good choice for every jobsite. In time, however, they will be, he says.
Though that brings fears of mass layoffs, he explains why that won’t be the case and how it could actually usher in the next generation for the industry.
So to find out more about what’s going on with autonomous equipment and what the future holds for this exciting technology, check out the latest episode of The Dirt.
Equipment World serves up weekly videos on the latest in construction equipment, work trucks and pickup trucks - everything contractors need to get their work done. Subscribe and visit us at equipmentworld.com!
Newsletter Signup: randallreilly.dragonforms.com...
In This Episode:
00:00 - SafeAI Autonomous Construction Equipment
00:26 - What Does SafeAI Do?
01:28 - Current Capabilities of Autonomous Construction Equipment
02:44 - History and Cost of Autonomy Technologies
05:13 - Why Autonomous Equipment Hasn’t Been Available Until Now
06:17 - Cost Savings and Productivity Improvements with Autonomous Equipment
07:49 - Why is Autonomous Equipment More Productive?
10:56 - Where Do All These Statistics Come From?
11:16 - What Jobs are Best Suited for Autonomous Equipment?
14:59 - The Future of Autonomous Construction Equipment
17:03 - Will Autonomous Equipment Take Jobs Away?
20:20 - How Autonomy Will Advance the Entire Industry
23:16 - Final Thoughts
AI Video Transcript:
Bryan Furnace
Today we're here to talk about autonomous equipment again. It's been a while since we've brought this subject up. Today we're talking with SafeAI just to give us a better understanding of what's on the horizon and how it's going to impact the workplace.
Bryan Furnace
Brought to you. Thank you so much for taking time to be on the dirt today. I really appreciate your time.
Bibhrajit Halder
Thank you, Bryan, and really excited to talk to you. I saw some of your previous episode. You are doing an amazing job, so looking forward to talking to you.
Bryan Furnace
Thank you. I really appreciate that. So for the audience, can you give us just kind of a brief overview of what SafeAI is doing in the excavating industry and kind of what you guys do overall?
Bibhrajit Halder
Absolutely. So we started here about seven years ago, about 100 people based in Santa Clara, California. What we are doing, we are going after the mining, construction, kind of the heavy industry, fuel taking that existing machine, truck, dozer loader, retrofitting them to make it fully autonomous. So it is a fully autonomous, really taking human driver off the unsafe area.
Bibhrajit Halder
No human oversight, no human in the loop whatsoever, making it fully autonomous, giving back to the operator whether it is a contractor or a subcontractor so they can get the job done more safely and more productively.
Bryan Furnace
And so I guess the big question I have, because this is such new technology, is what kind of capabilities does this equipment have at this point in time?
Bibhrajit Halder
Yeah. Then we, you know, think about it maybe a little bit about that. Tesla might not be a good example, but let me use Tesla's example. Like passenger vehicle guys already developed autonomy at a very high quality even if it is not fully there. But their problem is so much harder. They spend about $100 billion developing this solution.
Bibhrajit Halder
So why started from there? We are actually the bridge between what's going on in passenger bringing back to the heavy industry. So on the three critical piece, you need to drive things autonomously. You have a high quality of perception. You know what's going on around you. So you have a very high quality of perception. You have camera, lidar, radar, and then you have a high quality of decision-making process.
Bibhrajit Halder
What should we do? So all that factored into the solution, and the third one is all the component we had has to be very cost effective. We cannot put a, you know, half $1 million worth of hardware and a half $1 million worth of truck. Sure. So I think think about all those come. So these machines are very smart.\\\\\\
22 июл 2024
