Crowdsourcing-Based Building Condition Assessment using Smartphone Networks

建筑消耗了全球33%的一次能源，贡献了全球40%的温室气体（GHG）排放，人们在建筑中度过的时间超过85%。确定现有建筑物的健康状况对于满足用户需求、防止灾难性故障和减少与昂贵和浪费的维修工作相关的温室气体排放至关重要。在这种背景下，有效、高效的建筑管理和评估对于寻求建立未来智能和可持续城市的研究人员至关重要。虽然已经引进了一些用于建筑状况评估的技术，如无损评估（NDE）和结构健康监测（SHM），但它们的广泛使用仍然受到以下因素的限制：(1)与设备购买和传感器安装/维护相关的高成本；(2)依赖训练有素的专业人员来操作它们。为了克服这些限制，拟议的5年研究计划将探索公众使用智能手机进行基于众包的建筑状况评估。在公众的参与下，智能手机网络可以为现有建筑提供持续、经济、可扩展的状态监测。我的研究将在填补日益增长的楼宇维修需求和业主有限的预算之间的差距方面发挥重要作用。它还将通过促进有效和高效的评估和管理，帮助减少与建筑物有关的碳足迹和生命周期成本。我的研究的预期结果是：(1)软件系统的开发，可以促进使用智能手机的数据收集和管理；(2)开发有效、高效地处理智能手机网络数据的数据分析方法，用于结构状态评估；(3)量化和缓解与系统大规模测试部署相关的不确定性。总的来说，我的研究是有益的，因为它将使决策者能够更有效、更全面地评估现有建筑的状况。与现有的状态评估技术相比，拟议研究中开发的解决方案有可能同时监测大量建筑物，并通过公众的参与降低成本。在实现研究计划的目标后，开发的框架和相应的技术预计将对开发可扩展的、可靠的评估技术非常有用，以促进加拿大当前建筑和基础设施系统的可持续性和弹性。因此，它将提高现有结构的安全性，并标志着建立未来可持续和智能城市的重要一步。

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.