Abstract
There have been several approaches to integrating physical construction components and their virtual models using RFID tags. These enable the movement of components to be tracked on the construction site. However, there is inadequate support for bidirectional coordination between these components and their virtual representations. Also, these approaches often involve manual input of status information into the tags and do not support tracking the permanent installed position of tagged components for consistency maintenance between the as-built and the as-planned models. As such, there are difficulties with ensuring accurate and timely updating of building information models and tag information during the construction process. A major bottleneck in achieving this integration is the choice of appropriate mechanisms for binding physical components with their virtual representations. This paper presents an approach to facilitating bidirectional coordination between physical construction components and their virtual models. Specialized real-time location sensing (RTLS) tags were used for tracking the position and status of physical construction components. This approach showed significant opportunities for enhancing real-time construction consistency checking, which will aid proactive decision making and control. The paper also discusses experiments undertaken to demonstrate the proposed RTLS-based system and highlights the merits and demerits of adopting the proposed approach on a full-scale project.
Highlights
Being able to accurately and efficiently monitor construction progress in real time enables project managers to detect schedule delays early and make corrective decisions [1]
Virtual models have proved their worth in construction progress monitoring as a means of visualizing the construction process
Virtual models contain virtual representations of building components which can be linked to their physical representations on the construction site
Summary
Being able to accurately and efficiently monitor construction progress in real time enables project managers to detect schedule delays early and make corrective decisions [1]. As a facility moves through the life cycle from planning to design to construction and to facility management, some information can be embedded in the virtual building components and this provides another integrated database of relevant information that can be used by the project team during the construction and postconstruction phases of the constructed facility This potential of virtual models is evident in the research by Anumba et al [2], Sørensen et al [3], and Motamedi and Hammad [4] which identified that integrating virtual models and the physical construction can improve the information and knowledge handling from design to construction and maintenance, enhancing control of the construction process/constructed facility. A number of researchers [4, 5] have investigated the integration of virtual models and the physical construction for progress monitoring using radiofrequency identification (RFID) tags These approaches still involve manual input of status information (such as installed or uninstalled) into the tags and do not enable tracking the permanent installed position of tagged components on the construction site. A more effective approach to construction progress tracking will require automatically
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