Towards Intelligent Costruction Machines: the Gigabot

The shortage of skilled operators and increasing safety requirements in harsh environments like construction sites, forests, and mines demand innovation in construction machinery. Simplifying control and enhancing machine intelligence are essential to address these challenges. Inspired by robot-avatar concept, which enables remote human activity via intuitive interfaces, we explored how to improve construction machine usability, making them safer and accessible to untrained users. Motivated by this, we developed an industrial Gigabot architecture composed by cartesian control and teleoperation technologies. The system was validated operating a crane remotely at the Bauma 2025, the world's leading construction machinery fair. Thanks to the positive feedback received by crane operators and interest for potential application, the industrial partner is currently industrializing it.