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Browsing by Author "Halder, Srijeet"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Construction inspection & monitoring with quadruped robots in future human-robot teaming: A preliminary study
    Halder, Srijeet; Afsari, Kereshmeh; Chiou, Erin; Patrick, Rafael; Hamed, Kaveh Akbari (Elsevier, 2023-04-15)
    Construction inspection and monitoring are key activities in construction projects. Automation of inspection tasks can address existing limitations and inefficiencies of the manual process to enable systematic and consistent construction inspection. However, there is a lack of an in-depth understanding of the process of construction inspection and monitoring and the tasks and sequences involved to provide the basis for task delegation in a human-technology partnership. The purpose of this research is to study the conventional process of inspection and monitoring of construction work currently implemented in construction projects and to develop an alternative process using a quadruped robot as an inspector assistant to overcome the limitations of the conventional process. This paper explores the use of quadruped robots for construction inspection and monitoring with an emphasis on a human-robot teaming approach. Technical development and testing of the robotic technology are not in the scope of this study. The results indicate how inspector assistant quadruped robots can enable a human-technology partnership in future construction inspection and monitoring tasks. The research was conducted through on-site experiments and observations of inspectors during construction inspection and monitoring followed by a semi-structured interview to develop a process map of the conventional construction inspection and monitoring process. The study also includes on-site robot training and experiments with the inspectors to develop an alternative process map to depict future construction inspection and monitoring work with the use of an inspector assistant quadruped robot. Both the conventional and alternative process maps were validated through interview surveys with industry experts against four criteria including, completeness, accuracy, generalizability, and comprehensibility. The findings suggest that the developed process maps reflect existing and future construction inspection and monitoring work.
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    Human-Interactions with Robotic Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) for Facilitating Construction Progress Monitoring
    Halder, Srijeet (Virginia Tech, 2023-08-23)
    Progress monitoring in construction involves a set of inspection tasks with repetitive in-person observations on the site. The current manual inspection process is time-consuming, inefficient, inconsistent, and has many safety risks to project inspectors. Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are networks of integrated physical and cyber components, such as robots, sensors, actuators, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and the building itself. Introducing CPS for construction progress monitoring can reduce risks involved in the process, improve efficiency, and enable remote progress monitoring. A robotic CPS uses a robot as the core component of the CPS. But human interaction with technology plays an important role in the successful implementation of any technology. This research studied the human-centered design of a CPS from a human-computer interaction perspective for facilitating construction progress monitoring that puts the needs and abilities of humans at the center of the development process. User experience and interactions play an important role in human-centered design. This study first develops a CPS framework to autonomously collect visual data and facilitate remote construction progress monitoring. The two types of interactions occur between the human and the CPS – the human provides input for the CPS to collect data referred to as mission planning, and CPS provides visual data to enable the human to perform progress analysis. The interaction may occur through different modalities, such as visual, tactile, auditory, and immersive. The goal of this research is to understand the role of human interactions with CPS for construction progress monitoring. The study answers five research questions – a) What robotic CPS framework can be applied in construction progress monitoring? b) To what extent is the proposed CPS framework acceptable as an alternative to traditional construction progress monitoring? c) How can natural interaction modalities like hand gestures and voice commands be used as human-CPS interaction modalities for the proposed CPS? d) How does the human interaction modality between the proposed CPS and its user affect the usability of the proposed CPS? e) How does the human interaction modality between CPS and its user affect the performance of the proposed CPS?. To answer the research questions, a mixed-method-based methodology is used in this study. First, a systematic literature review is performed on the use of robots in inspection and monitoring of the built environment. Second, a CPS framework for remote progress monitoring is developed and evaluated in lab conditions. Third, a set of industry experts experienced with construction progress monitoring are interviewed to measure their acceptance of the developed CPS and to collect feedback for the evaluation of the CPS. Fourth, two methodologies are developed to use hand gesture and voice command recognition for human-CPS interaction in progress monitoring. Fifth, the usability and performance of the CPS are measured for identified interaction modalities through a human subject study. The human subjects are also interviewed post-experiment to identify the challenges they faced in their interactions with the CPS. The study makes the following contributions to the body of knowledge – a) key research areas and gaps were identified for robots in inspection and monitoring of the built environment, b) a fundamental framework for a robotic CPS was developed to automate reality capture and visualization using quadruped robots to facilitate remote construction progress monitoring, c) factors affecting the acceptance of the proposed robotic CPS for construction progress monitoring were identified by interviewing construction experts, d) two methodologies for using hand gestures and voice commands were developed for human-CPS interaction in construction progress monitoring, e) the effect of human interaction modalities on the usability and performance of the proposed CPS was assessed in construction progress monitoring through user studies, f) factors affecting the usability and performance of the proposed CPS with different interaction modalities were identified by conducting semi-structured interviews with users.
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    Real-Time and Remote Construction Progress Monitoring with a Quadruped Robot Using Augmented Reality
    Halder, Srijeet; Afsari, Kereshmeh; Serdakowski, John; DeVito, Stephen; Ensafi, Mahnaz; Thabet, Walid (MDPI, 2022-11-19)
    Construction progress monitoring involves a set of inspection tasks with repetitive in-person observations on the site. The current manual inspection process in construction is time-consuming, inefficient and inconsistent mainly due to human limitations in the ability to persistently and accurately walkthrough the job site and observe the as-built status of which robots are considerably better. Enabling the process of visual inspection with a real-time and remote inspection capability using robots can provide more frequent and accessible construction progress data for inspectors to improve the quality of inspection and monitoring. Also, integrating remote inspection with an Augmented Reality (AR) platform can help the inspector to verify as-planned BIM data with the as-built status. This paper proposes a new approach to perform remote monitoring of the construction progress in real-time using a quadruped robot and an AR solution. The proposed computational framework in this study uses a cloud-based solution to integrate the quadruped robot’s control for remote navigation through the construction site with 360° live-stream video of the construction status, as well as a real-time AR solution to visualize and compare the as-built status with as-planned BIM geometry. The implementation of the proposed framework is discussed, and the developed framework is evaluated in two use cases through experimental investigations.
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    Robots in Inspection and Monitoring of Buildings and Infrastructure: A Systematic Review
    Halder, Srijeet; Afsari, Kereshmeh (MDPI, 2023-02-10)
    Regular inspection and monitoring of buildings and infrastructure, that is collectively called the built environment in this paper, is critical. The built environment includes commercial and residential buildings, roads, bridges, tunnels, and pipelines. Automation and robotics can aid in reducing errors and increasing the efficiency of inspection tasks. As a result, robotic inspection and monitoring of the built environment has become a significant research topic in recent years. This review paper presents an in-depth qualitative content analysis of 269 papers on the use of robots for the inspection and monitoring of buildings and infrastructure. The review found nine different types of robotic systems, with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) being the most common, followed by unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). The study also found five different applications of robots in inspection and monitoring, namely, maintenance inspection, construction quality inspection, construction progress monitoring, as-built modeling, and safety inspection. Common research areas investigated by researchers include autonomous navigation, knowledge extraction, motion control systems, sensing, multi-robot collaboration, safety implications, and data transmission. The findings of this study provide insight into the recent research and developments in the field of robotic inspection and monitoring of the built environment and will benefit researchers, and construction and facility managers, in developing and implementing new robotic solutions.