Case Study

Identifying the Challenges to Adopting Robotics

in the US Construction Industry
Piyush Pradhananga, S.M.ASCE 1; Mohamed ElZomor, M.ASCE 2; and Gabriella Santi Kasabdji, S.M.ASCE 3

Abstract: The construction industry has been plagued with a labor shortage, poor productivity, high material wastage, and unsafe working
conditions predominantly due to monotonous and labor-intensive activities. Unlike construction, other industries have successfully adopted
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prefabrication, automation, and robotics to enhance their productivity, safety, and sustainability throughout their processes. However, the con-
struction industry is unable to fully integrate such groundbreaking technologies due to various challenges. To date, there is scarce research that
identifies and documents the existing barriers to the usage of robotics, particularly within the United States construction industry, thus impeding
the mainstream adoption of robotics due either to a lack of identifying such challenges or poor understanding of them. The goal of this study is
to identify the documented barriers to adopting robotics in the US construction industry, which in turn can support a profound understanding of
such barriers as well as informing the construction industry and academic researchers about how to look for solutions for these barriers. This
effort of identifying the challenges to using robotics is the foundation to support and advance the adoption of such technology by, for example,
fulfilling the need to provide robotic training for the future US workforce. To achieve this goal, this research targeted high-quality journals from
ASCE as well as the ScienceDirect library and, as a result, identified 14 unique barriers through a critical literature review of 291 research
articles published between the years 1980 and 2020. The study specifies unique findings that contribute to construction management, including
planning, productivity, practices, workforce education and development, and construction automation, bodies of knowledge by identifying the
challenges behind the uncertain adoption of robotics in the US construction industry. The findings of this research are also critical to the
profession in terms of understanding the myths associated with the uncertainty impacts of using robotics in relation to our future workforce.
The US construction industry needs to initially realize the benefits, target the barriers based on difficulty of resolution, and then exploit op-
portunities through addressing the barriers that impede the integration of robotics, which could ultimately bring about a sustainable paradigm
shift in construction practices. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0002007. © 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.

Background and Motivation
In recent years, advancement in technological development, such
as robotics, has triggered an interest in exploring the applications of
these automated technologies to facilitate diverse construction
trades (Everett and Saito 1996). To this end, the off-site automation
of prefabricating and modularizing building components has not
only guaranteed reduction in construction costs and facilitated meet-
ing targeted schedules, it has more importantly improved safety.
However, in the US, only a small percentage of construction com-
panies have effectively integrated robotics prefabrication in their
projects. Despite such low adoption of robots, there has been con-
stant research on automation and innovative robotics technology that
could be incorporated into construction sites. One groundbreaking
1 have mainly focused on international construction industries rather
Ph.D. Candidate, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
Florida International Univ. College of Engineering and Computing, 10555
West Flagler St., Miami, FL 33174. Email: pprad013@fiu.edu
2
Assistant Professor, Moss School of Construction, Infrastructure and
Sustainability, Florida International Univ. College of Engineering and Com-
puting, 10555 West Flagler St., Miami, FL 33174 (corresponding author).
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7734-9601. Email: melzomor@
fiu.edu
3
Master’s Student, Moss School of Construction, Infrastructure and
Sustainability, Florida International Univ. College of Engineering and
Computing, 10555 West Flagler St., Miami, FL 33174. Email: gsanti122@
fiu.edu
Note. This manuscript was submitted on April 11, 2020; approved on
October 16, 2020; published online on February 19, 2021. Discussion per-
iod open until July 19, 2021; separate discussions must be submitted for
individual papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Construction En-
gineering and Management, © ASCE, ISSN 0733-9364.
technological innovation is the three-dimensional (3D) printing ro-
bot, which has the ability to print structurally safe concrete bridges
and buildings (Kim et al. 2018). Another is humanoid robotics
technology such as an exoskeleton, which combines human intel-
ligence with the power, speed, and efficiency of a robotics system
attachable to a human body, thereby providing the ability to handle
tight and challenging tasks (Kim et al. 2019). Despite these new
innovations, the construction industry has yet to take complete
advantage of the unlimited possibilities that these new technologies
offer. Although various industries have fully explored and de-
pended on the use of robotic technologies, including the automotive
and medical fields, the widespread use of robotics in construction
has been delayed due to several barriers (Bryson et al. 2005).
Although some studies have attempted to identify some barriers,
particularly for specific activities within construction, such studies
than the US region. To date, research studies have not initiated a
comprehensive analysis that identifies the barriers impeding the
mainstream adoption of robotics in construction activities in the
US. Therefore, to fill this literature gap, it is imperative to advance
the construction body of knowledge in the United States by con-
ducting a rigorous literature review to identify and assemble the
scattered possible barriers related to adopting robotics into one
reference.
Do Robots Have a Role within the US Construction
Industry?
Robots, since their development in the 20th century, promise nu-
merous advantages and advanced applications for construction

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 activities (Haas et al. 1995). Nof (1999) highlighted that robotic
glazing machines are widely used for installing glass panels, particu-
larly in high-rise buildings, to minimize fall hazards and substitute
for the costly use of cranes. Similarly, semi-automated mason 100
(SAM100), a bricklaying robot developed by Construction Robotics
(New York), lays 2,000–3,000 bricks per day with the use of a robotic
arm and gripper, conveyor belt, and concrete pump integrated into its
system (Schraft et al. 2000). Also, automated data collection at con-
struction sites has become easier with the use of unmanned aerial
vehicles (UAVs) and robotic drones (Autor 2015). Lattanzi and
Miller (2017) also indicated that robotic technologies can be used
for horizontal infrastructure projects mainly due to conventional
maintenance practices causing traffic congestion, delays, and threats
to workers and motorists; consequently, a robot prototype such as
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the tethered mobile router robot has been found to be useful for in-
frastructure maintenance activities (Louis and Dunston 2017).
Therefore, the US construction industry needs to bring a paradigm
shift to its practices by adopting robotics through initially identifying
and analyzing the barriers to inform the construction industry and
academic researchers about looking for solutions for these barriers.
Window of Opportunities to Adopting Robotics in
Construction
The US construction industry is in desperate need of innovative
solutions to resolve its declining state and increase its quality, pro-
ductivity, and safety. The construction industry not only struggles
to deliver projects that meet their targeted budgets and schedules
but is also affected by safety hazards, which in turn disrupt the con-
struction progress. Technological innovations such as robots and
automated devices are launching a significant leap forward, over-
coming many construction limitations (Davila Delgado et al. 2019).
From construction processes such as surveying to enhancing work-
ers’ performance and 3D-printing entire structures, robotics has the
potential to replace or support various processes and applications in
construction. These benefits indicate that integrating robotics in
construction supports improving sustainability efforts (Sethi and
Kang 2016). With proper incorporation of these automated technol-
ogies in different construction activities, projects become more
sustainable through potentially reducing waste, addressing climate
change, increasing productivity, and so on (Song et al. 2006).
Therefore, adopting robotics in construction offers an aggregate
value to companies by increasing competitiveness, creating new
job opportunities for skilled workers, and ultimately bolstering eco-
nomic growth. Furthermore, in the last decade, there has been a
growing interest in research and development in construction such
that the industry can transition from manual labor to automated sys-
tems in different construction processes. To the best of the authors’
knowledge, there is no literature that has studied or collectively
discussed all the barriers that impede such transition in the US con-
struction industry, and this study addresses the literature gap. Hence,
there are three main guiding questions in this study: (1) What are the
frequently used research keywords that represent robotics in con-
struction? (2) What are the scattered and documented challenges
in the literature that discuss the adoption of robotics technology, par-
ticularly for the US construction industry? and (3) What are the
rankings of the identified barriers based on the complexity levels
or difficulty of adoption that can inform industry practitioners
and researchers to explore ways to tackle them effectively?
Methodology
Although numerous scientific journals have previously proposed
robotic technologies in the construction industry, those studies
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focused on either a particular construction technique or a specific
application of this technology that may be applicable to only one
region. Therefore, this paper contributes to advancing the science of
construction engineering and management education and automa-
tion by identifying and exploring the barriers to adopting robotics
in construction, which ultimately promises to advance construction
practices, particularly in the US. To achieve this, the study phased
the methodology into three sequential steps: we (1) conducted a
scientometric review of literature obtained from the Scopus data-
base to create an overlay visualization map of research keywords
that explores evolving research topics related to robotics in con-
struction from 1960 to 2020; (2) collected research articles from
ASCE and the ScienceDirect library using keywords from a scien-
tometric review of literature, then conducted a screening process to
identify the literature applicable to the objective of identifying the
barriers delaying the integration of robots into the US construction
industry and finally tabulated the barriers; and (3) validated the
identified barriers through a pilot survey to industry professionals
in South Florida, as shown in Fig. 1.
Methodological Approach to Phase 1: Scientometric
Review of Literature
The scientometric approach has been found to be effective to un-
cover the patterns, connections, relationships, and trends in scien-
tific papers, and it has been used in this study as reported by Cai
et al. (2019) and Chen et al. (2019). The scientometric approach is
used for visualizing the knowledge structure and identifying the
main research keywords that represent the evolving research topics
related to robotics in construction within the US. In this method,
bibliometric data are used to identify patterns from the established
links among different literature concepts (Cai et al. 2019). Given
that the main focus of the study is to identify the barriers through a
manual literature review, the results of the scientometric review laid
the foundation to support the search criteria during the critical lit-
erature review. Initially, the authors conducted a pilot search in dif-
ferent major databases, including Web of Science, Scopus, and
Engineering Village. Then, the authors compared the results from
these databases and found that Scopus covered the results from all
other databases. Therefore, Scopus was selected as the main liter-
ature database. The authors downloaded a comma-separated value
(CSV) file of 58,356 studies related to robotics in construction
using Scopus. To achieve this, the authors used basic search options
in Scopus and conducted a search using “Construction” and
Robotics within all fields OR “Construction” and Automation
within all fields OR “Construction” and Artificial Intelligence
within all fields. This resulted in 390,784 articles, which were then
filtered based on subject area “Engineering” and relevant keywords
such as Robotics, Mobile Robots, Construction Industry, Automa-
tion, Construction, Construction equipment, Artificial Intelligence,
and Buildings. Consequently, this resulted in the 58,356 final se-
lected articles. Hence, the downloaded CSV file included literature
from different publications, including Automation in Construction,
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and ASCE
publications such as Journal of Civil Engineering Management,
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, and Jour-
nal of Computing in Civil Engineering, among others available
since 1960. Because papers published before 1960 were not avail-
able in the electronic database, this literature was not included within
the scientometric review. Afterward, the CSV data were uploaded
into VOSViewer (Van Eck and Waltman 2017), which is a free Java
application used to generate an accurate distance-based visualiza-
tion network that facilitates easier identification of the frequently
used keywords in the literature related to robotics in construction.
J. Constr. Eng. Manage.
 Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3

Identify the main research

Identify and document the barriers Validate and rank the identified
keywords from literature related
Goal impeding the adoption of robotics in barriers based on their difficulty
to robotics in construction
the U.S. construction industry level
published within 1960-2020

Conduct manual literature review of Conduct pilot survey to industry

Conduct scientometric review of
Method 291 research articles from ASCE and professionals in South Florida to
literature using VOSViewer
ScienceDirect library validate the barriers

Use Scopus to download database Use identified keywords in ASCE Use Likert scale to rate the
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containing 58, 356 scientific and ScienceDirect library to impact of barriers from 1
Instrument
literature download research articles (insignificant impact) to 5
(severe impact)

Develop an Overlay Visualization Develop a bar chart representing the

frequency of each barriers’ repetition Develop box plots representing
Graphical map for most frequently used
from 1983-2020 and provide a table the industry professionals’ rating
Results keywords in different literature
with details about each barrier to each of the barriers

Fig. 1. Three sequential phases for the research framework.

VOSViewer generated an overlay visualization map that consisted
of items represented by a circle. Each of these circles formed dif-
ferent clusters of a keyword. The size of the circle was determined
by the weight of an item (i.e., the cooccurrence of keyword within
different articles). The higher the weight of an item, the larger the
circle of the item. Items can have various attributes in VOSViewer,
and two standard weight attributes referred to as the link and total
link strength attributes were analyzed in the study. For a given
item, the link and total link strength attributes indicate, respec-
tively, the number of links of an item with other items and the total
strength of the links of an item with other items. In this approach,
the strength of the cooccurrence links between keywords is rep-
resented by the number of publications in which two terms occur
together.
Methodological Approach to Phase 2: Qualitative
Analysis through Manual Literature Review
Following the scientometric review in VOSViewer, the highest
recurring keywords within these articles were identified. Some
of the identified keywords include Construction with “Humanoid
Robot,” “Sensor,” “Robotics,” “Artificial Intelligence,” “Building
Information Modeling,” “Automation,” “Virtual Reality,” “Neural
Network,” “Information Technology,” “Fabrication,” “Automatic
Generation,” “Smart Home,” “Augmented Reality,” and “Internet
of Things.” By using the aforementioned keywords in the advanced
search options for ASCE and the ScienceDirect library, the authors
manually evaluated literature associated with the use of robotics
technology in construction that included journals such as Journal
of Construction Engineering and Management, Journal of Man-
agement in Engineering, Automation in Construction, Robotics
and Autonomous Systems, and Advanced Engineering Informatics,
among others. The impact factor of a journal is determined by the
number of citations received by the journal from other journals
within the Scopus database (Bairagi and Munot 2019). Because
ASCE and Science Direct journals have high quality and impact
factors and are the most commonly used resources for literature
review within the civil and construction engineering discipline, they
were selected as the search platform for this study. The ASCE and
Science Direct library does not include literature associated with ro-
botics in construction before the year 1983. Thus, the authors se-
lected literature from 1983 to 2020 to obtain the factors delaying
robotics adoption in construction, focusing on a specific region,
the United States, as a case study. Consequently, by selecting the
aforementioned journals, keywords, and dates in the advanced search
option of the library, around 9,537 scientific papers were obtained
from the journals in the ASCE and ScienceDirect library. For a com-
prehensive literature review, the search criteria and screening steps
were established as shown in Fig. 2. The study used the following
search criteria: (1) using the identified keywords to cover as much
high-quality literature as possible, (2) focusing on new technological
trends in the US construction industry, (3) manually reading each
research article to identify the barriers impeding the integration of
robotic technologies in construction, and (4) categorizing and clus-
tering the barriers into groups. Considering these criteria, screening
to identify the appropriate literature followed several steps: ini-
tially, journals that did not focus on the US construction industry
were disregarded, and the duplicates were eliminated. The remain-
ing research articles were manually reviewed, and those unrelated
to the specific research objective of identifying the barriers that
impede the incorporation of robotics in the US construction indus-
try were eliminated.
The study used a manual literature review approach for proper
evaluation of the ideas and content analysis in the research articles.
As such, this approach provided profound insights into the develop-
ment of adopting robotics in construction such that the key barriers
delaying its integration could be identified. Because it is critical to
identify these barriers to inform construction industry and academic
researchers to look for solutions, the current state of the original
research can be efficiently synthesized and analyzed by delving
into these research articles. Thus, this methodology should be rep-
licable by other scholars to expand the study by proving solutions
to those barriers or repurposing the methodological framework to
other construction trades or technologies.

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Fig. 2. Search criteria and screening steps adopted for manual literature review.
Methodological Approach to Phase 3: Pilot Survey to
Industrial Professionals in South Florida
In this pilot phase, the authors surveyed 26 prominent representative
construction firms in South Florida to validate the identified barriers
as well as to rank the barriers based on their difficulty so that it
would inform industry practitioners and academic researchers to
target the easiest barriers in the future. The authors developed a
questionnaire survey related to the challenges of using robotics
in construction using an online tool, Qualtrics, and the survey
was distributed using the contact information of each company.
In particular, the survey was distributed to the Construction Indus-
try Advisory Council (CIAC) at a minority-serving institution in
South Florida with an R1 standing. The CIAC consists of 43
representative industry professionals who are actively connected
with academia; those members provide input and feedback to in-
form the future of the construction industry regarding educational
objectives, service efforts, research projects, and other technologi-
cal priorities (Moss School of Construction Infrastructure and
Sustainability 2020, Associated General Contractors 2020). CIAC
members are also representatives in the accreditation body, Ameri-
can Council for Construction Education (ACCE), of construction
programs across the US and the world. That said, CIAC members
maintain a strong voice and support the adoption of modern tech-
nologies in the construction industry. Thus, this research opted to
pilot and test one region within the US construction industry, so the
pilot survey focused only on South Florida. According to the South
Florida Construction Market Opportunity Report (2018), only 87
construction firms are digitally savvy, and many others have an
aversion to change in terms of integrating robotics and artificial
intelligence (AI) technology in the construction industry. Also,
the South Florida region is lagging in terms of adopting robotics
in construction projects, unlike other states like California and
New York, among others (Noghabaei et al. 2020). According to
Hill (1998) and Doody and Doody (2015), a pilot study sample
should be 10% of the sample projected for the larger parent study;
therefore, professionals who represented 26 prominent construction
firms in South Florida, that is, 60% of the total members of the
Construction Industry Advisory Council, responded to the survey
questionnaire, which is adequate to reflect a representative sample
for this pilot sample study. The Construction Industry Advisory
Council members rated the barriers that have impacted robotics
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Output
3,000 (ASCE) +
6,537 (ScienceDirect)
2,347 (ASCE) +
5,999 (ScienceDirect)
452 (ASCE) +
448 (ScienceDirect)
291 scientific papers
adoption in the US construction industry by evaluating each barrier
on a 5-point scale: 1 (insignificant impact), 2 (minor impact),
3 (moderate impact), 4 (major impact), and 5 (severe impact). Then,
the obtained results were analyzed using descriptive statistics and
graphically represented with box plots.
Results
This section represents the results of the three phases: (1) con-
ducting a scientometric review of 58,356 research articles from
the Scopus database and screening them to meet the research ob-
jective, (2) managing a critical manual literature review of 291 re-
search articles published within high–impact factor journals within
the ASCE and Science Direct libraries, and (3) carrying out a pilot
survey of industry professionals related to their perceptions of the
barriers and their complexity. Manuel et al. (2019) indicated that
the extent of robotics adoption is low in the construction industry
in many countries around the globe; therefore, this study further
embraced the previous literature by conducting an expanded critical
literature review to identify the existing barriers to the adoption of
robotics in construction, which are individually dispersed across
the ASCE and Science Direct papers focused primarily on the
US construction industry. After reviewing and evaluating the 291
screened journals, the authors identified 14 main barriers. These
barriers were categorized based on Manuel et al. (2019) into four
main themes: (1) economic challenges (i.e., economic feasibility
and business model and contract stifle collaboration), (2) industry-
intrinsic challenges [i.e., weak innovation culture, low research and
development (R&D) investment, intense competition, resistance to
change, and the nature of the industry], (3) workforce challenges
(i.e., unskilled workforce, job security, easy access to labor, and
robot–human interaction), and (4) technological challenges
(i.e., complex implementation of robots, immature technology,
and lack of standardizations). The results of the scientometric re-
view of literature, critical literature review, and pilot survey are
discussed in the subsequent sections.
Results of Phase 1: Scientometric Review of Literature
For the first stage, the authors conducted qualitative analysis
through a scientometric review of the literature. Approximately
J. Constr. Eng. Manage.
 Table 1. Clusters and cooccurrence of keywords from scientometric analysis
Total link Average
Keyword Cluster Links strength Cooccurrence citations
Automatic construction 1 3 4 85 0.4141
Automatic generation 1 5 8 57 0.664
Neural network 1 17 47 609 1.2034
Support vector machine 1 7 8 80 1.2262
Particle swarm optimization 1 8 12 68 1.7169
Wireless sensor network 1 3 4 135 1.1128
Ant colony optimization 1 3 3 112 1.0936
Smart home 1 9 13 86 1.5719
IOT 1 12 20 94 1.6878
Deep learning 1 9 17 72 2.8932
Artificial neural network 2 11 11 159 1.6892
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Information technology 2 5 6 70 1.4429

Data mining 2 7 11 108 1.1711
Trend 2 10 21 142 2.4188
Innovation 2 6 8 144 1.1465
Artificial intelligence 2 17 29 430 1.3991
Machine learning 2 9 10 145 1.6213
Virtual environment 3 7 8 250 0.6382
Teaching 3 10 14 78 0.6788
Robotics 3 5 9 98 1.3275
Augmented reality 3 11 19 135 1.1321
Humanoid robot 3 5 6 64 1.187
Virtual world 3 3 5 77 0.9779
Fabrication 4 5 16 112 0.8759
Robotic system 4 6 12 196 0.9292
Robot 4 26 150 2,317 0.7758
Sensor 4 16 78 389 0.9544
GIS 5 3 9 75 0.7533
Virtual reality 5 13 28 364 0.9542
BIM 5 11 37 503 1.3566
Manipulator 6 9 32 408 0.8348
Mobile robot 6 10 27 321 0.8064
Path planning 6 8 35 90 2.4136
Robotic 7 17 42 416 1.1688
Lattice 7 2 3 100 1.3314

58,356 articles were downloaded in comma-separated value format
from Scopus and analyzed through VOSViewer to develop an over-
lay visualization map, as shown in Fig. 2. To obtain the optimal
network map, following steps were adopted, as indicated by Cai
et al. (2019): (1) the minimum number of occurrences of a keyword
was set at 50; (2) for succinctness of the visualization map, key-
words that were not closer to the research themes were eliminated
from the visualization, such as “system,” “model,” and “manage-
ment”; and (3) 35 keywords were thus obtained and used to gen-
erate a cooccurrence network. In this approach, for each of the
frequent keywords in the overlay visualization map, the total
strength of the cooccurrence links with other keywords was calcu-
lated, and the keywords with the greatest total strength were se-
lected and verified through the VOSViewer tool. The closeness
of the keywords in the literature is demonstrated by their physical
separation in the visualization map. The keywords in Table 1 are
also categorized into different clusters, where the keywords in the
same cluster have a higher probability of being costudied and are
represented by similar colors. Based on the scientometric theory,
each of the clusters specified a major area with closely related lit-
erature, and each cluster consisted of keywords that represented its
major characteristics. For instance, in Cluster 2 (lower left in Fig. 3),
“artificial intelligence,” “data mining,” “machine learning,” and
“neural network” suggested the evolving use of AI technology,
whereas “augmented reality,” “humanoid robot,” “virtual world,”
and “virtual environment” obviously indicated the research area
of new robotics technology in construction, representing Cluster
3 (lower middle in Fig. 3). Similarly, Table 1 shows the results
of a scientometric review of the literature with keywords catego-
rized into five different clusters with their corresponding frequency
of cooccurrence of keywords in literature, links between the key-
words, their strength, and average citations of the literature.
The Scopus database consists of a relatively low number of re-
search articles from 1980 to 2000. As such, the VOSViewer soft-
ware highlighted most of the cooccurring keywords during recent
years, as shown in Fig. 3. A bar at the bottom-right corner of the
overlay visualization map provides information about the year of
publication of the literature when the keywords were most fre-
quently used in scientific papers. For instance, keywords such
as building information modeling (BIM), deep learning, and the
Internet of Things (IoT) were most frequently used in literature
published in recent years (2015–2018), with frequencies of cooccur-
rence 503, 72, and 94, respectively. Similarly, during 2010–2014,
terms such as machine learning, sensor, and artificial intelligence
were repeatedly used in literature, with cooccurrences of 364, 389,
and 430, respectively, whereas in early 2006–2009, the common
technical terms for robotics in construction included neural net-
work, mobile robot, and robotic, with occurrences of 609, 321,
and 416, as shown in Fig. 3. It is clear that in the last decade,
the terms used to refer to robotics implementation in construction
varied significantly, and it can be inferred that it is critical to use
these different terms during a literature search to identify the

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Fig. 3. Overlay visualization map for robotics keywords in construction literature from 1983 to 2020.

maximum number of journals that highlight barriers impeding ro-
botics technology adoption in construction.
Results of Phase 2: Qualitative Analysis through
Manual Literature Review
Through a critical evaluation of research articles based on the
search criteria and screening steps, 291 research articles were an-
alyzed graphically with a bar chart, as shown in Fig. 4. Further-
more, they were explicitly compiled into their respective barriers
through systematic tabulation of the references within an open
access data repository, Inter-university Consortium for Political
and Social Research (ICPSR), for easier accessibility and reproduc-
ibility of work published in this research (Pradhananga et al. 2020).
Fig. 4 shows the number of times each of the barriers has been
mentioned in the literature. Although between 2010 and 2019, sev-
eral publications focused more on the advantages and use of differ-
ent types of robotics in specific construction trades, few studies
have been geared toward identifying the barriers. Fig. 4 shows that
the majority of literature between the years 2010 and 2019 is more
inclined toward studying different robotics implementation chal-
lenges. For instance, out of 291 articles, 137 mentioned the nature

Frequency and Repetition of the Impeding Barriers to Implementing Robotics in

Construction

Business Model and Contract Stifle collaboration 2 5 3 20

Economic feasibility 13 22 7 34
Barriers Impeding Adoption of Robotics

Lack of Standardization and regulations 7 12 2 17

Immature technology 12 17 30 90
Complex implementation of Robots 8 21 14 65
Weak Innovation culture 8 52 30
Low R&D Investment 6 5 16
Intense competition 7 7
Aversion to change 6 7 1 28
Nature of Industry 13 20 10 94
Robot-human Interaction 4 52 17
Easy access to labor 23 1
Job Security 35 8
Unskilled Workforce 5 12 4 24
0 50 100 150 200
Number of Times Repeated (N= 291 articles)
1980-1989 1990-1999 2000-2009 2010-2020

Fig. 4. Bar chart representing the frequency of repeating each barrier from 1980 to 2020.

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 Expert Ratings
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Impact of barriers on adoption to robotic technology in the US construction industry
Fig. 5. Box plots representing a rating of industry professionals in the pilot survey.
of the industry as one of the key barriers. Fig. 4 shows that 68%
of the literature that mentioned this barrier was within the last
10 years. Similarly, although 149 articles mentioned that this tech-
nology is still too immature for the market, 60% of these were
during the last 10 years. Barriers such as immature technology
and the nature of the construction industry are the most-mentioned
barriers throughout the 291 articles, in addition to showing a sig-
nificant increase in literature in the last decade. This implies that, in
recent years, the importance of addressing these barriers has been
highlighted, so the industry and researchers became aware of their
significance.
Economic feasibility has constantly been mentioned in the lit-
erature since 1983. However, there have been fewer research efforts
to address economic feasibility barriers. Another observed litera-
ture pattern is that easy access to labor is primarily mentioned be-
tween the years 1983 and 1999, which could mean that researchers
and professionals no longer consider this a barrier. However, not
mentioning this barrier within the literature post-1999 could also
be the result of a lack of research focused on addressing this spe-
cific barrier. In the same category of workforce challenges, job
security is a concern throughout the entire timeframe of this study.
This could be due to misconceptions within the construction indus-
try because using robotics will potentially create new job opportu-
nities instead of threatening current positions.
Results of Phase 3: Pilot Survey to Industrial
Professionals in South Florida
The boxplot results show that economic feasibility, low R&D in-
vestment, complex implementation of robotics, and aversion to
change reflect major obstacles to robotics adoption, with a median
rating of 4, as shown in Fig. 5. Thus, these barriers with major im-
pact can be grouped as the most significant factors delaying the
adoption of robotics technology in construction, whereas other bar-
riers such as unskilled workforce, job security, easy access to labor,
business model and contract stifle collaboration, nature of the con-
struction industry, intense competition, weak innovation culture,
immature technology, and lack of standardization and regulation
have a moderate impact, with an expert rating of 3. Hence, these
barriers are grouped as moderately significant factors that can be
conveniently targeted for potential solutions in comparison to the
most significant factors. The industrial professionals’ ratings also
indicated that a barrier such as robot–human interaction has
© ASCE 05021003-7
J. Constr. Eng. Manage., 2021, 147(5): 05021003
minimal impact on the adoption of robotics technology, with a rat-
ing of 2, and such a minor factor is easier to target for industry
practitioners and analyze by academic researchers.
Discussion
Robotics construction addresses many complex challenges existing
in the US construction industry. However, its implementation in-
cludes several hurdles regarding their ownership, maintenance,
cost, applicability, knowledge, and so on. Given the economic ben-
efit and improvement in construction speed, productivity, and qual-
ity in addition to potentially enhancing some of the construction
challenges, several studies have encouraged exploiting the applica-
tion of robotics in construction. However, to achieve this goal, it is
critical to identify and understand the existing challenges in the US
construction industry and assess the long-lasting issues in terms
of whether all the barriers are equally difficult to tackle or vary
due to the rapid advancement of AI techniques and the associated
automation of the industry in the last decade. Hence, this study ad-
dresses the gap through a critical literature review of 291 articles as
well as ranking the identified barriers based on construction stake-
holders’ knowledge and experience. The least significant barrier,
which is easier to target by industry practitioners and analyze
by academic researchers, is robot–human interaction. Due to ad-
vances in artificial intelligence technologies, safety could easily
be achieved for interactions within the workspace between robots
and humans. Fig. 5 shows that robot–human interaction has been
considered one of the barriers with minor impacts, which indicates
that robotics and automated systems have the prospective to im-
prove workers’ quality of life, safety, and productivity. However,
their incorporation requires additional training to educate and de-
velop skills among workers specifically to deal with real-time is-
sues (Ahn et al. 2016). Such proactive and real-time skills could be
developed through problem-based learning pedagogical training
(ElZomor et al. 2018).
Moderately significant barriers that have a moderate impact
on the adoption of robotics technology are unskilled workforce,
job security, immature technology, lack of standardization and
regulation, business model and contract stifle collaboration, easy
access to labor, nature of the construction industry, intense compe-
tition, and weak innovation culture. The evolution of robotics au-
tomation and artificial intelligence technologies is transforming the
J. Constr. Eng. Manage.
 landscape of our future jobs, especially in the fields of architecture,
engineering, and construction (AEC). Despite the myth that these
technologies may lead to job displacements and robot–human in-
teraction may be hazardous, Kim et al. (2019) demonstrated the
need to advance and alter skill profiles such that they support eco-
nomic growth and safe execution of construction work by produc-
ing new work skills without having to replace jobs. Hence, barriers
such as unskilled workforce and job security could be addressed
through cutting-edge immersive training that improves workplace
preparedness for a more automated workplace. Job security is also
one of the labor unions’ main goals, and it is critical that stronger
labor union forces not only support conventional job opportunities
but also encourage the alteration of skill profiles for robotics adop-
tion such that the construction industry can benefit from the
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Georgia Tech Library on 02/19/21. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
dynamic abilities of robots along with the efficient decision-making
abilities of the human workforce. On the other hand, even though
robotics technology has been found to be suitable for repetitive
work in modular construction, it is still an immature technology
designed to perform the programmed task, where sudden changes
in any construction parameter could disrupt construction operation
(Chen et al. 2014). As such, the safety, efficiency, and productivity
of robotics integration may highly depend on standard rules and
regulations, and the industry professionals indicated that develop-
ing proper guidelines for effective implementation of robotics in a
wide range of construction activities is essential for its adoption,
which agrees with the results obtained in Fig. 5. There are also chal-
lenges associated with the high possibility that different construc-
tion stakeholders have different perspectives on robotics activities,
which significantly impacts their adoption. These challenges could
be referred to as business-model and contract types, which obstruct
the integration of robotics technologies because they have often
been repeated within recent literature. Such economic challenges
in robotics adoption in construction conclude that a robust eco-
nomic analysis could be critical to accelerating the adoption of ro-
bots in the construction industry. A relative comparison of Japan’s
robotics adoption in construction indicates that the workforce short-
age acted as governance for the implementation of robotics with
less resistance, which bolstered the construction workforce during
a shortage of manpower. On the other hand, the United States has
constant and easy access to labor that may be considered an imped-
ing factor to the adoption of robotics (Ibbs 1986). To this end, even
though easy access to labor was mentioned mostly between 1985
and 1994, it has been included in the analyses due to its potential
impact on adopting robots within the US construction industry.
Similarly, another barrier imposing a significant impact is the
nature of the construction industry. Construction sites require tech-
nologies that go beyond assembly-line production in a controlled
environment because conventional technologies cannot independ-
ently make decisions, especially during construction (Hatami et al.
2019). Considering that there is intense competition among con-
struction firms, taking or adopting new technologies for construc-
tion processes poses a very high risk to the bottom line (Chen et al.
2018). Furthermore, efficient coordination and communication
among designers and contractors are critical for the integration
of innovative technologies within construction tasks. However,
construction stakeholders are less inclined toward promoting the
research and development departments in US construction firms,
which negatively impacts the adoption of robotics and AI technol-
ogies. Consequently, such a weak innovation culture and inefficient
coordination between designers and contractors in terms of promot-
ing innovative technology are more likely to make the integration
of robotics in construction more arduous. Therefore, the literature
supports the expert ratings of industry professionals in terms of the
© ASCE 05021003-8
J. Constr. Eng. Manage., 2021, 147(5): 05021003
difficulty level of tackling the aforementioned barriers that have a
moderate impact on the adoption of new trends in construction.
The most significant factors that reflect a major impact on
the adoption of robotics in the US construction industry are eco-
nomic feasibility, complex implementation of robotics, aversion
to change, and low R&D investment. Economic implications, such
as high initial capital investment, low return on investment, and low
profit, among others, are principal barriers affecting the incorpora-
tion of robotics in construction (Lim et al. 2010). Although the
adoption of robotics in construction can, in fact, reduce costs in
the long run, many companies are reluctant to invest due to uncer-
tainties in such emerging technologies as well as the high economic
risk for the companies (Autor 2015). Because companies are reluc-
tant to test new technologies with high capital investments, eco-
nomic feasibility and aversion to change have been identified as
major barriers impacting adoption of robotics technology in the
US construction industry, as indicated by the box plot in Fig. 5.
The construction industry has been highly unautomated for a long
time and has maintained significant aversion to change in terms of
incorporating construction technologies such as robotics in con-
struction practices. This reflects a need for systematic and complex
steps, including manufacturing specific robots for the majority of
construction activities, training workforces to operate robots, and
guaranteeing safety during robot–human interactions within the
construction environment (Bock and Linner 2016). Hence, the dy-
namic and high-risk nature of the construction industry is one of the
major factors contributing to the complex implementation of ro-
botics technology in construction tasks. Many construction practi-
tioners also have a perception that research is too distant from
construction practices and claim that research does not yield profit
in such a trade (García de Soto et al. 2018). This can be observed in
Fig. 3, which shows how low R&D investment and budget were
basically absent throughout the years 1983–2009 despite gathering
momentum during the last decade. These patterns indicate that the
industry needs to gradually increase investment in research and de-
velopment of robotics technology for construction such that there is
a paradigm shift in the perception of professionals toward the in-
corporation of robotics technology.
Conclusion
Robotics and automation in construction is an applied pedagogy
that fosters sustainable construction practices. The lack of knowl-
edge related to the identification of multiple barriers correlated with
the integration of robotics is the primary factor delaying the main-
streaming of such technologies within the US construction indus-
try. Robotic technologies provide efficiency, safety, productivity,
flexibility, and several other benefits in construction activities. De-
spite these benefits, their adoption has been slow; therefore, this
study identified 14 barriers and could be seen as an opportunity
to address each barrier such that the advantages of robotics tech-
nology could be exploited in the US construction industry. The em-
pirical contribution of the study is that it identifies main keywords
synonymous with construction robots from journals published from
1980 to 2020, as well as analyzing the pattern of the barriers
existing in the US construction industry in the last 40 years. It
was observed that all of the identified barriers except intense com-
petition were mentioned from 1980 to 1989. Such a distinct pattern
indicates that during this time frame, the barrier was not identified
in the literature as an impeding factor for the integration of robotics.
On the other hand, between 1990 and 1999, all 14 barriers were
repeated at least once, which indicates that researchers gradually
realized the influence of such barriers. Furthermore, based on
J. Constr. Eng. Manage.
 the expert ratings from Construction Industry Advisory Council
members, economic feasibility, low R&D investment, complex im-
plementation of robotics, and aversion to change reflect major fac-
tors impeding the adoption of robotics technology in construction
in terms of their difficulty of resolution. Therefore, the findings of
this study inform construction industry practitioners and academic
researchers to initially target other barriers that are easier to address.
Despite extensive efforts to combine and identify the major bar-
riers hedging against the adoption of robotics in the US construc-
tion throughout the years 1983–2019, there still remain some
limitations to this study: (1) the authors mainly focused on journals
from the ASCE Library, mainly due to their high impact; (2) to the
best of the authors’ knowledge, the collected articles are the ones
available, yet there might be a limited number of unconsidered
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Georgia Tech Library on 02/19/21. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
journals; and (3) the pilot survey focused only on South Florida
to simply test one region within the US construction industry as
a potential replicable case study; however, future studies can focus
on different regions and address the problem based on different
cultures, gross domestic products, technology applications, organi-
zational structures, and labor policies, among others. Future studies
could research possible solutions to implementing construction
practices that integrate the role of robotics within different con-
struction activities for large-scale and small-scale projects. The
research could also focus on developing training programs that ed-
ucate the future workforce to operate and maintain new technolo-
gies, as well as increasing awareness about the existing barriers and
potential benefits. To this end, human civilization has experienced
various restrictions during health pandemics or natural hazards
where humans cannot support and contribute to construction activ-
ities. Robots being a flexible technology may be a good alternative
workforce to reduce the disruption of construction activities during
natural or artificial hazards. Although robotics and automated
technologies have played a significant role as first response recov-
ery technology in unstructured and dangerous environments post-
disaster (Habib et al. 2011), their potential use in hazardous
construction projects has yet to be explored. Therefore, a compre-
hensive understanding of the barriers impeding the integration of
robotics in construction will foster an increased awareness among
construction stakeholders, which in turn will not only help in ac-
celerating mass adoption of this technology but can also provide
an advantage during health pandemics or natural hazard recovery
phases. Hence, it is significant to adopt robotics technology such
that there is a proper balance between design and construction in
the initial stages. The study promotes sustainability efforts, embra-
ces efficient and safer construction practices, promises higher qual-
ity with increased productivity, and encourages efforts that foster
automated technologies within the US construction industry.
Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code generated or used during the
study are available in a repository or online in accordance with
funder data retention policies. The data can be accessed through
an open access data repository, Inter-university Consortium for
Political and Social Research (ICPSR) (https://doi.org/10.3886/
E119966V2) (Pradhananga et al. 2020).
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge Valentina Ferrer Rivero and
Rubaya Rahat for their support and collaboration during the data
© ASCE
J. Constr. Eng. Manage., 2021, 147(5): 05021003
collection stages and analyses of the research study, which is grate-
fully appreciated.
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