Crowdsourcing-Based Building Condition Assessment using Smartphone Networks

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Buildings consume 33% of global primary energy, contribute 40% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions globally, and people spend more than 85% of their time in buildings. Determining the health condition of existing buildings is of paramount importance in meeting the needs of users, preventing catastrophic failure, and reducing the GHG emissions related to costly and wasteful repair work. In this context, the effective, efficient management and assessment of buildings are crucial to researchers seeking to establish the smart and sustainable cities of the future. Although there have been technologies introduced for building condition assessment, such as nondestructive evaluation (NDE) and structural health monitoring (SHM), their widespread use remains limited by (1) the high costs related to equipment purchase as well as sensor installation/maintenance and (2) the reliance on well-trained professionals to operate them. To overcome these limitations, the proposed 5-year research program will explore the use of smartphones on the part of the public for crowdsourcing-based building condition assessment. With the participation of the public, smartphone networks can provide continuous, cost-effective, and scalable condition monitoring of existing buildings. My research will play an important role in bridging the gap between the increasing demand for building maintenance and the limited budgets of property owners. It will also help reduce the carbon footprint and life-cycle costs associated with buildings by promoting effective and efficient assessment and management. The anticipated outcomes of my research are the: (1) development of software systems that can facilitate data collection and management using smartphones; (2) development of data analysis methods that can effectively and efficiently process the data from the smartphone networks for structural condition assessment; and (3) quantification and mitigation of the uncertainties associated with the deployment of the system in large-scale tests. Overall, my research is beneficial because it will enable decision-makers to assess the condition of existing buildings more efficiently and more comprehensively. Compared with existing condition assessment technologies, the solution to be developed in the proposed research has the potential to monitor a large number of buildings simultaneously with reduced costs through the involvement of the public. Upon achievement of the goals of the research program, the developed framework and corresponding technologies are expected to be highly useful for developing scalable, reliable assessment technologies to promote the sustainability and resilience of current building and infrastructure systems in Canada. As a result, it will increase the safety of existing structures and mark an important step toward establishing the sustainable and smart cities of the future.