Research Status Quo and Trends of Construction Robotics (2023-09)¶

Labor shortage and low labor productivity are critical issues in the construction industry. Robotics, as a powerful technology to improve productivity in the digitization era, is being used to assist in addressing these problems. Particularly in recent years, interest in construction robotics research has risen remarkably. To gain a deeper understanding of this burgeoning research field, this study provides a bibliometric analysis of 498 related papers retrieved from WoS (Web of Science). Performance analysis and science mapping were used in the paper to identify the research trends, relationship among authors, top publication sources, regional activities, as well as knowledge base and dominant research sub-fields. The results indicated that the number of papers focusing on construction robotics has been continuously growing since 2013. “Automation,” “system,” and “design” have been the most addressed topics in construction robotics. The findings are indicative of identifying the deficiencies in existing research and provide directions for future research. Those include greater attention paid to the experimental results of on-site construction robots, while ignoring the impacts of practical construction situations, and the development of off-site construction robots needs more support. For theoretical research, there is a lack of studies on human–robot collaboration workflow and management models. Therefore, the study would be valuable in providing practitioners and researchers with a better perspective on the development of construction robotics and facilitating the building of the intellectual wealth of robotics in the construction industry.