Quadruped Robots in Construction Automation: A Comprehensive Review of Applications, Localization, and Site-Level Operations

This paper presents a comprehensive review of quadruped robots in the construction industry, focusing on their applications, technological capabilities, and integration with digital construction workflows. Quadruped robots have emerged as promising mobile platforms due to their ability to traverse uneven terrain, operate autonomously, and support multimodal sensing, enabling tasks such as site inspection, 3D reality capture, safety monitoring, logistics support, and integration with Building Information Modeling (BIM) and digital-twin systems. Despite these advantages, real-world deployment remains constrained by limitations in battery endurance, payload capacity, communication reliability, perception robustness, and system interoperability. This review synthesizes findings from 20 studies published between 2015 and 2025 and incorporates a quantitative bibliometric analysis using both SciVal and Scopus. While SciVal provides performance-based indicators and global research trends, Scopus offers complementary publication coverage, improving analytical reliability. Unlike general robotics surveys, this review adopts a construction-centric perspective by explicitly linking quadruped robot capabilities to construction engineering objectives under practical site conditions. The findings highlight current application domains, technological gaps, and adoption barriers, and outline future research directions to support the effective integration of quadruped robots into construction practice. This review provides actionable insights for researchers, engineers, and practitioners assessing the readiness and limitations of quadruped robots in construction environments.