WEIBUILD Liang Yanxue: The soul of construction robots lies in the parameterized expression of processes

The technical exchange meeting on "Accelerating the Research and Development of Construction Robots and Exploring New Models of Intelligent Construction" was held

On August 9th, in order to help cultivate core competitiveness, promote transformation and upgrading, and high-quality sustainable development, the 15th Pudong New Area Academic Annual Conference and the "Accelerating the Research and Development of Building Robots and Exploring New Models of Intelligent Construction" Technical Exchange Meeting were held in Shanghai Pudong New Area, hosted by the Shanghai Pudong New Area Science and Technology Association, jointly organized by the Shanghai Construction Engineering Group Co., Ltd. Science and Technology Association and the Shanghai Construction Engineering Group Academician Expert Service Center, and co organized by the Shanghai Engineering Technology Research Center for Typical Building Applications, the Shanghai Intelligent Construction Engineering Technology Research Center for Super Tall Buildings, the Engineering Construction Professional Committee of the Shanghai Civil Engineering Society, and the Engineering Construction Professional Committee of the Shanghai Construction Society.

Focusing on technological innovation, promoting intelligent and green construction, cultivating outstanding engineers, and supporting high-quality development.

Gu Bing, Secretary of the Party Group and Executive Vice Chairman of Shanghai Pudong New Area Science and Technology Association, Chen Xiaoming, Chief Engineer of Shanghai Construction Engineering Group Co., Ltd. and Vice Chairman and Secretary General of Shanghai Construction Engineering Group Science and Technology Association, Chen Jun, Minister of Innovation Service Department and Academic Department of Shanghai Pudong New Area Science and Technology Association, and other leaders attended the meeting. More than 300 technology workers, both online and offline, attended the conference. The exchange meeting was chaired by Zhu Yimin, Deputy Chief Engineer of Shanghai Construction Engineering Group Co., Ltd. and Chief Engineer of Shanghai Construction Engineering Group No.1 Construction Co., Ltd.

Dr. Liang Yanxue, founder of Shanghai Weijian Technology Co., Ltd., delivered a report titled "The Main Logic and Key Technologies of Digital Construction"; The report brings a lot of thoughts: as the main battlefield of the construction industry, how to use digitalization to upgrade the industry, how to use relevant technologies to digitize which points in the construction industry, and so on.

The scarcity of mature construction robot products is due to the lack of clear process parameters

Dr. Liang Yanxue, founder of Shanghai Weijian Technology Co., Ltd., believes in a report on the main logic and key technologies of digital construction that the labor cost in the construction industry is high, and robots should have appeared long ago, but there are few mature products so far. The main reason is that the industry cannot yet establish clear quality requirements, and to translate these quality requirements into process requirements using appropriate parameters, construction workers can only rely on repeated manual rework to improve the work. It is much more difficult to make construction robots than industrial robots precisely because the construction process itself does not have ready-made and clear parameters. For example, if a robot is used to plaster a wall, it is not possible to remove and re plaster the wall after one or two unsuccessful attempts. What it needs to ensure is a one-time success. Therefore, only when the ratio of materials such as water, mud, and sand, as well as parameters such as pressure and speed, are accurately expressed, can people "teach" a wall plastering robot how to work. On this basis, the robot can output stably. In this regard, the soul of robots does not lie in the machine itself, but in the expression of craftsmanship, which is still in the hands of construction practitioners. There is currently confusion between the concepts of digitization and informatization, which is one reason why digitization has not yet truly developed in the construction industry.

Taking "Since the introduction of welding robots, there have been fewer welding competitions" as an example, Liang Yanxue pointed out that this is because the basic logic of the entire industry has been overturned, and manual welding is no longer necessary. He emphasized, "True digitization is the starting point of disrupting an industry, not just the process of seeking efficiency from management

At the same time, he also pointed out that for construction enterprises, there are boundaries between management, engineering, and scientific issues, as well as between management logic, technical logic, and business logic, which cannot be arbitrarily defined. Forcing a simple management problem into a scientific one can complicate the problem and make it very difficult to solve. Because the basic scientific research required to solve such problems is often more suitable for universities and research institutes to carry out. But within the company, the so-called 'scientific difficulties' are often caused by improper management.

For the currently popular humanoid robots, Liang Yanxue stated that their influence within the robotics community is not as significant as in society. Because compared to the capabilities of mechanical hardware feet, the robotics industry generally places more emphasis on the potential value added by changes in hand form and breakthroughs in abilities. In his view, the essence of AI is to try different solutions to the same problem through big data, which is different from automated control that repeatedly solves the same problem using a single method. The strength of AI is not in achieving deterministic control, but in the process of quickly finding solutions in multiple spaces. If a humanoid robot uses dozens of joints to perform simple tasks such as screwing screws, which can be determined by up to four axes of "X", "Y", "Z" and "rotation" with a few parameters, it is actually a waste of resources.

How to empower construction robots better for engineering construction

It is reported that the other four speakers at the meeting also discussed with the industry how to better empower construction robots in the field of building robots, focusing on topics such as technological innovation and strengthening key core technology research and development. Yu Fangqiang, Information Director of Shanghai Construction Engineering Group Co., Ltd., delivered a report titled "Practice and Prospects of Empowering the Whole Life Cycle of Buildings with Digital Intelligence"; Teng Yanfeng, Director of the Equipment R&D Studio of the Fifth Engineering Company of Shanghai Machinery Construction Group Co., Ltd., delivered a report titled "Research and Application of Intelligent Welding Robots for Underground Continuous Wall Reinforcement Cages"; Wu Lianding, Director of the Engineering Equipment Research Institute of Shanghai Construction Engineering Group Engineering Research Institute, delivered a report titled "Research and Engineering Application of Box Culvert Automatic Trolley Frame Equipment"; Zhang Bo, Deputy Director of the New Technology Center at the Engineering Research Institute of Shanghai Construction Fourth Construction Group Co., Ltd., delivered a report titled "Research and Practice of Mechanized, Automated, and Intelligent Equipment".