Elevator Installation Robot: ABB IRB 2600 in the Shaft

Before an elevator carries anyone, somebody has to drill hundreds of holes into a bare concrete shaft and set an anchor bolt in each one. An elevator installation robot takes that job over. Schindler's R.I.S.E, short for Robotic Installation System for Elevators, climbs the shaft by itself, scans the wall, drills the holes and sets the anchors, and the arm doing the work is an ABB IRB 2600. This post follows shaft work from the first passenger elevators to the R.I.S.E prototype, looks at the fleet Schindler runs in 2026, and asks where robots in high-rise construction go next.

The ABB IRB 2600 arm of Schindler's R.I.S.E working on a concrete elevator shaft wall. Photo: ABB

How elevator shafts were fitted out by hand

The passenger elevator is older than the skyscraper. Elisha Otis showed his safety brake at the New York Crystal Palace in 1854, and on 23 March 1857 the first passenger safety elevator went into service in the E. V. Haughwout Building in New York, which still stands on Broadway. Otis had founded his company in 1853, and Schindler was founded in Switzerland in 1874. In the century that followed, cars got faster and buildings got taller. The way crews fixed rails to the shaft walls changed far less than the elevators did, and it still came down to a person with a drill.

The E. V. Haughwout Building in New York, where the first passenger safety elevator went into service in 1857. Photo: ajay_suresh / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

The guide rails are long steel tracks that keep the car and the counterweight running straight. Each rail hangs on brackets, and each bracket is held to the concrete by several anchor bolts. A high-rise shaft can need around 1,000 anchors, and one recent elevator group needed more than 4,900 on a single site. Fitters have traditionally done this meter by meter from working platforms inside the shaft, measuring each position, drilling into the concrete and setting the bolts. That means weeks of vibration, dust and noise in a confined space, much of it at height, and every hole still has to land in the right place.

Guide rails and brackets inside a machine room less elevator shaft during installation. Photo: Harrihealey02 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Schindler set out to automate the job with ETH Zurich and software engineers at ABB Robotics in Switzerland. Finding a suitable arm took time. The team chose an ABB IRB 2600, which has a reach of 1.65 m and a payload of 29 kg, and mounted it on a platform that a hoist moves from floor to floor. A factory robot normally works from a fixed zero point, so the engineers had to work around the controller to hit each hole within millimeters as the platform changed position. The prototype ran in several new elevator systems in Europe, and in April 2019 the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat gave it an Award of Excellence for innovation.

The R.I.S.E prototype platform hanging in an elevator shaft. Photo: ABB

Schindler R.I.S.E on building sites in 2026

Schindler presented R.I.S.E publicly in November 2019, and the robot went into service about five years ago. In June 2026 the company added two more units, bringing the fleet to seven. The robots have worked on 36 job sites in countries including Austria, Poland, India, the UK, Brazil, China and Singapore, and have set about 50,000 anchor bolts. Schindler says the system saves up to 40 percent of the time this stage of shaft work normally takes. Its first UK job came in March 2025 at 105 Victoria Street in central London, an office building for the developer BGO with Skanska as contractor.

Two workers watch a Schindler R.I.S.E robot set anchors in a shaft. Photo: Schindler

The robot ships in two wooden boxes and is wheeled to a shaft opening on a trolley. It hangs from its own winch, braces itself against the walls and follows a digital work plan loaded in advance. Before drilling, it scans the concrete to avoid hidden steel reinforcement and uneven patches, and an algorithm shifts holes within tolerance where needed. Sensors check each hole before the arm hammers in the anchor. A camera lets staff watch from outside. In late September 2026 the trade magazine Power & Motion described how pneumatics help the robot connect its tools and hold itself steady. Fitters then hang the rails on the finished anchors.

R.I.S.E drilling a hole for an anchor bolt with its ABB arm and hammer drill. Photo: ABB

When ABB reported on the project in 2020, Schindler said it planned to use more of these systems, all with the IRB 2600, which makes R.I.S.E one of the few construction robots built around a standard ABB industrial arm. ABB arms have also turned up in building research at ETH Zurich, where Gramazio Kohler Research mounted an IRB 4600 on a tracked base, called it the In situ Fabricator and used it to stack a curved brick wall. Drilling patterns taken from a building model are the kind of program that can be planned and checked offline in RobotStudio. Our post on robotic bricklaying covers other robots on the building site.

ETH Zurich's In situ Fabricator, an ABB IRB 4600 on a tracked base, building a curved wall. Photo: Gramazio Kohler Research, ETH Zurich / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Where shaft robots and high-rise construction go next

Schindler is adding robots because contractors are asking for them. Faruk Osmanbasic, who leads advanced installation technologies at Schindler, said in June 2026 that projects face tighter deadlines and put more weight on safe working conditions. Elevator shafts suit automation because their simple geometry repeats floor after floor, a point Schindler's Christian Studer made when the prototype was announced. Likely next steps are quicker setup, more tasks done on each climb and closer links to building models, so the robot arrives on site already knowing where every bracket goes.

The concrete elevator core of a health centre in Kamppi, Helsinki, rising ahead of the floors in 2024. Photo: JIP / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Cost, setup and skills are the open problems. With seven robots worldwide, R.I.S.E is still a specialist tool sent to selected projects, and a short shaft in a mid-rise block may not repay the effort of shipping and setting it up. The robot needs a prepared shaft, a correct digital plan and technicians who can deal with a jammed drill or a rebar clash the scanner reports. Schindler presents it as a way to take the loud, repetitive part of the job away from fitters, who keep the alignment work, the rail installation and the responsibility for ride quality.

The drilling tool on a Schindler R.I.S.E robot, a hammer drill fitted with sensors and air lines. Photo: Schindler

For homes the effect is indirect. Houses and small buildings often get compact lifts with their own frames, and their short shafts are quick to fit by hand. Robots matter more in the tall apartment and office towers going up in growing cities, where a single building can need thousands of anchors. ABB robots could also take on more work in the factories that make elevator parts, welding frames or handling doors, though that is a possibility and not a reported project. People riding the finished elevators will not see any of it, apart from a building that may open a little sooner.

A compact lift with its own aluminium frame being installed in a low rise building in Brisbane. Photo: John Robert McPherson / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

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