Lotte Engineering & Construction is introducing automated construction technology, already used at U.S. building sites, to its inter-regional road project in Saemangeum.
The company said on the 1st that it will apply smart construction solutions from Spanner, a construction automation firm, to Section 1 of the Saemangeum inter-regional connecting road. The stretch runs 9.22 kilometers from Haseo-myeon in Buan to the junction with the inner arterial ring road.
The site will use three-dimensional machine guidance, which compares the working positions of excavators and dozers with design drawings in real time. Operators can immediately check excavation and embankment boundaries, reducing surveying and rework while improving construction accuracy, according to the company.
Equipment operation records, design drawings, drone surveys and inspection and progress data will be managed together through Spanner's cloud platform, Infrakit. The setup allows the site and headquarters to track progress based on the same data.
Spanner has applied its automation technology at more than 60 construction sites in the United States, including data centers and energy and infrastructure projects. Some of its solutions can cut construction time roughly in half while requiring fewer workers, the company said.
The deployment is part of a proof-of-concept project that Lotte E&C and Spanner are carrying out through an open innovation support program run by the Korea Institute of Startup and Entrepreneurship Development.
"After verifying how well the smart earthworks platform applies and performs at the Saemangeum site, we plan to build a model that can be expanded to similar earthworks and infrastructure sites," an official at Lotte E&C's technology research institute said.
