Collaborative Research: An Audio-Based Spatiotemporal System for Automated Monitoring of Construction Operations

建筑业一直缺乏实时绩效监控、全面的项目管理、劳动效率和防止浪费的工具。这导致近90%的建筑项目成本超支，平均比预测成本高出28%。预计这一研究项目将促进对建筑活动和业务的跟踪和监测方式发生革命性变化。由于使用音频信号而不是有源传感器或数码相机，它将在未来快速、非侵入性和具有成本效益的数据采集能力方面发挥重要作用。最终，自动化项目监控系统带来的效率、可持续发展效益和成本降低将使美国建筑、工程、建筑和设施管理行业受益匪浅。该项目的成功也将对工程教育产生重大影响。该项目的教育活动高度整合，并与研究活动相互关联。研究成果将被用于制作教育材料，并将向其他机构的教育工作者公开提供。研究成果还将纳入外联和参与活动，并将通过各种方案吸引少数群体和代表性不足的群体。尽管最近在开发和实施音频信号处理技术以分析和建模复杂系统和过程方面取得了进展，但音频信号的真正附加值和潜在应用仍不为土木工程研究界所知。该项目是首次尝试引入音频信号作为识别、跟踪和监控工地施工作业的替代信息源。目前用于识别和监控施工作业的方法要么是基于位置的，要么是基于机器视觉的，暗示音频信号是克服其局限性的重大飞跃。该框架弥补了通用信号处理和施工性能监测之间缺失的环节。该项目将扩大学者在民用基础设施系统以及数字信号处理领域的研究视野。特别是，这一科学突破将为未来的研究奠定基础，这些研究将自动识别和记录施工作业和设备行动，估计项目绩效指数，并制定纠正措施，以保持项目绩效按计划进行。这反过来将使未来能够开发用于施工顺序分析、生产率测量、项目监测和控制系统以及维护决策的新型自动化应用程序。

The construction industry has been suffering from the lack of real-time performance monitoring, holistic project management, labor efficiency, and waste-preventive tools. This has led to cost overruns in almost 90 percent of construction projects with an average of 28 percent higher than forecast costs. This research project is expected to facilitate a transformative change in the ways that construction activities and operations are tracked and monitored. It will play a significant role in future rapid, nonintrusive and cost effective data acquisition capacity due to the use of audio signals instead of active sensors or digital cameras. Eventually the incurred efficiencies, sustainability benefits, and reduced costs of an automated project monitoring system will significantly benefit the U.S. Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Facilities Management industry. Success in this project also promises significant impacts to engineering education. The project's educational activities are highly integrated and inter-related with the research activities. The research results will be used to create educational material and will be made publicly available to educators at other institutions. The research results will also be integrated into the outreach and engagement activities and will result in engaging minorities and underrepresented groups through various programs.Despite recent advances in developing and implementing audio signal processing techniques for analyzing and modeling complex systems and processes, the real added value and potential applications of audio signals are still unknown to the civil engineering research community. This project is the first attempt to introduce audio signals as an alternative source of information for recognizing, tracking and monitoring construction operations at jobsites. Current approaches for recognizing and monitoring construction operations are either location-based or machine-vision-based, and implying audio signals is a significant leap to overcome their limitations. The framework provides the missing link between generic signal processing and construction performance monitoring. This project will expand the research horizons for academics in civil infrastructure systems as well as in digital signal processing domains. Particularly, this scientific breakthrough will set the stage for future research in automatically identifying and life-logging construction operations and equipment actions, estimating project performance indices, and creating corrective measures to keep the project performance as planned. This, in turn, will enable the future development of novel, automated applications for construction sequence analysis, productivity measuring, project monitoring and control systems, and maintenance decision making.