The HumanTech model
Pioneering a groundbreakinghuman-centred constructionautomation model
HumanTech addresses the most important challenges faced by the European construction industry today — making it safer, greener and more efficient.
To disrupt the way construction projects are conducted by a new generation of highly skilled professionals, enabling them to work in a safe, rewarding, digital and sustainable environment.
Achieving major breakthroughs in cutting-edge technologies with a human-centred design.
The technology we are developing
They will be able to navigate autonomously and safely in highly unstructured environments, collaborate with humans and dynamically update a semantic digital twin of the construction site in which they are. Visual information capture will be extended to multispectral images, which will allow detecting the material composition of constructions, besides their geometric characteristics.
From exoskeletons activated by body sensors for posture and strain to wearable cameras and extended reality (XR) glasses that provide real-time workers’ location and guidance for them to operate efficiently and accurately.
They will allow simulating the current state of a construction site in detail, at the geometric and semantic level, based on an extended Building Information Modelling (BIM) formulation that contains all relevant structural and semantic dimensions (BIMxD). These will act as a common reference for all human workers, engineers and autonomous machines.
With our innovations, we aim at:
A 10x increase in the adoption of exoskeletons in construction, five years after the end of the project.
A 30% decrease in construction worker injuries — currently, 44 million workers in the EU suffer from workplace-related musculoskeletal disorders, leading to a total annual cost of €240 billion.
A 20% minimum reduction in waste and CO2 emissions through digital twin monitoring, avoiding construction errors and non-optimal use of materials.
A 50% decrease in safety inspection time.
An identification rate of fall hazards at 90% using HumanTech’s Dynamic Semantic Digital Twin (DSDT).
Our impact
HumanTech will have an impact at the scientific, societal and techno-economic levels that will enable to achieve advances such as these.
SCIENTIFIC
Create a new green, flexible and digital way to build and produce goods. This will lead to sustainable, flexible, responsive and resilient factories and value chains, enabled by digitisation, AI, data sharing, advanced robotics and modularity.
Accelerate the twin green and digital transition of the manufacturing and construction sectors.
SOCIETAL
Set out a credible pathway to contributing to climate-neutral, circular and digitalised energy-intensive industries.
TECHNO-ECONOMIC
Increase productivity, innovation capacity, resilience, sustainability and global competitiveness of European energy-intensive industries.
Make the jobs of the humans working in the manufacturing sector more attractive and safer.
Sustainability and inclusiondimensions
HumanTech’s advancements will:
Construction is responsible for:
- 40% of global energy consumption,
- 38% of global greenhouse gas emissions,
- 12% of global potable water use,
- and 40% of solid waste generation in developed countries.
Decarbonising the sector is critical to achieving the Paris Agreement commitment and the United Nations Sustainable Developments Goals.
Today, design and construction processes are planned to compensate for errors that may arise with manual execution, for which a considerable amount of resources are used. Our technology will enable us to automate these processes, increasing their accuracy and making more efficient use of materials.
Construction remains a male-dominated industry. Women make up only 9-10% of its total workforce worldwide and those on the front line are even fewer, approximately only one for every 100 employees in the industry.