Tom Yeshurun, CEO and Co-Founder of Civ Robotics – Interview Series

Tom Yeshurun, CEO and Co-Founder of Civ Robotics, has led the company since its founding, bringing a blend of robotics, construction, and operational leadership to the built-environment technology space. Prior to launching Civ Robotics, he served as CEO of Civdrone, where he worked on early autonomous and robotic systems, and earlier in his career he was a construction engineer managing large-scale road projects with responsibility for subcontractors, contracts, and financial oversight. His background also includes service as a ground forces officer, shaping a leadership style rooted in execution, discipline, and real-world problem solving.

Civ Robotics is a construction technology company focused on automating layout and surveying tasks through autonomous robotics and GPS-driven systems. Its robotic solutions are designed to dramatically increase speed and precision on job sites, allowing construction teams to mark and verify layouts with minimal manual labor and reduced risk of error. By targeting infrastructure, solar, and large-scale civil projects, Civ Robotics aims to modernize one of the industry’s most time-consuming workflows, helping construction teams deliver projects faster, more safely, and with greater consistency.

Your career spans road construction engineering, leadership at Civdrone, and eventually co-founding Civ Robotics. How did those early experiences shape the decision to build a company focused specifically on automating solar-farm construction?

In my early career, it was brought to my attention the importance of land surveying. I saw firsthand the challenges of surveying and the mistakes that can lead to project delays and reworks. As a field engineer, and later project manager of a highway, I oversaw many subcontractors, including the surveyor who was involved in every step of the construction process. On our project, we spent over $2 million on surveying professional marking coordinates. When researching the space, I was introduced to the construction of solar farms, where surveyors have to mark thousands of coordinates every day in very harsh conditions, making it a prime area for automation.

Large-scale solar projects often stall during surveying and layout. What makes this stage so difficult, and why has it remained such a persistent inefficiency until now?

Every pile driver can hammer 200-300 piles a day; most projects deploy between 4-10 pile drivers, and the most I have seen had 20. This means that the surveying crews have to lay out between 1000-5000 piles a day manually. Most of these solar farms are in rural locations, out in the sunny desert in very extreme weather conditions. Land surveying is a skilled task and typically requires years of experience to mark more than 200 points a day, while with Civ Robotics, we have enabled people with little to zero experience to mark over 1000 points a day after a few hours of training and practice.

CivNav introduces AI- and GPS-driven automation to streamline logistics on solar sites. What was the biggest technical bottleneck your team had to overcome to make this system reliable in real-world field conditions?

Every EPC has a slightly different workflow and set of requirements to keep its operators happy and efficient, so we had to build software that is flexible enough to support the different use cases and customer requests.

With solar construction facing a major labor shortage, how do you see robotics transforming workforce requirements over the next decade?

I foresee that robotics and technology will empower the workforce we do have in the construction of solar farms to do more per headcount. How much more is very difficult to measure, but if I had to guess, it would be in the range of three to four times more.

Civ Robotics’ technology has already been deployed on projects representing more than 20 gigawatts of solar energy. What operational lessons have emerged from working at this scale?

Keep it simple, spend time in the field with customers to gain their feedback, and iterate quickly, even if it is not fully baked. Keep operations and maintenance in mind as part of the product requirements and utilize online tools for training and support.

CivNav is currently being tested on sites across the United States. What early performance data or user insights are most validating as you prepare for broader rollout?

We had multiple customers who ordered additional units during training or a couple of weeks later. Furthermore, users have given us more use cases to support, which makes us believe that we are on the right track.

Solar-farm development is extremely sensitive to site conditions, terrain variability, and weather. How does your AI system adapt to unpredictable field environments without compromising accuracy?

CivNav mainly provides the field operators with very precise guidance on where to stage the materials. As part of our vision, we do foresee a day when integration with material delivery schedules will be able to provide comprehensive insights and recommendations on how to better plan the logistics of delivery and distribution in the field.

Many construction companies struggle to integrate new digital tools with legacy workflows. How does Civ Robotics approach interoperability with existing processes, equipment, and contractor habits?

We try to keep it simple and fit in the customer’s existing workflows. For instance, we support both zig-zag and snake path optimization since some operators prefer zig-zag, while others do a snake.

Robotics and AI are rapidly reshaping renewable-energy infrastructure. What advancements do you believe will have the greatest impact on solar-farm construction over the next five years?

I think that a hybrid of on-time delivery and autonomous machinery will have the largest impact in the construction of solar, and Civ Robotics will play a part in it.

As Civ Robotics continues expanding its product line, what long-term vision guides your roadmap for automating and optimizing renewable-energy construction from end to end?

Our vision is to contribute to more phases of construction, from layout to distribution and installation. Who knows, maybe QC and later O&M.

Thank you for the great interview, readers who wish to learn more should visit Civ Robotics.