Bedrock is automating earth-moving equipment to improve site safety and fill skilled labor shortages. | Credit: Bedrock Robotics
Bedrock Robotics Inc. has deployed fully autonomous, retrofitted heavy excavators onto active infrastructure projects in Texas and Nevada. These AI-driven heavy equipment projects directly address the construction industry’s severe labor shortages, safety hazards, and cost overruns.
As the U.S. faces a looming labor crisis—with over 40% of theconstructionworkforce expected to retire within five years—Bedrock said its technology comes at a pivotal moment for national infrastructure ambitions. Backed by $350 million in venture capital and led by formerWaymoautonomy veterans, the startup’s plug-and-play retrofit system turns complex, high-risk earthwork into software-driven operations.
The San Francisco-basedcompanyasserted that it is helping the physical economy transition from digitalAIconcepts to self-orchestrating machine fleets on live job sites.
The first few projects for Bedrock Robotics include a water treatment facility in partnership with Sundt Construction in Nevada, 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 Corp.
What is the scope of the current projects? “Right now, we’re doing a lot of clearing earth, like the early earthwork, cut and fill operations, the prep work for foundations, the prep work for the big sort of like rough cuts ahead of more detailed work,”Kevin Peterson, chief technology officer of Bedrock Robotics, toldThe Robot Report.
While Bedrock’s design will eventually enable retrofits of existing late-model excavators in the future, right now, the company is only deploying new equipment that has been outfitted and tested at its headquarters. Peterson said he expects that by the end of the year, thecompanywill be running on partner equipment.
Safety is the No. 1 priority for system deployment, according to Peterson.
“We can’t compromise safety,” he said. “[The machines] operate around people; water trucks drive up, and the machine has to react. That’s really what we care about. So when you’re outfitting [existing] machines, one of the things you start to run into is we care about all the sensors on the machine. We care about signals coming back and about the machine health.”
The Bedrock systems can work safely without an operator in the seat. “The system monitors itself, and it looks to see what it’s doing, whether it’s making progress, and it’ll call home if it gets stuck,” explained Peterson. “If it gets stuck, there’s a process for managing that.”
Having a “person in the loop” ensures that the operations are successful, while minimizing interruptions onsite, said Bedrock.
Bedrock has begun to operate autonomous excavators without an operator in the cab. | Credit: Bedrock Robotics