Construction Survey Robots
Robotic and autonomous survey tools that capture site conditions and progress with less manual walking.
10 robots · 19 companies · from the Future of Built file
By trade
- Inspection · 3
- Survey · 3
- Aerial · 2
- Drilling · 1
- Earthmoving · 1
Robots
Civ Robotics
DJI Enterprise
Robotnik
Delair
Companies
- Built Robotics · San Francisco, United States · founded 2016
Aftermarket autonomy for excavators and pile drivers. The Exosystem bolts onto existing iron in a day.
- Civ Robotics · San Francisco, United States · founded 2018
CivDash autonomously stripes roads and civil sites - up to 16 miles of linework in a day, operators out of traffic.
- DJI Enterprise · Shenzhen, China · founded 2006
The default aerial camera on a jobsite. Dock-based autonomous capture for progress, survey, and the weekly flyover a GC actually uses.
- Xpanner · Santa Fe Springs, United States · founded 2019
Korean-founded, California-based autonomous excavation. Terrain modeling and machine control for civil cuts.
- Trimble · Westminster, United States · founded 1978
Earthworks machine control, layout, and the total station that still runs the civil site. The stack most GCs already own.
- Topcon · Tokyo, Japan · founded 1932
3D machine control and layout. Dozers and excavators that already know the surface.
- Leica Geosystems · Heerbrugg, Switzerland · founded 1819
Hexagon’s survey and reality-capture stack. The control network every layout robot still ties to.
- FARO · Lake Mary, United States · founded 1981
Laser scanners and the as-built that the superintendent still walks with a tablet.
- NavVis · Munich, Germany · founded 2013
VLX wearable mapping. Walk the job, leave with a point cloud.
- CHC Navigation · Shanghai, China · founded 2003
Huace GNSS, LiDAR, and the X500 survey UAV. Layout and mapping hardware from Qingpu that already flies construction corridors in 140 countries.
- JOUAV · Chengdu, China · founded 2010
VTOL mapping UAVs. The CW-15 covers kilometers of highway and pipeline that a quadcopter battery will not.
- BrightMaster Robotics · Shenzhen, China · founded 2018
bm-robot.com. Shenzhen BrightMaster. Leveling, coating, measuring, and a hoist - 5,000-plus machines on Chinese and overseas decks, not a prototype stand.
- August Robotics · Las Vegas, United States · founded 2018
Lionel marks CAD and BIM layouts on the slab so the chalk line is not the bottleneck. Las Vegas with yards in HK Science Park, Düsseldorf, Melbourne, and Shenzhen. Layout robot, not a survey toy.
- Optimotive · Windsor, Canada · founded 2020
IRIS walks the site for 3D and 360 capture so supers get as-builts without a surveyor shadowing every pour. Windsor, Ontario. EllisDon, Pomerleau, and Borea already ran it on construction and solar QA.
- Freefly Systems · Woodinville, United States · founded 2011
Astro is a U.S.-built commercial hexacopter for survey, inspection, and cinema payloads - Woodinville, WA. Designed, built, and supported in the Pacific Northwest for NDAA-aware enterprise flight.
- Inspired Flight · San Luis Obispo, United States · founded 2018
IF1200A is an NDAA-compliant heavy-lift hexacopter for industrial and public-safety payloads - San Luis Obispo. Universal payload rail for survey cameras, LiDAR, and jobsite sensors.
- Robotnik · Valencia, Spain · founded 2002
RB-SUMMIT / Summit-XL class AMRs carry scanners and cameras for construction inspection and survey - Valencia. Outdoor mobile base used on European Construction 4.0 pilots.
- Delair · Toulouse, France · founded 2011
DT46 and sibling fixed-wing UAVs map construction, mining, and linear infrastructure - Toulouse. Long-endurance survey without the multirotor battery swap every few minutes.
- Parrot · Paris, France · founded 1994
ANAFI USA is a NDAA-aware professional inspection drone made in the USA - Paris HQ, U.S. build for government and enterprise survey. Thermal and zoom for the roof and facade day a crew used to walk.
Frequently asked questions
- What does a survey robot do on site?
- It captures positions, scans or reality data autonomously so crews can compare as-built conditions to the plan.
- Which companies are on the construction survey robots list?
- Future of Built lists 19 companies here, including Built Robotics, Civ Robotics, DJI Enterprise, Xpanner, Trimble, Topcon, Leica Geosystems and FARO.
- Where are these companies headquartered?
- By headquarters: United States (8), China (4), France (2), Canada (1), Germany (1).
- How many of these robots are deployed?
- Of the 10 robots on this page, 10 deployed, per the Future of Built file.