Advances and future directions in robotic and automated facade maintenance and construction

Paper in proceeding, 2025

Cities occupy just 3% of the Earth’s land but account for 60–80% of global energy consumption and 75% of carbon emissions, as highlighted in Sustainable Development Goal 11. Improving energy per-formance in urban areas is crucial for sustainable regeneration. In this context, buildings play a central role, with fa¸cades acting as the pri-mary interface for heat exchange. Renovating these components can sig-nificantly reduce energy losses and contribute to energy-efficient cities. Advances in robotics and automation offer promising solutions, provid-ing more efficient, precise, and scalable systems. This paper examines the state of the art and future trends of robotic and automated systems for fa¸cade operations, focusing on their technical challenges and limitations.