ABSTRACT
Vertical and horizontal infrastructure is comprised of large assets that need sizable budgets to design, construct and operate/maintain them. Cost reductions throughout their lifecycle can generate significant savings to all involved parties. Such reductions can be derived directly through productivity improvements or indirectly through safety and quality control improvements. Creating and maintaining an up-to-date electronic record of these assets in the form of rich Bridge Information Models (BIM) can help generate such improvements. New research is being conducted at the University of Cambridge on inexpensive methods for generating object-oriented infrastructure geometry, detecting and mapping visible defects on the resulting BIM, automatically extracting defect spatial measurements, and sensor and sensor data modelling. The results of these methods are further exploited through their application in Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DfMA), augmented-reality-enabled mobile inspection, and proactive asset protection from accidental damage. Virtualization methods can produce a reliable digital record of infrastructure and enable owners to reliably protect, monitor and maintain the condition of their asset.
