Robotics Adoption in the Construction Sector: A Bibliometric Analysis of Current Research Trends and Future Directions

Robotics has substantially enhanced industrial productivity, service procedures, commercial operations, automated processes and given firms more competitive advantages than traditional methods. Hence, this study assesses robotics adoption research in the construction sector to reveal the current research trend while highlighting the future directions. Adopting a bibliometric approach, the study utilises the Scopus database as the data source. The keywords adopted for the search were (“Robotics” OR “Robots”) AND (“Construction Industry” OR “Building Industry” OR “Construction Sector”). Thereafter, the VOSviewer application software was used to analyse and generate the keyword co-occurrences according to the bibliographical data. The findings indicate that five research clusters represent the current trends of robotics research in the construction sector. These clusters include robotics construction design and management, robotic printing, robotic fabrication, robotics for construction safety, and automation and robotics for construction information management. The study concludes that robotics adoption in construction and demolition waste identification and sorting is the area that requires attention in the construction sector. This suggests that further research is necessary in this domain. Closing this gap will help to eliminate the issues associated with construction and demolition waste identification and sorting, guaranteeing that the construction sector meets sustainability standards.