Humanoid Robots Enter Modular Housing Production at Scale

Humanoid robots are moving from factory floors to construction sites

Bigwave Robotics has announced a strategic partnership with Space Factory to deploy humanoid robots across modular housing production and construction sites beginning in 2026. The collaboration represents one of the first large-scale applications of humanoid automation in the construction sector, according to details first reported by Automation Watch.

Space Factory operates what the companies describe as the largest modular housing production facility, already equipped with advanced robotic automation lines. The company recently introduced the Samsung AI Modular Home, integrating Samsung Electronics' AI and IoT technologies into prefabricated housing units.

Why it matters

The construction industry has long resisted automation due to unstructured work environments and material variability. This deployment targets a specific pain point—hazardous fiberglass insulation installation—that conventional industrial robots cannot handle effectively. Success here could establish a template for humanoid adoption across construction workflows, addressing both worker safety and the global housing shortage through faster production cycles.

Targeting hazardous, unstructured tasks first

The initial focus is fiberglass insulation installation, a process that poses respiratory and skin health risks to workers. The flexible, irregular nature of insulation materials has made this task particularly difficult for traditional robotic systems to automate.

Minkyo Kim, CEO of Bigwave Robotics, stated the collaboration "drastically expands the territory of humanoids from traditional manufacturing and logistics into the construction and modular housing sectors." The company plans to use field data from actual operations to refine what it calls Physical AI solutions optimized for construction environments.

Jungjin Park, CEO of Space Factory, emphasized the business imperative: "With the housing supply shortage intensifying daily, improving the production efficiency of modular housing will be a key solution for rapid housing delivery."

Commercial traction beyond pilot projects

Bigwave Robotics reports that humanoid-related business already accounts for approximately 20% of its total revenue in the current year. The company has delivered humanoid solutions to clients in heavy industry, cosmetics, and automotive parts manufacturing, moving beyond research demonstrations to revenue-generating deployments.

The partnership aims to establish what the companies call a "Dark Factory"—a fully unmanned production facility. After proving the insulation installation process, Bigwave Robotics plans to identify additional automation opportunities across Space Factory's operations and expand into the broader modular housing market.

Details of the deployment timeline, number of robots, and specific performance metrics were first reported by Automation Watch.