Developing a Cloud-based Remote Inspection System for Construction Sites Using Robotics and Mixed Reality Technology

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The inspection of a construction site is an effective method for ensuring that a particular project is going as planned and in accordance with the project requirements and relevant standards and regulations. Traditional inspection necessitates periodic site visits from various professionals, meaning that the professionals engaged in these inspections must travel frequently between sites and employ various types of equipment for the assessment. This may pose safety and health risks, labour shortages, and gender discrimination, particularly in remote areas like northern Canada.As a favourable alternative to dispatching professionals to carry out site inspections in person, the goal of this project is to enable immersive and real time remote construction inspection. The expected outcomes of the project include a robotic sensing system that can be operated by inspectors through Mixed Reality (MR) technology using 5G network. In this system, Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms and Building Information Modelling (BIM) will be employed to provide enhanced and standardized inspection through cloud computing.The outcomes of the project will benefit Alberta and Canada in the following three respects: (1) It will increase the productivity of construction while reducing site inspection costs, thereby bringing associated economic benefits to Alberta and Canada. (2) The proposed system will help to mitigate labour shortage issues in remote regions of Canada by making use of the pools of skilled workers in other regions. It also has the potential to reduce employment discrimination with respect to underrepresented groups (e.g., women) in the construction industry due to the inherent flexibility of this approach in terms of work schedule. (3) The system will help to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by reducing the travel of migrant workers and will support timely site inspection and thereby boost building quality.