Blockchain technology has attracted the interest of the global construction industry for its potential to enhance the transparency, traceability, and immutability of construction data and enables ...collaboration and trust throughout the supply chain. However, such potential cannot be achieved without blockchain “oracles” needed to bridge the on-chain (i.e., blockchain system) and off-chain (i.e., real-life physical project) worlds. This study presents an innovative solution that exploits smart construction objects (SCOs). It develops a SCOs-enabled blockchain oracles (SCOs-BOs) framework. To instantiate this framework, the system architecture of a blockchain-enabled construction supply chain management (BCSCM) system is developed and validated using a case study, whereby four primary smart contracts are examined in the context of off-site logistics and on-site assembly services. The validation results show that accurate data is retrieved against malicious data in each request, and the corresponding reputation scores are successfully recorded. The innovativeness of the research lies in two aspects. In addition to mobilizing SCOs as blockchain oracles to bridge the on-chain and off-chain worlds, it develops a decentralized SCO network to avoid the single point of failure (SPoF) problem widely existing in blockchain systems. This study contributes to existing research and practice to harness the power of blockchain in construction.
•An SCO-enabled blockchain oracle (SCO-BO) framework is proposed.•The architecture of a blockchain-enabled construction supply chain management system (BCSCM) is established.•Four smart contracts are examined in logistics and on-site assembly services.•A decentralized SCO network avoids the single point of failure (SPoF).•Ubiquitous SCOs as blockchain oracles bridge the on-chain and off-chain worlds.
Unstructured texts dominate data in construction projects. With the achievements of natural language processing (NLP) techniques, mining unstructured text data for smart construction has become ...increasingly significant. To understand state-of-the-art NLP for smart construction, uncover related issues, and propose potential improvements, this paper presents a comprehensive review of bottom-level techniques and mainstream applications of NLP in the industry. In total, 124 journal articles published in the last two decades are reviewed. NLP involves five core steps supported by various techniques, e.g., syntactic parsing, heuristic rules, machine learning, and deep learning. NLP has been applied for information extraction and exchanging and many downstream applications to facilitate management and decision-making. The role of NLP in smart construction and current challenges for fully reaping its benefits are discussed, and four research directions are identified, i.e., improving relation extraction, realising knowledge base auto-development, integrating multi-modal information, and achieving an accuracy-efficiency trade-off by developing an NLP application framework. It is envisioned that outcomes of this paper can assist both researchers and industrial practitioners with appreciating the research and practice frontier of NLP for smart construction and soliciting the latest NLP techniques.
•An in-depth review of natural language processing (NLP) for smart construction is conducted.•124 journal articles published in 2000–2021 are manually reviewed.•Bottom-level NLP techniques are thoroughly introduced.•NLP is used to extract and exchange information and to support downstream applications.•The role of NLP in smart construction, current challenges, and future directions are provided.
Despite the widespread usage of Building Information Modeling (BIM) based simulation in the construction industry, robot construction simulation environments are built on particular modeling tools ...and can only be simulated with certain robot models. This not only limits construction robot development and also makes it difficult to directly share building information with robots, which impedes the study of robotic construction. To overcome this problem, we propose a new framework for robotic construction simulation which integrates open standard formats and tools to achieve a commonly used robot simulation environment. This provides a new approach to automatically convert IFC to simulation description format (SDF) and generate building components as smart components, which eliminates platform-specific limitations on robotic construction simulation, which further expands the utilization of BIM models.
•An approach is proposed to the application of IFC-based BIM model in robotic simulation.•An automated ETL procedure is proposed for converting IFC models to SDF models.•Construction robot execution is simulated using a smart component-oriented construction planning system.•The robot simulation framework is tested to demonstrate the process of on-site robot construction simulation.•Additional types of robots and buildings can be integrated in the IFC-based robot construction simulator.
【Objective】In response to the needs of Ultra High Voltage (UHV) site infrastructure control and intelligent transportation and inspection, 5th Generation Mobile Communication Technology (5G) is ...applied to the construction phase of UHV converter station for the first time in China.【Methods】On the basis of realizing 5G full coverage of Henan southern converter station, 5G virtual private network of converter station is built and the Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) cloud platform is deployed. Fully considering the needs of early infrastructure and late operation, the intelligent infrastructure site is connected with the intelligent converter station in the later stage. Relying on the advantages of 5G and integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other technologies, various types of data on the construction site of UHV infrastructure can be collected in real-time and unified, providing multi-functional 5G solutions for remote video monitoring of UHV infrastructure, engineering monitoring and early warning, panoram
Smart construction utilizes the latest IoT "smart" technologies, such as Cyber-Physical Systems, to aid in construction processes. A Cyber-Physical System (CPS) is an amalgamation of computation, ...networking and physical objects. There are various examples of CPS being employed in sectors varying from manufacturing, robotics, and smart cities. Where the application and literature are lacking, however, is construction. This paper focuses on construction machinery operation and work tracking through CPS. The relevant technologies required for creating a system with these capabilities are Augmented Reality (AR) and Digital Twin (DT). Two salient features of a CPS are real-time state knowledge and control. These are handled by the sensors and micro-controllers, respectively, allowing for bi-directional communication between the virtual models and physical objects. Remote control and tracking/monitoring of construction machinery can expedite certain on-site processes such as operations logging and 4D BIM, while improving operation precision and safety.
The Internet of Things (IoT) such as the use of robots, sensors, actuators, electronic signalization and a variety of other Internet enabled physical devices may provide for new advanced smart ...applications to be used in construction in the very near future. Such applications require real-time responses and are therefore time-critical. Therefore, in order to support collaboration, control, monitoring, supply management, safety and other construction processes, they have to meet dependability requirements, including requirements for high Quality of Service (QoS). Dependability and high QoS can be achieved by using adequate number and quality of computing resources, such as processing, memory and networking elements, geographically close to the smart environments. The goal of this study is to develop a practical edge computing architecture and design, which can be used to support smart construction environments with high QoS. This study gives particular attention to the solution design, which relies on latest cloud and software engineering approaches and technologies, and provides elasticity, interoperability and adaptation to companies' specific needs. Two edge computing applications supporting video communications and construction process documentation are developed and demonstrate a viable edge computing design for smart construction.
•Identification of requirements for Internet of Things based smart construction applications•Dependable edge computing design for smart construction applications•Implementation details for edge computing software components•Two Internet of Things applications for communications and documentation following the edge computing concept•Measurements for the influence of the geographical location on the QoS
This paper provides a critical review of the related literature on 3D printing in construction. The paper discusses and evaluates the different 3D printing techniques in construction. The paper also ...discusses and categorizes the benefits, challenges, and risks of 3D printing in construction. The use of 3D printing technology offers several advantages over traditional methods. However, it comes with its own additional challenges and risks. The main benefits of 3D printing in construction include constructability and sustainability benefits. The challenges are categorized into seven groups. The main challenges, found through the literature, are material related. The most cited challenges are material printability, buildability, and open time. Additionally, scalability, structural integrity, and lack of codes and regulations are frequently cited as major challenges. The additional risks are categorized into seven groups: 3D printing material, 3D printing equipment, construction site, and environment, management, stakeholders, regulatory and economic, and cybersecurity risks. The paper fills a gap in the literature as it addresses a new aspect of 3D printing, which is risk. The paper also provides some insights, recommendations, and future research ideas.
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The potential for facilitating faster, safer, and more sustainable construction processes through the adoption of smart construction technologies is widely recognized. However, the limited adoption ...of these technologies in construction projects highlights the significance of identifying the technological needs of major stakeholders and the prioritization of research and development investment. In this study, the quality function deployment technique is employed to extract and prioritize the required technologies (RTs) from various stakeholders, while a thematic literature review is conducted to identify challenges and future research directions. The findings improve the efficiency of resource allocation, allowing policymakers to strategically address pressing issues. This can facilitate collaboration and communication among researchers, stakeholders, and the wider community, fostering a shared vision and understanding of future research goals and outcome.
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•Prioritizing smart construction technologies can enhance their applicability.•The top nine of technologies were prioritized by using quality function deployment.•Thematic review was conducted for each of the top nine technologies.•The challenges and future research directions were presented by review.
Self-healing concrete is an innovative construction material designed to repair its cracks autogenously or autonomously. The self-healing effect reduces the need for maintenance and increases the ...longevity of concrete structures, bringing environmental and economic benefits. However, the developed methods to improve self-healing performance, e.g., incorporating advanced techniques or expensive chemical healing agents, significantly increase the cost of concrete manufacture. There is worldwide interest in using waste materials to reduce the cost of self-healing concrete, and a significant amount of studies have been performed on this topic. A review of research on waste-derived self-healing concrete is presented in this paper. The wastes were used in both autogenous and autonomous self-healing approaches, such as mineral admixture, bacteria-based technology, and engineered cementitious composite; different environmental conditions may significantly influence self-healing efficiency due to different reaction mechanisms. In general, waste materials could be reused to manufacture self-healing concrete if adopting appropriate mix design and treatment methods. Self-healing concrete made with various industrial wastes is an efficient way to reduce the manufacturing cost and promote its application in practice.
•Review the state-of-the-art application of industrial wastes in self-healing concrete.•Elaborate self-healing mechanisms of concrete incorporating wastes.•Introduce healing efficiency and evaluation methods for different technologies.•Provide future perspectives for wastes-derived self-healing concrete.
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