Remote Wireless Communications for Construction Management: A Case Study

The recent advances in urban wireless communications and protocols that spurred the development of city-wide wireless infrastructure motivated this research, since in many cases, construction sites are not conveniently located for wired connectivity. Large scale transportation projects for example, such as new highways, railroad tracks and the networks of utilities (power-lines, phone lines, mobile towers, etc) that usually follow them are constructed in areas where wired infrastructure for data exchange is often expensive and time-consuming to deploy. The communication difficulties that can be encountered in such construction sites can be addressed with a wireless communications link between the construction site and the decision-making office. This paper presents a case study on long-range, wireless communications suitable for data exchange between construction sites and engineering headquarters. The purpose of this study was to define the requirements for a reliable wireless communications model where common types of electronic construction data will be exchanged in a fast and efficient manner, and construction site personnel will be able to interact and share knowledge, information and electronic resources with the office staff.

Comparison of Image-Based and Time-of-Flight-Based Technologies for 3D Reconstruction of Infrastructure

Image-based (i.e., photo/videogrammetry) and time-of-flight-based (i.e., laser scanning) technologies are typically used to collect spatial data of infrastructure. In order to help architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industries make cost-effective decisions in selecting between these two technologies with respect to their settings, this paper makes an attempt to measure the accuracy, quality, time efficiency, and cost of applying image-based and time-of-flight-based technologies to conduct as-built 3D reconstruction of infrastructure. In this paper, a novel comparison method is proposed, and preliminary experiments are conducted. The results reveal that if the accuracy and quality level desired for a particular application is not high (i.e., error < 10 cm, and completeness rate > 80%), image-based technologies constitute a good alternative for time-of-flight-based technologies and significantly reduce the time and cost needed for collecting the data on site.

Testing of Depth-Encoded Hough Voting for Infrastructure Object Detection

The lack of viable methods to map and label existing infrastructure is one of the engineering grand challenges for the 21st century. For instance, over two thirds of the effort needed to geometrically model even simple infrastructure is spent on manually converting a cloud of points to a 3D model. The result is that few facilities today have a complete record of as-built information and that as-built models are not produced for the vast majority of new construction and retrofit projects. This leads to rework and design changes that can cost up to 10% of the installed costs. Automatically detecting building components could address this challenge. However, existing methods for detecting building components are not view and scale-invariant, or have only been validated in restricted scenarios that require a priori knowledge without considering occlusions. This leads to their constrained applicability in complex civil infrastructure scenes. In this paper, we test a pose-invariant method of labeling existing infrastructure. This method simultaneously detects objects and estimates their poses. It takes advantage of a recent novel formulation for object detection and customizes it to generic civil infrastructure scenes. Our preliminary experiments demonstrate that this method achieves convincing recognition results.

Automated Detection of Exposed Reinforcement in Post-Earthquake Safety and Structural Evaluations

The world is at the threshold of emerging technologies, where new systems in construction, materials, and civil and architectural design are poised to make the world better from a structural and construction perspective. Exciting developments, that are too many to name individually, take place yearly, affecting design considerations and construction practices. This edited book brings together modern methods and advances in structural engineering and construction, fulfilling the mission of ISEC Conferences, which is to enhance communication and understanding between structural and construction engineers for successful design and construction of engineering projects. The articles in this book are those accepted for publication and presentation at the 6th International Structural Engineering and Construction Conference in Zurich. The 6th ISEC Conference in Zurich, Switzerland, follows the overwhelming reception and success of previous ISEC conference in Las Vegas, USA in 2009; Melbourne, Australia in 2007; Shunan, Japan in 2005; Rome, Italy in 2003; and Honolulu, USA in 2001. Many topics are covered in this book, ranging from legal affairs and contracting, to innovations and risk analysis in infrastructure projects, analysis and design of structural systems, materials, architecture, and construction. The articles here are a lasting testimony to the excellent research being undertaken around the world. These articles provide a platform for the exchange of ideas, research efforts and networking in the structural engineering and construction communities. We congratulate and thank the authors for these articles that were selected after intensive peer-review, and our gratitude extends to all reviewers and members of the International Technical Committee. It is their combined contributions that have made this book a reality.

Content Based Integration of Construction Site Images in Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Facilities Management (AEC/FM) Model based Systems

This book explores the processes for retrieval, classification, and integration of construction images in AEC/FM model based systems. The author describes a combination of techniques from the areas of image and video processing, computer vision, information retrieval, statistics and content-based image and video retrieval that have been integrated into a novel method for the retrieval of related construction site image data from components of a project model. This method has been tested on available construction site images from a variety of sources like past and current building construction and transportation projects and is able to automatically classify, store, integrate and retrieve image data files in inter-organizational systems so as to allow their usage in project management related tasks. objects. Therefore, automated methods for the integration of construction images are important for construction information management. During this research, processes for retrieval, classification, and integration of construction images in AEC/FM model based systems have been explored. Specifically, a combination of techniques from the areas of image and video processing, computer vision, information retrieval, statistics and content-based image and video retrieval have been deployed in order to develop a methodology for the retrieval of related construction site image data from components of a project model. This method has been tested on available construction site images from a variety of sources like past and current building construction and transportation projects and is able to automatically classify, store, integrate and retrieve image data files in inter-organizational systems so as to allow their usage in project management related tasks.