Closing the Loop: Discussing Automation and Realtime Supersensing with Brian Ringley

AEC Business

In this episode of WDBE Talks, we sat down with Brian Ringley of Boston Dynamics to discuss the role robots can play on-site when it comes to scanning and data capture. Our conversation covered the challenges of operating autonomously in construction, the importance of digital twins, and the renewed need for remote site access in a post-covid world.

Brian Ringley is the Construction Technology Manager at Boston Dynamics, a US-based robotics and engineering company. He currently oversees construction tech implementations and integrations for the Spot platform and recently collaborated with Trimble Inc. to help automate the capture of sensor data on construction sites.

“The ability to explore the ‘digital twin’ side of things was a real driving element of our strategic alliance with Trimble. But we quickly realized that the real value wasn’t in just ‘doing it once and doing it right’. Even if your model was updating every second, you need human intelligence to answer questions. But you can leverage these sensor tools to do quantification. You catch mistakes. You plan better. You leverage models and algorithms to answer questions for you because they have access to that frequently collected data as well.” Brian noted in our interview.

Our discussion covered-

The role dynamic sensing plays in pathfinding and adapting to challenging and changeable working environments.
The often unrealized benefits of ‘closing the loop’ of sensor data capture.
The potential role digital twins can play on-site.
The disruption, insights, and innovation that spun out from Covid.
The flexibility and practicality of modern, on-site automation.

You can meet Brian at our WDBE 2021 event on September 29, 2021, where he will be attending as a keynote speaker. You can r eview our program and register for the event at WDBE.org.