Built Robotics executives are fond of saying that their autonomous system for construction equipment, like dozers and excavators, might be further along than many autonomous vehicles. In fact, CEO Noah Ready-Campbell insists you’ll see autonomous vehicles in controlled industrial environments — like construction sites — before you see level 5 driverless cars on public roads. That may be in part because autonomous construction equipment often operates on privately owned land, while public roads face increased regulatory scrutiny.

“There’s a quote that ‘Cold fusion is 20 years in the future and always will be,’” Ready-Campbell told VentureBeat. “I think there’s a chance that that might be true for level 5 self-driving cars as well.”

That might have seemed like an absurd thing to say back when autonomous driving first entered the collective imagination and companies established their intention to solve AI’s grand autonomous vehicle challenge. But Waymo now takes billions from outside investors, and the delay of major initiatives like GM’s Cruise and taxi service and Ford’s autonomous driving program call into question the progress automakers have made on autonomous vehicles.

One thing Ready-Campbell credits autonomous vehicle companies with is generating excitement around AI for use in environments beyond public roads, like on construction sites.

“We were the beneficiaries of that when we did our series B last year,” he said. “I definitely think construction benefited from that.”

From computer vision systems and drones to robots walking and roving through construction projects, Built Robotics and a smattering of other companies are working in unstructured industrial environments like mining, agriculture, and construction to make autonomous systems that can build, manage, and predict outcomes.

To take a closer look at innovation in the field, the challenges ahead, and what it’s going to take to create fully autonomous construction projects in the future, VentureBeat spoke with startups that are already automating parts of their construction work.

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