Need to separate bolts that arrive in a mixed batch onsite? Hexagon’s Aeon robot can do that. Aeon’s human friend is ‘seeing’ items in front of it with head-mounted cameras through NVIDIA Omniverse. Once trained, the robot can perform sorting tasks with its dextrous hands.
Photo by Jeff Yoders/ENR
Hexagon, the Sweden-based geospatial measurement, tracking, construction and design software company said it plans to spin off several business units—including its Asset Lifecycle Intelligence division and CAD design tool Bricsys—into a standalone company called Octave.
If approved by shareholders, regulators and board members, the dedicated software and cloud software-as-a-service spinoff company is expected to launch in the first half of 2026 based in New York City as a U.S. company. Hexacon’s safety, infrastructure and geospatial units will also join Octave, which is set to have about 7,200 employees coming from Hexagon. The spinoff was announced June 17 at a Hexagon conference in Las Vegas,
“As we prepare for the potential separation from Hexagon AB, Octave will be a powerful identity to reflect the significant growth opportunity,” said Mattias Stenberg, president of Hexagon’s asset lifecycle intelligence and safety, Iinfrastructure and geospatial divisions who wil be Octave CEO. “As a separate, standalone company, Octave will have the depth, scale and expertise necessary to capitalize on software and services opportunities across the industrial and public sector spaces and deliver intelligence at scale.”
Stenberg said the new firm’s leadership team will remain at Hexagon’s current Hunstville, Ala., location.
Henning Sandfort, president of Hexaon’s geosysystems division who remains in that role, said the parent company’s vision continues to be in merging data from scanners, drones, radar and its other geosystems’ devices into one artificial intelligence-empowered platform such as its existing HxDR cloud.
To that end, Arnaud Robert, president of Hexagon Robotics, introduced the company’s first humanoid-form robot, Aeon, at the Las Vegas event.
The robot, whose use cases include reality capture for construction, stands about 4 ft tall, has two full AI computers, NVIDIA graphics processing units, two cameras in the head alone and 22 spatial sensors. While Boston Dynamics assisted in its design, Aeon is a bipedal robot with wheels for feet that it can use for either rolling or walking. The robot’s hands developed from designs for dexterous prosthetic hands for humans who have had amputations. Microsoft provided cloud and edge computing and Maxon provided precision measurement and actuators.
While many robots have tried to solve the construction reality capture problem—long done inconsistently by humans, Hexagon believes its humanoid is an improvement over robot dogs or drones because it has two batteries and the ability to swap out its own battery packs without human intervention.
Robert said Aeon’s ability to learn will also help it improve in performing construction tasks.
“The pace of innovation in physical AI is getting better,” he said. “Foundational models teach a robot how to reason and learn.”
ENR Associate Technology, Equipment and Products Editor Jeff Yoders has been writing about design and construction innovations for 20 years. He is a five-time Jesse H. Neal award winner and multiple ASBPE winner for his tech coverage. Jeff previously wrote about construction technology for Structural Engineer, CE News and Building Design + Construction. He also wrote about materials prices, construction procurement and estimation for MetalMiner.com. He lives in Chicago, the birthplace of the skyscraper, where the pace of innovation never leaves him without a story to chase.
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Becki Geddes