At the vast construction site of Shanghai Pudong International Airport’s Terminal 3, a group of construction robots is racing against the clock alongside human workers, the ideal choice for carrying out repetitive, efficiency-intensive, and hazardous tasks. As the first large-scale application of robots in civil aviation infrastructure construction, their deployment highlights the significance of intelligent manufacturing and smart construction in building mega projects, experts said.
Consisting of 37 types of robots with different functions, they are under the command of a unified “brain” known as a construction robot cluster management system. It is the first application of such a system in a large aviation project. Tang Shengling, Senior Consulting Adviser at the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Research Institute’s Digital Economy Research Center, said the use of robots in the airport construction project is a significant step.
“The landmark application of clustered and systematic construction robots will provide a replicable Chinese model for the development of intelligent robotics and the smart upgrading of the construction industry,” Tang said. The terminal under construction covers nearly 1.5 million square meters, with a total floor area of about 1.96 million sq m, according to Zhang Yi, Deputy Director of the Terminal Engineering Department of Shanghai Airport Group’s Construction Division. “One of its most distinctive architectural features is the international terminal’s bird-shaped roof. Together with 17 gigantic bird-shaped columns, it creates the impression of a bird soaring through the sky,” Zhang said. “The project is expected to be ready in 2028, further supporting Shanghai’s development into an international aviation hub,” added Zhang. Qin Yi, Deputy General Manager of Shanghai Construction Group’s General Contracting Department, said the number of robots and the scale of their application in the project are unparalleled. Qin said the robots would reduce construction time by 20%, and trim the on-site workforce by about 35%.
For instance, a crew of three robots is doing the concrete flooring works continuously and efficiently, carrying out tasks of leveling, surface finishing and polishing. The crew is expected to complete about 700,000 sq m of structural and architectural flooring work for the project. The team consists of a four-wheel laser leveling robot, a crawler smoothing robot and a floor polishing robot, Qin said. The crew can process more than 1,000 sq m of flooring per day, and keep deviations in flatness to within a millimeter. The use of robots has not only saved construction time but also significantly reduced reliance on specialized labor, further ensuring the stability and quality of the construction process. “The introduction of robots for the project has made the construction process more advanced and intelligent, therefore improving the overall project’s quality and standard,” Qin said.
When comparing manpower and robot performance, robots can significantly improve first-pass welding and overall welding quality. The rework rate in traditional manual welding is typically close to 10%, but welding robots have virtually eliminated reworking.
Cao Qixin, Professor specializing in robot research at Shanghai JiaoTong University, said: “The construction industry involves highly complex workflows, and integrating multiple types of robots through an intelligent platform has significant importance.” Twenty-four robot models are currently being used in the terminal construction project. Based on their functions and applications, they are classified into three categories: on-site construction robots, construction management robots, and processing robots. Working in risky scenarios, they can perform highly difficult operations, eliminating the need for human workers to be directly exposed to hazardous environments such as high temperatures, toxic gases and flying sparks. Civil aviation engineering has the highest requirements for safety and precision, so robots must undergo reliability verification in real-world scenarios. The Shanghai project can serve as a model for the intelligent upgrading of infrastructure projects nationwide.
In highly repetitive tasks, robots are all-rounders capable of handling everything, including trivial chores. A security inspection robot, for example, is capable of agile movement and can take panoramic images on a construction site, allowing management to view any alarming scenarios and on-site conditions in real time. Another example is the cleaning robot, which can remove small stones and dust from construction floors via a fully automated operating system. The machine is capable of cleaning up to 500 sq m of floor area per hour. As for underground work, welding robots can reduce the workforce by 50% and improve efficiency by 30%. A large proportion of the robots being used on the project are made in China or have Chinese origins.
The new terminal will add 50 million additional annual passenger trips to the airport’s capacity. Shanghai Pudong International Airport received nearly 85 million passenger trips by the end of 2025, exceeding its design capacity of 80 million. China has a robot density of 166 per 10,000 workers, ranking sixth in Asia and 22nd globally, according to a report from the International Federation of Robotics. South Korea tops the rankings at 1,220, followed by Singapore at 818. Shanghai’s current density level of robots is 500. If it reaches the target of 600 by 2028, it would rank third behind South Korea and Singapore, the China Daily reports.
