Robotic Systems for the Processing of Residual Soil from Construction Projects

In recent years there has been an increase in the amount of soil removed from construction sites. Factors contributing to this trend include a steady expansion in construction demand, larger structures, and greater use of underground spaces. In urban areas such as Greater Tokyo, processing of the residual soil from construction work has become a significant social problem and serious impediment to the construction industry. Given the need to build more infrastructures to support what are increasingly sophisticated and diverse lifestyles, disposal of residual soil is a problem that must be solved and an issue of great concern to the people of Japan. This document contains the results from the first year of activity by the Technical Committee on Development Strategies for Robotic Systems for the Processing of Residual Soil from Construction Projects. Committee members include many engineers who bring with them vast on-site experience in construction work. We began by making a detailed view of how residual soil is currently processed, collating previous studies, and elucidating problem areas. Form this base, we develop three new viewpoints that we use to propose feasible robotic systems able to dispose of residual soil. While there are problems to be overcome in many of the component technologies before the robotic systems proposed in this paper can be realized, the proposals are nonetheless valuable as an indication of where the construction industry will be headed in the future.