Technion – Israel Institute of Technolog
y
Technion is Israel’s premier technological research and development university. It will be represented by the Technion Research & Development Foundation Ltd. (TRDF), which is a legal entity created, owned and controlled by Technion, in order to handle administrative/financial tasks and aspects of Technion’s involvement in the action.
The Seskin Virtual Construction Laboratory (VC Lab) is a part of the National Building Research Institute at the Technion. The primary research foci of the lab include Building Information Modelling (BIM), Lean Construction, and the synergies between the two. Its computing and virtual reality infrastructure includes five BIM workstations, a three-sided full-scale CAVE (Cave Automated Virtual Environment) and an Oculus Rift VR head display.
Key staff involved:
Prof. Rafael Sacks is a leading authority in BIM and Lean Construction, a co-author of the standard textbook (the ‘BIM Handbook’) and has published 63 journal papers and 75 conference papers in these fields. He leads the VC Lab and is the Head of the Structural Eng. and Construction Management Dept. in the Faculty of Civil and Env. Engineering. In addition to his established academic track record, he has ten years of experience in the construction industry’ including structural engineering design, construction management and development of CAD software for the industry. Prof. Sacks will coordinate the proposal.
Dr. Ling Ma received his Phd from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China. He leveraged data mining technology to support safety early warning for metro and other hazardous underground construction projects. He has earned awards for his work on data mining. Dr. Ma is currently a postdoc at the VC Lab, with a fellowship from Israel Council for Higher Education.
Georgia Tech is a science and technology-focused university that consistently ranks in the top ten national universities, with higher ranks in the engineering disciplines. The contracting entity for all sponsored research activities at Georgia Tech is the Georgia Tech Research Corporation (GTRC). GTRC is a 501(c) (3) not-for-profit corporation and a supporting organization of Georgia Institute of Technology. The Intelligent vision and Automation Lab (IVALab) within the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology is devoted to researching computer vision algorithms and how they can be made robust for real-world use for feedback or decision processes.
Key staff involved:
Dr. Patricio A. Vela, director of the IVALab earned his PhD from the California Institute of Technology. He is an Associate Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at GT. He has over a decade of experience in control and dynamical systems theory with a focus on geometric mechanics, as well as a decade of experience in computer vision. He has received the NSF CAREER award for his work on the role of control theory within the context of vision-based tracking.
To execute the proposed work packages, doctoral students within IVALab will be employed. Their expertise will lie in Structure from Motion (SfM), Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM), geometric mechanics, and machine learning. These topics provide the expertise needed to interpret point cloud data and work with the algorithms that automate said process.
Pointivo is a software company that has been providing easy-to-use and inexpensive solutions to generate dimensionally accurate 3D digital models of large-scale infrastructure scenes. The company’s mission is to facilitate 3D mapping of outdoor environments by eliminating the need for specialized hardware and hence significantly reducing the costs of such operations. Pointivo is a select company in the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) at Georgia Tech which is one of the top technology incubators in the US.
Key staff involved:
Dr. Habib Fathi received his PhD in Civil and Env. Eng. from Georgia Tech. He co-founded Pointivo in 2014 based on his research on spatial data collection of large-scale structures using a single camera. In recognition of his research work, he has received prestigious awards including the 2014 Charles Eastman award and the 2011 FIATECH CETI award (intelligent and automated construction job site category). He holds one issued and two pending US patents.
Dr. Grant Schindler, received his PhD in Computer Science from Georgia Technology. He has worked as a research scientist in the Computational Perception Laboratory at Georgia Tech. He developed the 4D Cities technology during his academic work to provide a way to look at a 3D model of a city over time. He has published more than 20 peer-reviewed journal papers. He is also the founder of Trimensional, which focuses on 3D scanning of close-range objects.
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world, and the seventh-oldest in the world. Cambridge has performed consistently in various league tables, achieving the second top spot in the world according to the QS World University Rankings in 2014. Alumni of the university have won 65 Nobel Prizes, the most of any university in the world.
Key staff involved:
Dr. Ioannis Brilakis, director of the CIT group, has 2 US patents pending on methods for acquiring fabrication-accuracy measurements of building sites from low-cost video data, and has received multiple awards (ASCE Collingwood Prize, National Science Foundation CAREER award, CRC Best Paper Award, etc.) for creating groundbreaking methods for condition assessment, infrastructure object detection, and as-built model generation of constructed facilities.
Miss. Ruodan Lu, PhD candidate within the CIT group, has several years working experience as structural engineer in different major design offices across France. Her research is focused on as-is Bridge Information Modeling (BrIM) by using point cloud data.
http://cit.eng.cam.ac.uk/lab-director/researchers
Mr. Philipp Hüthwohl, PhD candidate within the CIT group, used to be a founder of Computer Vision and Automation consultancy in Germany. His research topic is on image-based automated bridge assessment on enriched BIM models.
http://cit.eng.cam.ac.uk/lab-director/researchers
Miss. Marianna Kopsida, PhD candidate within the CIT group, has obtained a Master of Science degree in Engineering Project Management and MEng-Beng in Civil Engineering from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Her research is focused on augmented reality using mobile cameras to overlay a BIM model on real world view.
http://cit.eng.cam.ac.uk/lab-director/researchers
Mr. Ioannis Anagnostopoulos, PhD candidate within the CIT group, has graduated from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki with a major in Transportation Engineering and Construction Management. His research interests are focused on automated 3D modelling of point clouds for the accurate depiction of the as-built conditions.
http://cit.eng.cam.ac.uk/lab-director/researchers
Kedmor Engineers Ltd. is an Israeli civil engineering firm that specializes in complex structure design and bridge solutions, bridge inspection and maintenance support, bridges rehabilitation design, construction site support, BMS design and development and engineering support services for Super Heavy Load Transportation. Kedmor was established in 2001 and employs 27 staff.
Key staff involved:
Eng. Amir Kedar has more than 20 years of experience in bridge and structural design and is the partner in charge of the bridge maintenance team. He has written the eight Israeli national professional procedure documents covering the full range of the bridge inspection and maintenance process, including the Bridge inspection Manual, Bridge defects tables book, Bridge library of maintenance and rehabilitation tasks, Bridge treatment assignment tables and guide, and the Bridge inspector pocket guide,
Eng. Raz Mor has 20 years of experience with bridge design and construction site support. He is a recognized expert in reinforced and prestressed concrete bridge design and rehabilitation
Technische Universität München 
Germany
Technische Universität München (TUM) is one of Europe’s top universities and one of the first in Germany to be named a University of Excellence. TUM regularly ranks among the best European universities in international rankings. The Chair of Computational Modelling and Simulation (CMS) at TUM is devoted to the development of new computational methods for the AEC industry. The research work ranges from establishing Building Information Modelling methods to automated construction progress monitoring, the spatio-temporal analysis of 4D models and the computer-supported life-cycle management of buildings to the simulation of construction processes and pedestrian dynamics. In all its projects, TUM-CMS is closely collaborating with industry partners and scientists from other research disciplines.
Key staff involved:
Prof. André Borrmann leads the Chair of Computational Modelling and Simulation at the TUM. His research interests range from BIM to spatio-topological analysis, construction process simulation and knowledge processing and reasoning. He has published 20 journal papers and 115 conference papers. He earned his PhD in 2007 from TUM. He is currently acting as Chair of the Euro Group of Intelligent Computing in Engineering.
Dipl.-Ing. Simon Daum is a PhD candidate at the CMS chair and leader of the QL4BIM project (Query Language for Building Information Models) [19]. His background is in Geo Informatics.
Though best known for GPS technology, Trimble integrates a wide range of positioning technologies including GPS, laser, optical and inertial technologies with application software, wireless communications, and services to provide complete commercial solutions. Its integrated solutions allow customers to collect, manage and analyse complex information faster and easier, making them more productive, efficient and profitable.
Trimble products are used in over 150 countries around the world. Employees in more than 35 countries, coupled with a highly capable network of dealers and distribution partners serve and support our customers.
For over 35 years, Trimble has created unique positioning products that help customers grow their business. Our portfolio includes over 1,000 patents and serves as the basis for the broadest positioning offerings in the industry. Trimble augments its organic product development with strategic acquisitions to bring the latest positioning technologies to a wider market.
Key staff involved:
Dr Alistair Wells (US) – received his PhD from the University of Greenwich, London where he used early digital photogrammetric techniques and remote sensing to look at the origins of topography. He spent 6 years working within the geospatial community and now has over ten years of experience working with Building Information Modelling with a particular focus on level of detail and constructability.
Peter Houghton (UK) – has 22 years of experience working at Trimble and has held a variety of positions from sales to technical to business development. As a result he has a wealth of technical and business experience with many of the Trimble tools and technologies. Prior to joining Trimble, Pete was a Land Surveyor with experience performing topographic surveys, positioning control and digital mapping.
Trimble also has a number of field staff, engineers and application specialist that will be available during the course of the project.
Georgia Department of Transportation
USA
GDOT serves the eighth most populous state in the U.S. and the largest state (by area) in the eastern U.S. GDOT plans, constructs, maintains and improves the state’s road and bridges and provides (1) planning and financial support for other modes of transportation such as mass transit and airports; (2) airport and air safety planning; and (3) air travel for other state departments. GDOT is internationally recognized as a leader among highway agencies in the U.S., managing nearly 18,000 miles of state routes (including interstate highways) and over 14,666 bridge structures (including culverts over 20 feet long). GDOT inspects bridge structures on a two-year cycle to ensure proper weight limit and height/width restrictions. GDOT has 4,300 employees.
Key staff involved:
Office of Bridge Design staff (personnel TBD)
Office of Research: (1) Mr. David Jared, P.E.; Chief, Research & Development Branch; (2) Mr. Binh Bui, M.S.; Research Implementation Manager. Binh Bui has been with GDOT over seven years. He holds a Master of Science degree from the University of Georgia. At GDOT he has managed numerous transportation research projects, with an emphasis on planning, construction, and program delivery. He is currently serving as Secretary for the “Mobility” Research Technical Advisory Group that supports one of GDOT’s strategic goals (asset management, mobility, safety and policy/workforce). In November 2013, he became the Research Implementation Manager for GDOT’s Office of Research. As such, he works closely with the technical/implementation (T/I) managers on all research projects. He also oversees GDOT implementation of products from the second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP-2). For this project, he will provide implementation support for GDOT Office of Bridge Design.