Robot completes critical tasks at 1,000 ft mid-air, 300% more efficient than manual labor
Prabhat Ranjan Mishra
A Minnesota-based glazing firm is using a robotic system to install high-rise glass panel bracket. Harmon is installing the latest technology with the help of Raise Robotics and Universal Robots. For high rise fastener installation, the robotic system has improved worker safety, as well as consistency and precision.

The companies revealed that construction workers need extensive safety rigging to install glass panel brackets up to 1,000 ft. into the air.

Don Birmingham, general superintendent at Harmon Inc., revealed that safety has always been the company’s priority.

Two powerful UR20 arms
“If you can efficiently do a job and take all the safety risks out of it, I think any contractor would sign up for that. As far as the workers, I think they’d much rather be inside the handrail operating a robot than hanging off the edge of the building,” added Birmingham.

Raise Robotics uses two powerful UR20 arms from Universal Robots as a platform for innovative onsite construction robots. The Raise system takes on repetitive and dangerous tasks, such as installing fasteners for glass façade panels on high-rise buildings.

Harmon, the leading glazing company in the U.S., is an early adopter that has seen fast ROI (Return on Investment) with the robots, while improving worker safety and improvements in installation. The robots provide a 3X multiplier on manual labor and see payoff within one 13-floor project, according to Universal Robots.

Efficient robotic arms integrate into a DC power solution
Gary Chen, co-founder of Raise Robotics, stated that Universal Robots has done a great job of making their arms very power-efficient, as well as making it easy to integrate into a DC power solution. “We can directly connect our arms to the battery and have our robots operating fully, wirelessly on a construction site,” said Chen.

The company revealed that for façade brackets, the manual process typically requires two to four workers. In comparison, the Raise robot requires only one person to manage the robot per installation location.

“It’s a 3X multiplier on traditional labor,” said Conley Oster, co-founder of Raise Robotics. The multiplier provides fast ROI for the robot, typically providing breakeven for the robot at about 13 floors based on monthly lease and amortizing the robot across the number of installations on each floor.

Oster highlighted that in manual installs, around 30% of all fasteners typically aren’t installed in the right spot. Using the Raise robot in conjunction with total stations allows the company to accurately place fasteners on the building’s edge or within the building’s core.

“We can install within plus or minus three sixteenths of an inch, which is far superior to what we’ve seen in manual installations,” said Oster.

Raise Robotics also revealed that the system also includes software that provides immediate insight and historical logs of on-site data. This gives exact torque values and alignment for every bracket in real-time, as opposed to random quality inspections that are typically done a few times on each floor, according to the company.