Jacob J. Lin

Bio: Jacob J. Lin is an academic researcher from University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. The author has contributed to research in topics: Computer science & Workflow. The author has an hindex of 3, co-authored 4 publications receiving 343 citations.

Visual monitoring of civil infrastructure systems via camera-equipped Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs): a review of related works

Abstract: Over the past few years, the application of camera-equipped Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for visually monitoring construction and operation of buildings, bridges, and other types of civil infrastructure systems has exponentially grown. These platforms can frequently survey construction sites, monitor work-in-progress, create documents for safety, and inspect existing structures, particularly for hard-to-reach areas. The purpose of this paper is to provide a concise review of the most recent methods that streamline collection, analysis, visualization, and communication of the visual data captured from these platforms, with and without using Building Information Models (BIM) as a priori information. Specifically, the most relevant works from Civil Engineering, Computer Vision, and Robotics communities are presented and compared in terms of their potential to lead to automatic construction monitoring and civil infrastructure condition assessment.

A Framework for Model-Driven Acquisition and Analytics of Visual Data Using UAVs for Automated Construction Progress Monitoring

Abstract: Automated assessment of work-in-progress using large collections of site images and four-dimensional (4D) building information modelling (BIM) has potential to significantly improve the efficiency of construction project controls. Nevertheless, today’s manual procedures for taking site photos do not support the desired frequency or completeness for automated progress monitoring. While the usage of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for acquisition of site images has gained popularity, their application for addressing issues associated with image-based progress monitoring and particularly leveraging 4D BIM for steering the data collection process has not been investigated before. By presenting examples from two case studies conducted on real-world construction projects, this paper suggests a framework for model-driven acquisition and analytics of progress images. In particular, the potential of spatial (geometry, appearance, and interconnectivity) and temporal information in 4D BIM for autonomous data acquisition and analytics that guarantees completeness and accuracy for both as-built modeling and monitoring work-in-progress at the schedule task-level is discussed.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: A Survey on Civil Applications and Key Research Challenges

Abstract: The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is growing rapidly across many civil application domains, including real-time monitoring, providing wireless coverage, remote sensing, search and rescue, delivery of goods, security and surveillance, precision agriculture, and civil infrastructure inspection. Smart UAVs are the next big revolution in the UAV technology promising to provide new opportunities in different applications, especially in civil infrastructure in terms of reduced risks and lower cost. Civil infrastructure is expected to dominate more than $45 Billion market value of UAV usage. In this paper, we present UAV civil applications and their challenges. We also discuss the current research trends and provide future insights for potential UAV uses. Furthermore, we present the key challenges for UAV civil applications, including charging challenges, collision avoidance and swarming challenges, and networking and security-related challenges. Based on our review of the recent literature, we discuss open research challenges and draw high-level insights on how these challenges might be approached.

A Review of the Piezoelectric Electromechanical Impedance Based Structural Health Monitoring Technique for Engineering Structures

Abstract: The birth of smart materials such as piezoelectric (PZT) transducers has aided in revolutionizing the field of structural health monitoring (SHM) based on non-destructive testing (NDT) methods. While a relatively new NDT method known as the electromechanical (EMI) technique has been investigated for more than two decades, there are still various problems that must be solved before it is applied to real structures. The technique, which has a significant potential to contribute to the creation of one of the most effective SHM systems, involves the use of a single PZT for exciting and sensing of the host structure. In this paper, studies applied for the past decade related to the EMI technique have been reviewed to understand its trend. In addition, new concepts and ideas proposed by various authors are also surveyed, and the paper concludes with a discussion of the potential directions for future works.