Advanced virtual reality applications and intelligent agents for construction process optimisation and defect prevention

Defects and errors in new or recently completed construction work continually pervade the industry. Whilst inspection and monitoring processes are established vehicles for their 'control', the procedures involved are often process driven, time consuming, and resource intensive. Paradoxically therefore, they can impinge upon the broader aspects of project time, cost and quality outcomes. Acknowledging this means appreciating concatenation effects such as the potential for litigation, impact on other processes and influence on stakeholders' perceptions—that in turn, can impede progress and stifle opportunities for process optimisation or innovation. That is, opportunities relating to for example, logistics, carbon reduction, health and safety, efficiency, asset underutilisation and efficient labour distribution. This study evaluates these kinds of challenge from a time, cost and quality perspective, with a focus on identifying opportunities for process innovation and optimisation. It reviews—within the construction domain—state of the art technologies that support optimal use of artificial intelligence, cybernetics and complex adaptive systems. From this, conceptual framework is proposed for development of real-time intelligent observational platform supported by advanced intelligent agents, presented for discussion. This platform actively, autonomously and seamlessly manages intelligent agents (Virtual Reality cameras, Radio-Frequency Identification RFID scanners, remote sensors, etc.) in order to identify, report and document 'high risk' defects. Findings underpin a new ontological model that supports ongoing development of a dynamic, self-organised sensor (agent) network, for capturing and reporting real-time construction site data. The model is a 'stepping stone' for advancement of independent intelligent agents, embracing sensory and computational support, able to perform complicated (previously manual) tasks that provide optimal, dynamic, and autonomous management functions

The Smart Hard Hat

In a wide variety of manual labor industries, workers are often unaware that they are approaching dangerous vital thresholds until they have already overexerted themselves. According to a 2012 white paper by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), over 4,500 workers lose their lives, and more than 4 million are seriously injured each year. There is an immediate need to improve the safety and monitoring of manual workers to reduce the number of workplace injuries and fatalities. Millions of laborers around the globe go to work every day relying on basic safety devices, such as harnesses and steel toed boots, to protect them. It is becoming essential that modern technological advances contribute to enhancing the safety of our workforce. It is with this thought that the Smart Hard Hat team set forth to improve the safety of workers everywhere by creating a personal protective equipment (PPE) device to monitor worker biometrics so as to prevent the effects of overexertion before potential injury can occur. The primary purpose of this project was to emulate a real world product development effort, following standard design processes to identify a problem, formulate solutions, and develop a proof-of-concept prototype device. Following this design process to address the need for innovating safety monitoring equipment, we developed a product that incorporates several biometric sensors into a standard hard hat that monitor the wearer’s heart rate, body temperature, and concussive impact forces. These sensors are coded to alert both the worker and their supervisor if levels are entering dangerous zones, allowing both parties to take steps to prevent overexertion and increase worker safety

Digitalization of Building Site Management in the Construction Industry

 With Industry 4.0, a digital transformation has started in the construction industry. However, 4.0 technologies have difficulties in the integration of digital systems due to the diversity and complexity of the processes in the construction industry. Multidisciplinary work in architectural projects and the need for high productivity require digital renovation planning in the construction industry. The application of the technologies that emerged because of digital transformation on the building site has revealed the concept of the smart building site. Within the framework of many current issues such as the smart building site, the digital transformation on the building sites needs to be explored and defined. In this study, a bibliometric analysis was carried out on the publications in this field by evaluating the transformation potentials of the digitalized building sites of the future. Academic publications that will raise awareness in the improvement of building site management and the development of digital systems have been determined. Conceptual integrity was created by seeing the research gap for digitalization in building site management and it was aimed to guide researchers in future studies. As a result, based on the research area analysis and the diversity of academic publications, it was seen that the studies in the field of architecture were insufficient compared to the engineering fields

Promoting Bicycle Commuter Safety, Research Report 11-08

We present an overview of the risks associated with cycling to emphasize the need for safety. We focus on the application of frameworks from social psychology to education, one of the 5 Es—engineering, education, enforcement, encouragement, and evaluation. We use the structure of the 5 Es to organize information with particular attention to engineering and education in the literature review. Engineering is essential because the infrastructure is vital to protecting cyclists. Education is emphasized since the central focus of the report is safety

A Review on Industrial Augmented Reality Systems for the Industry 4.0 Shipyard

[Absctract]: Shipbuilding companies are upgrading their inner workings in order to create Shipyards 4.0, where the principles of Industry 4.0 are paving the way to further digitalized and optimized processes in an integrated network. Among the different Industry 4.0 technologies, this paper focuses on augmented reality, whose application in the industrial field has led to the concept of industrial augmented reality (IAR). This paper first describes the basics of IAR and then carries out a thorough analysis of the latest IAR systems for industrial and shipbuilding applications. Then, in order to build a practical IAR system for shipyard workers, the main hardware and software solutions are compared. Finally, as a conclusion after reviewing all the aspects related to IAR for shipbuilding, it proposed an IAR system architecture that combines cloudlets and fog computing, which reduce latency response and accelerate rendering tasks while offloading compute intensive tasks from the cloud.This work was supported by the Plant Information and Augmented Reality research line of the Navantia-UDC Joint Research Unit

Automated Pile Driving Data Acquisition Devices

This presentation introduces automated pile driving data acquisition devices, which gather accurate and consistent driving data and help to enhance inspection and payment. The process is completely digitized and cloud based. Acquired data can be analyzed to help reduce damage and repair costs over time, minimize human error and improve the level of safety for field staff, and provide additional support for future e-Construction processes. Join us for a discussion

First Responders' Localization and Health Monitoring During Rescue Operations

Currently, first responders’ coordination and decision-making during res-cue, firefighting or police operations is performed via radio/GSM channels with some support of video streaming. In unknown premises, officers have no global situational awareness on operation status, which reduces coordination efficiency and increases decision making mistakes. This paper pro-poses a solution enabling the situational awareness by introducing an integrated operation workflow for actors localization and health monitoring. The solution will provide global situational awareness to both coordinators and actors, thereby increasing efficiency of coordination, reducing mistakes in decision making and diminishing risks of unexpected situations to appear. This will result in faster operation progress, lower number of human casualties and financial losses and, the most important, saved human lives in calamity situations

MorgantinaVR: Cityscale Handheld AR and Cross–Platform VR for Visualizing Georeferenced Archaeological Datasets

The use of Augmented and Virtual Reality in cultural heritage has increased dramatically in recent years, with uses that go far beyond creating and displaying digital reconstructions for museum visitors and tourists. This paper describes the collaboration between Archimedes Digital and the Contrada Agnese Project (CAP) to develop a framework and suite of applications to support the examination display of archaeological data from the site of Morgantina, Sicily in VR and AR. Primary purposes of this digital approach include facilitating collaboration between CAP’s specialists (archaeological, geospatial, and museum), and enabling the effective dissemination of data to researchers and to the general public

Building a digital library : what to expect as a technology project manager on a library construction project

The Taylor Family Digital Library is the central library opened in 2011 at the University of Calgary dedicated to supporting digital scholarship, creativity, analysis and a supportive learning environment for students. The new building is a technologically advanced converged cultural institution, with mandates to continually evolve in order to meet the needs of students and researchers. The infrastructure to support these mandates required research, collaboration and intense planning, resulting in new construction and technology standards for library renovation and construction projects. This pragmatic article is written for those who will follow in similar footsteps; it provides a roadmap for those embarking on the construction of a new technologically advanced library building

Spartan Daily, April 8, 1994

Volume 102, Issue 44https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/8544/thumbnail.jp