Alessandro Carbonari

Design and first development of an automated real‐time safety management system for construction sites

Abstract This paper reports a feasibility study which addressed the development of a new, advanced system mainly devoted to automatic real‐time health and safety management on construction sites. The preliminary analyses and experiments described in this paper concern two of the most important functionalities which must be included in the systems final release. The first functionality consists in real‐time position‐tracking of workers involved on construction sites and the second ‐ in a software tool for the prevention of non‐authorized access to dangerous zones. This research step is part of a vaster, ongoing research project, addressing the development of a new generation of advanced construction management systems which allow real‐time monitoring and coordination of tasks, automatic health and safety management, on‐site delivery of technical information and the capture of “as‐built” documentation. This paper focuses mainly on the development of a reliable methodology for real‐time monitoring of the po...

A MANAGEMENT SYSTEM AGAINST MAJOR RISK ACCIDENTS IN LARGE CONSTRUCTION SITES

The rates of job injuries and fatalities in construction sites are still too high, with respect to other industrial working places. Statistics show that there are a few main types of risk accidents causing the higher number of fatalities. This paper suggests the development of a novel low intrusive real-time monitoring system in support of health and safety management in construction sites and addresses its basic application cases. It is mainly intended as a support system for those inspectors in charge of the correct application of the measures dictated by the Health and Safety Plan. Its application in construction sites is rendered convenient by its low intrusiveness and easy expandability with the real work progress. Finally, first successful field tests carried out in a large construction site, regarding several residential block of flats under construction in an Italian town, are presented.

Bayesian Networks for Supporting Model Based Predictive Control of Smart Buildings

Optimal behaviour is one the most desired features of contemporary technological systems. Challenges like secure operation, energy efficiency, and reliable performance call for the optimised behaviour of any systems that operate and interact in our living environment. The challenge in achieving optimised performances resides in the uncertainty that qualifies the environment surrounding technical systems. Whatever model drives the systems’ behaviour, it must be able to face unforeseen events, to manage the vagueness of the sensing apparatus and the errors of the control devices. Bayesian statistics is one of the theoretical backgrounds that support the construction of systems which are able to act effectively inside complex environments. Bayesian statistics is grounded on the fundamental premise that all uncertain‐ ties should be represented and measured by probabilities. Then, the laws of probabilities apply to produce probabilistic inferences about any quantity, or collection of quantities, of interest. Bayesian inference can provide predictions about probability values pertaining time series or can model parameters in terms of probability distributions that represent and summarize current uncertain knowledge and beliefs. Bayesian inference uses a kind of direct causal or model-based knowledge to provide the crucial robustness needed to make the optimised behaviour of technical systems feasible in the real world [1]. Once this kind of models have been built, then theoretically sound evidence propagation algorithms are used to update the belief set about the external environment and about the system performance, on the basis of acquired evidence. This is the fundamental mechanism that drives the construction and the operation of intelligent systems based on Bayesian inference. This chapter describes a sample engineering application of this approach on a large scale. It concerns the design and the development of an intelligent building energy management system (smart BEMS) that is able

A Spatio-Temporal Bayesian Network for Adaptive Risk Management in Territorial Emergency Response Operations

For this reason the availability of a Bayesian model is the only solution capable of allowing emergency squads to exploit the backward propagation of Bayesian networks and perform real-time diagnoses. In other words, once the user sets the desired state for the output variable(s), the network is able to work out the most likely state values for the corresponding input, thereby helping to discern how to act optimally in order to control the spread of fire. The same tool may also be used for scenario analyses.

Set up of an Automated Multi-Colour System for Interior Wall Painting:

It is shared that construction projects are getting bigger and more complex, hence also the productivity of the construction industry must be improved, while preserving its labour from hazardous job sites. Such requirements can be accomplished by the adoption of robotized products, which, however, need to be quickly developed and marketed. In this paper, first the issue of a new miniature laboratory for developing lightweight and well-coordinated robotized systems is pursued, then a novel robot device for high quality multi-colour interior wall painting carried by a robot arm is developed and successfully tested. Thanks to the new 1:6 scaled down laboratory and its six degree of freedom robot arm on an hexapod for horizontal moves, we tested the opportunity to introduce also in the building sector miniature robots that can change the ergonomics standardly adopted by construction workers. It is analyzed how and why switching from full size to miniature robots is convenient in construction. In addition, a new system adding further features to robotized painting has been conceived. Our new multi-colour spraying end-tool was developed and fixed on the robot arm, in order to be able to reproduce coloured artworks. Finally, a methodology to reproduce colours from digital format of artworks is presented, showing how accurate and efficient is this new robotized spraying device.

Set Up of a Robotized System for Interior Wall Painting

Although the use of spraying robotized systems for interior painting was already shown to be feasible and convenient, a lot of experiments must be carried out in the future to deliver a highly autonomous robot for interior painting. A new approach is proposed: two laboratories are set, the former being a full-scale and the latter a 1:4 scaled-down one, which is equipped with one robotized spraying machine (called Pollock #1). Thanks to its reduced size, less amount of raw materials, power supply, maintenance effort and wall surfaces for testing are required and experimental tests go quickly. This paper describes the experimental set-up constituting the scaled laboratory and analyzes proper trajectories for the robots spraying end-tool. In addition, the problem of re-scaling back the obtained results to full size buildings is addressed. Finally, the first experimental results obtained in the foregoing scaled laboratory are discussed, showing the very good performances of Pollock #1.

A Wireless System for Real-time Environmental and Energy Monitoring of a Metro Station: Lessons Learnt from a Three-year Research Project

Optimal energy management of underground transportation systems is widely recognized as a key aspect for significant energy savings at regional level. The three-year long EU funded “Seam4us” research project (2011 to 2014) aims to create a system for optimized integrated energy management, relying on the Passeig de Gracia metro station in Barcelona as the pilot station. One of the outcomes of the project was the installation of a wireless sensor network, in order to track in real time both environmental and energy parameters. The data collected by the network have been exploited to inform an intelligent control system about the state of the station. In fact, a reliable real-time sensing is critical for implementing advanced control policies in any kind of environment. For that reason, this paper will report on the Seam4us findings regarding real-time sensing of that quite harsh domain. The design criteria and constraints that led to the final installation will be argued. Then, post-processing functions, i.e. those algorithms turning raw data into the variables which can be processed by the controller, will be described. Finally, the general performance of the system will be discussed, in terms of reliability of data exchange and energy efficiency.

Interoperable Approach in Support of Semi-Automated Construction Management

Construction progress monitoring has always been a major concern for managers. Several are the advantages provided by a reliable approach in this field, among which we cite efficient project performance control and quality control, timely on-site inspections, better control of health and safety prescriptions against job injuries and fatalities, which are still too high. This paper addresses the development of a semi-automated approach for construction management, based on two main features: on one side a project management oriented re-organization of project’s information based on interoperable BIM (Building Information Modeling) and 4D modeling protocols, which aims to facilitate the control at the execution phase; on the other side a monitoring platform for real-time collection of data, relative to work progress and resources usage, by means of low intrusive technologies. Preliminary experiments on the capability by the low intrusive and real-time monitoring system to acquire and filter the data collected on resources usage are carried out. In addition, a general framework implementing several high-level logics is proposed. Its application would lead to seamless production of reports, to a semi-automated control of materials procurement, that is to say with limited or no human intervention. Preliminary application cases are shown, too. Among the expected benefits, not only economic savings for builders, but also better quality of recorded data and real-time availability of information have been pointed out.

A Real-Time and Non Intrusive Structural Health Monitoring System for Buildings

The constant innovation in the development of sensing devices for detecting health status of buildings, highlights the importance of this professional field. In fact, correct diagnosis would prevent many pathologies, driving maintenance interventions towards timely and well targeted operations. This paper describes the development of a monitoring system prototype, conceived to be very low intrusive, that can be applied also on existing buildings, without any need to predispose chases for power or communication cables. Its adoption is expected to be useful not only for standard health status monitoring of buildings during their lifecycle, but also for automated monitoring of old buildings during the conduction of works for their renovation. As a matter of fact in this case accidents due to unexpected collapses during work execution are very common, hence the static condition of buildings should be continuously checked automatically and alerts sent in case of high risk of failures. The sensors under development have been programmed in such a way to be able to monitor rotations and send alerts in case critical thresholds are overcome.

Innovative evaporative cooling walls

Water evaporative cooling walls represent a very powerful technology for summer cooling of buildings and can preserve high insulation levels, which make them high-performing in cold seasons, too. This chapter reviews the state of the art and presents the most important approaches currently adopted, namely direct and indirect cooling. This description is supported by a review of some numerical models, relative to the simulation of evaporative cooling components. These models were shown to be suitable for integration within more comprehensive routines, of the kind usually adopted for whole building simulations. In addition, an example of a prototype recently tested by the authors is reported. The experimental results helped assess the extent to which cooling loads can be reduced. Comments on likely future trends, suggestions about other sources of information, and conclusions finalize this contribution.