Digital twin-enabled smart modular integrated construction system for on-site assembly

Abstract

Modular Integrated Construction (MiC) is a game-changing approach with enhanced quality, productivity, and sustainability, which transforms cast-in-situ into on-site assembly of prefabricated modules. On-site assembly is an uncertain and complex stage in MiC scenario, due to high variability of outside conditions, organization of multi-contractors, and geographic dispersion of activities. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is adopted to support the reengineering of on-site assembly, however, on-site resources couldn’t be efficiently and consistently digitalized and the cyber-physical interoperation is fragmented and out-of-date. Digital twin is a key enabler of ICT revolution to address these challenges towards automated and intelligent construction. This paper introduces a digital twin-enabled smart MiC system (DT-SMiCS) with a robotic demonstration for reengineered on-site assembly. On-site resources are converted into Smart MiC Objects (SMiCOs) attaching with UWB and RFID devices to collect and integrate real-time nD data, such as identity, location, cost, and construction progress. Digital twins of SMiCOs with similar properties and behaviors are instantiated from unified object-oriented templates for item-level mapping and characterizing. Through smart mobile gateway, various on-site resources and activities could be real-timely interoperated with their corresponding digital twins. Cloud-based services are provided for real-time monitoring through high-fidelity virtual models, and remote control with automatic navigations. A testbed robotic demonstration is conducted to verify DT-SMiCS for reengineered on-site assembly.