Bedrock Robotics announced this month that excavators equipped with its AI system are now operating fully autonomously on customer sites.

Equipment outfitted with the technology is performing autonomous excavation at three sites: a Nevada-based water treatment facility in partnership with Sundt Construction, a multi-million cubic yard earthwork site with Champion Site Prep in Texas, and a 1.2 million cubic yard civil sitework project with Zachry Construction Corporation.

Bedrock Robotics says these deployments are a first step toward “fleets that can self-orchestrate across machine types to plan, share, and execute jobs on a construction site at a pace and scale the industry has never seen.”

The technology retrofits existing fleets with a sophisticated sensor and compute suite in one day, requiring no permanent changes or new machinery, the company says.

Training consisted of tens of thousands of hours in the field. The learning model enables the machine to perceive its environment, plan its motion, and execute complex tasks autonomously once a site manager sets the initial plan.

Bedrock Robotics-outfitted excavators can operate in normal site conditions alongside other equipment and do not require operational barriers for safe operation. If a person or unauthorized object gets too close, the excavator stops automatically until the area is clear, the company says.