Robots helping build roads faster in Central Florida

Road construction is a sore subject for drivers in Central Florida. Robots may be the answer to speed projects up.

Dust, orange cones, yellow vests and construction equipment part of the daily drive around central Florida. Now add robots to the mix. The TyBot, is an autonomous, rebar-tying robot at work on County Road 46A in Lake County.

“This is going to shorten the schedule durations and that in itself will save the contractor and the owner, dot, money in the long run,” said Jack Nix, Shelby Erectors.

Saving money and building roads faster than ever.

“A typical iron worker can get to 60 and 100 ties an hour, TyBot can tie about 800 ties an hour,” said Nix.

And the robot doesn’t take breaks.

“It will help us push schedule because we will know that this machine is constantly in use, there won’t be a down time,” said Kristofer Munoz, Superior Consruction.

While the TyBot is at work, humans focus on other tasks.

“Instead of having five guys having to lay down the rebar and then coming back in to tie it, the TyBot will be right behind tying it, so they can consecutively lay it all out and then jump behind it and lay the next section,” said Munoz.

Tying rebar is a tough job.

“TyBot takes that physically demanding work of leaned over tying work and replaces that with robotics,” said Nix, “we see it as a way to improve our safety, improve our worker comp incident rates.”

This technology has only been around a few years. Before it was used in Lake County, it worked on a Florida Turnpike project.