Prof. Dr. Kathrin Dörfler
Title: Collaborative Construction
Abstract: To address the complexities of future (re)construction, the talk introduces concepts of robustness, redundancy, and resilience, all framed within collaborative construction. Emphasizing the need for robotic construction systems that are robust and can withstand uncertainties, redundancy to ensure alternative pathways in case of failures, and resilience to adapt to changing conditions, the presentation advocates for a holistic approach that considers environmental, economic, and societal impacts. On one hand, by fostering a collaborative ecosystem where humans and machines complement each other, this talk aims to discuss challenges and opportunities in human-robot collaboration. It will highlight the role of careful design considerations, task planning, and coordination, to facilitate synergistic cooperation and to ensure that redundant components can seamlessly take over in case of unpredictable situations without causing disruptions. On the other, by integrating suitable material systems with robotic building processes and geometric differentiation, this talk aims to uncover how to balance between system functionality and resource-effectiveness, moving beyond just efficiency. Illustrated through a series of case studies, it will depict how this holistic approach requires advancements in technology and collaborative efforts among architectural and engineering researchers and domain experts, driving collaborative construction toward transformative progress.
Bio: Kathrin Dörfler, an architect, researcher, and educator in computational design and robotic fabrication, holds a master’s degree in architecture from TU Vienna and a PhD from ETH Zurich. Her doctoral thesis, conducted at Gramazio Kohler Research, ETH Zurich, as part of the NCCR Digital Fabrication, advanced methods for the use of construction robots directly on building sites. In 2019, Kathrin assumed the role of Tenure Track Professor at the School of Engineering and Design at the Technical University of Munich. Here, she leads a research group for Digital Fabrication in the Department of Architecture, exploring the synergy between computational design and robotic fabrication. The group’s focus includes collaborative fabrication processes, on-site robotics, and fabrication-aware design for a sustainable future of construction.
Prof. Dr. Katharina Klemt-Albert
Title: Sustainable Digitalization in Infrastructure and Construction – a German Perspective
Abstract: Digital transformation and sustainability are the most important issues in the construction industry. In Europe specifically, carbon policies will rapidly change the industry’s agenda over the next decade, requiring urgent action to achieve net-zero targets. Construction, which is responsible for nearly 40 percent of global CO₂ emissions – is on one hand elusive, but on the other offers the greatest potential for innovation. Professor Klemt-Albert is involved in initiatives launched by Germany’s federal government to leverage the potential in construction. This concerns both federal-owned building structures and in particular Germany’s extensive road and railway infrastructures. In addition to these insights, she will show current research results in the field of sustainable digitalization and present the new learning factory for construction robotics set up at RWTH Aachen University.
Bio: Prof. Katharina Klemt-Albert is director of the ICoM – the Institute for Construction Management, Digital Engineering and Robotics in Construction at RWTH Aachen University. Projects at ICoM focus on sustainable digitalization and smart automation in architecture, engineering and construction. RWTH Aachen University owns the title to be called German University of Excellence, besides being a founding member of the IDEA League, a strategic alliance of five leading technical universities in Europe. Before joining RWTH Aachen University, Klemt-Albert was chair and professor at Leibniz Universität Hannover since 2016. Her academic career began with studies in civil engineering at Ruhr University in Bochum. In 2001, she earned a doctorate with honours from the Technical University of Darmstadt in cooperation with the Northwestern University, U.S.A. Professor Klemt-Albert has extensive management and industrial experience. She spent 14 years in top management at Deutsche Bahn AG, most recently as managing director of an international engineering company with 1,500 employees. She was responsible for numerous mega projects with a focus on the Gulf region, Asia and South America. She is also the founder of albert.ing GmbH, a specialized provider for digital transformation.
Warm welcome from uh from me and from design Plus+ to our Autumn lectures series uh 20123 um today we are lucky to actually have uh Professor Katrin derer and we are also lucky to have Professor Karina Clem Albert here so we actually have two lecturer today and I’m very very excited
It’s the third lecture uh series if you missed any of the other ones we have a YouTube channel um you can re-watch all our lectures but also other presentations that we have within the design Plus+ uh Network um I’m standing here alone but of course we are a big team organizing
This lecture series uh ver Balmer is here first draw uh Danielle grigo is here and Mel Krauss and together we organized this seminar series um to bring a bit all the different departments together talking about architecture engineering and construction and now I’m very very happy to introduce uh Professor Katherine
Derler um for the ones of you who never met her she actually used to work here here she used to work at kamasa research she used to be my postto and um longterm uh collaborator um Katon derer is an architect researcher and educator in competitional design and robotic
Fabrication and holds a master degree in architecture from to Vienna and a PhD from E Zurich at katola research her doctoral thesis uh conducted at katola research was part of the NCC n nccr digital fabrication Advanced methods for the use of construction robots directly on building sites in 2019 Katherine
Assumed the role of a tenure track professor at the school of engineering and design at the Technical University of Munich here she leads a research group for digital Fabrication in the department of architecture exploring the Synergy between computational design and robotic fabrication the group’s Focus includes collaborative fabrication processes on-site Robotics and
Fabrication aware design for a sustainable future of construction and today her talk will be on collaborative construction and I’m very excited to welcome you thank you [Applause] Katherine uh thank you danila for for the nice introduction um I welcome you all to to my talk uh which gave the title collaborative
Construction um um I see many familiar faces here um and I’m giving the presentation today um in my role as Professor for digital fabrication at Technical University of Munich um and as co- spokes person of the uh collaborative Research Center which we are uh which I am co-coordinating since four years since
Two years actually but since four years as a member um additive manufacturing and construction the challenge of large scale so a lot of 3D printing which I will present today so as you all know technology is a powerful tool for uh managing complex systems um and in particular if we
Compare the construction sector or it is often compared uh to other types of manufacturing Industries most and foremost Automotive sector or retail product sector often need is said uh that we see that the production chain from design to final assembly is largely automated today um in contrast to
Construction um however uh we believe that construction is not directly comparable to the manufacturing Industries or the classical manufacturing Industries the buil environment is intertwined uh with the material reality of the society the geographic location to which it belongs and it is a product of its mostly its legal framework
Conditions its uh Regional availability um and the supply chains and also the industrial practices skills and technologies that are associated with it so to enable um a sustainable change in the construction industry we need novel systemic approaches um and also transformative technologies that come within the construction uh Logics um to
Uh become better and more sustainable so against this backdr this presentation and the work with my team um advocates for this sort of holistic approach um emphasizing the need for digital construction that is somewhat robust and can withstand uncertainties is to some sense also redundant and resilient to adapt to changing conditions
What I mean with this um I think it’s best explained on behalf of a series of case studies experimentations um and um um Explorations um there will be six of them so please be a bit patient I will try to to to to be in time so the first project that I would
Like to talk about today um is called locks logs stands for interlocking uh Collective AR assisted assembly of topologically interlocking structures it was one of the first projects that we did um at uh at Technical University of Munich um and the research was around uh whether and how a team of people can
Participate in the Assembly of a pavilion uh using only mobile AR technology um following customized users specific constructions um uh visualized on a mobile phone um in this setup uh the building instructions can be retrieved uh by multiple users Via Mobile AR app um that positions user specific U building instructions 3 space
Um custom to the uh user in question and the research question revolves around how multiple uh participants or users can be synchronized and coordinated um over a cloud uh over a cloud um and how uh participants can intuitively log in participate and log out at any time of the
Process um for this we developed the material system um uh consisting of this discrete wooden uh blocks um that offer form uh form fitting connections and it makes it possible to use these units both as building blocks uh for as structure members but also as sort of temporary support to build up the
Structure and then remove it again once uh the structure reaches suff sufficient stability um all of this is uh stored in an assembly information model a graph data structure where each of these blocks is represented by a node of the structure but also by the topology uh basically represent all the dependencies
Of these building blocks and the SE actually no sequences but just dependencies um and this allows uh to continuously compute uh the state of other nodes according to the currently assigned States um uh I will explain this a bit more detail so um we built up this uh
Pavillon in uh the front of the Bina which is opposite to Munich in Munich this was during covid time so everything had to be sort of closed up um and you can see here the user interface so it’s all running on uh uh on Unity um on a mobile phone and
Basically we had uh four of these phones and each phone was used by a pair of students so obious two students that would work together um and one uh that is basically holding the phone and talking to the uh to the other student basically give uh reading the
Instructions you can see here that we used some sort of color coding uh resembling whether um a element can be built uh or should be built whether one of it is selected by another participating uh user or if it’s removable meaning that it can be removed
Uh again uh and by this we kind of uh build up this pavon sort of in a um sort of installation for this K Aral festival and this is uh just the the remaining building um the the model itself is of course reusable so there are no
Mechanical connectors so we we took it apart and uh rebuild it at at the in h of of of our chair of our professorship yeah so these are some images from the installation and uh this work was uh sort of um a little bit uh I mean it’s
Very simple but it was still uh kind of uh showing some directions what it means if multiple agents can participate together and um we sort of tried to expand this by bringing robots back into the system no so that we still work with mobile AR but collaborating uh with collaborative
Robots um and this is a work that I have been developing with Dana mger for a while already uh and uh two of her M students this summer um uh human robot Cooperative assembly Rec reconfigurable resr frame structures um and uh it aims to Foster e abative ecosystems where humans and
Robots can complement each other um and tries to understand the sort of limitations but also the opportunities in human robot collaboration highlighting that this has to be considered in design but uh also during uh fabrication um yeah so we have seen uh research uh exciting research that looked into
Multi-root assembly and shows the effectiveness of collaboration among multiple agents such that um it is enabled that more can accomplish than with just one participating agent and the question is if if also humans become part of these processes if uh if even more could be enabled um for instance that we can take
Advantage of human cognitive abilities versatility fine motor skills uh plus the robot’s precision and sort of endurance so um so uh what we think uh this kind of projects or this uh sort of thinking also has to be reflected in the design of the building structure so we
Have to think how can we meaningfully distribute tasks between uh humans and robots like what can everybody do best um so that they can support each other in the best way so this has has to be considered during design and then during uh during building of course we have to
Find a way how these two entities can communicate with each other so the mobile phone is always for us a way to kind of visualize 3 3D data in 3D space at the at the correct time at the correct Place let’s say um and therefore allows to kind of have a digital Shar
Digital space that both humans and robots can share again in relation to this concept we have uh basically developed some sort of Lo assembly Logics uh that would reflect basically or that would allow to examine sort of this this uh concept and we have been building up on the basis of
This reciprocal frame structure where we always have models of three basically and that kind of grow along a guiding surface and during this growth algorithm we already take into account you can see here very lightly colored uh the robot reachability which kind of should ensure the fabricability at each time and The
Guiding surface which is basically uh also uh guiding the growth algorithm in fact and with this we design already with the constraints meaning that the fabricability is ensured at each step so it’s not a post-processing step but it’s actually part of the design Generation Um and also the structural stability in
This case should be ensured at all times um again we work with this graph-based uh sort of um represent U storing method where again the states the geometry topology is stored in in the in the model um and allows to basically um yeah store all the fabrication data that is
Necessary um and also the we it’s built by a person by a robot and all the sort of data that is associated with it and then uh elen and Joe joined uh by developing this nice um AR interface um this was the summer and uh I show you
Quickly a video that we tried to do because all was a bit easy how all was a bit difficult how to communicate so this is the basically the overlay of the AR app and here you can see how I mean you can hardly see but uh basically you
Select an element that needs to be built and then you can trigger from the mobile phone the calculation of a trajectory for the for placing a new Rod um and uh then you can also visualize uh how this uh manipulation procedure is performed uh with this sliding you can see here
And then you can also trigger basically when the robot has to U basically place the RO then um once the robot has has has bled then the person comes in and assembles the second uh Rod so it also kind of has to follow some logic um and while basically the
First robot stabilizes the structure the second robot comes in and continues no and then it’s always like turn taking always the robot is basically also used as a temporary support and then the second can continue and um you can see here also the interface and we have just work with tags this
Time so there’s no object recognition and in in uh and you can already see the limitations of this also know so we would actually require much more spatial awareness in order to really make this very fluid and intuitive now so um the uh the research we have been doing it
For a while also with danila together it really shows that if we don’t have the best spatial awareness we will always have limitations in really making this kind of sh works is very very um um uh intuitive and seamless and now you can see when the road let’s go structure
Shakes because it’s also a bit soft um and then uh in theory now the the next um Rod could be assembled um yeah so here are just some images of the what is nice is still that since the robot is collaborative there’s it really is used as a sort of
Smart drill yeah it’s really since we are working with these tools it be it becomes very kind of um easy accessible to to kind of perform such tasks together um and this is just like I think Jo did the draw imag just to see a little bit of the
Scale again this uh I forgot to say that this all the notes are the same so this structure is also completely reconfigurable so we could disassemble it assemble it again so but this topic of spatial awareness is kind of following us all the time um so we have now initiated
Collaboration with Professor Stefan ler machine learning and Robotics to really start to more fundamentally go into this topic of spatial awareness um to support uh onsite construction or to support mobile uh construction so spal AI um big name but it refers basically to the artificial intelligence that focuses on the
Understanding utilization of spatial information with high Precision um enabling robot systems to comprehend and interact with the physical environment in a man that manner that mimics uh human spatial awareness not to have a semantic but also a GE um geometric understanding and one of the materials
That repeats itself it uh no sorry I forgot to say that what this allows is to work not just with new construction but also in existing context and uh one of the materials that uh is uh very apt for reuse is our uh beloved brick um because um uh until to the
1970s when no cement was added to the mortar due to the weaker nature of the mortar joint it’s very easy to take the very small skill model apart again um therefore bricks and stones were highly usable as also thect in these examples so when we look into circular
Material use of course we first um want to reclaim the material and then we want to reuse it in in a circular way and we have set up um to start addressing this topic basically we have now started with bricks um as we see it kind of
Accessible or easy to start with um for the mobile robotic disassembly um of the brick work structure and we have set up a case study which uh with extremely simplified conditions so no mortar uh no uh kind of uh no additional complexities let’s say um but the objective was to
Realize an autonomous process for the robotic disassembly of a manually assembled brick wall with no cat geometry and no prior knowledge and we have started to train models with synthetic bricks so not real bricks um in um in a lot of different situations with lot lot of different lighting
Conditions such that both a full structure structure can be recognized but also the individual objects within and we’ve integrated this again into our like mobile robot uh and you can see here uh the camera um stereo vision and then what uh the robot can actually see
And we have set up a two task two-step task management system first to kind of uh a search routine to uh kind of identify the work piece in general and then an iterative Loop to kind of start to disassemble the whole the whole system and you can see this here and
It’s also not completely fluid yet but because we have St we take like kind of single snapshots and this is kind of the first search routine where the where the robot searches for the work piece and then the second one where uh we can identify basically the single bricks in
The structure they don’t have any uh they’re not um identified so they’re not track they’re just every brick basically is identified in the image and then we compare it to a digital model that we set up as the construction well as the disassembly uh progresses and then each brick in reach
Or each detected object in reach is basically then taken off no so um you can see here that basically the Digital model is generated as the disassembly progresses um and then um basically the routine is always the same the road looks at the structure takes one of the
Detected bricks if they’re multiple uh plans the trajectory for for putting it back on the on the storage which we have now put on the back of the robot uh and then it basically continues with this routine until no more uh kind of object can be taken out and you can see here
The the digal twin and this is would be the first patch that it would disassemble and you can also see that it kind of goes in the opposite way as you would do when building it up so kind of goes patchwise with this kind of trap
Soidal shapes St um and uh then we relocate the robot manually so there’s no autonomy there but and we use a tag to put everything into the same workspace L globally because locally this information is not important or for the dis assembly routine actually this
Is not as important so we go uh in this case um five times uh to basically take this whole um structure part and um yeah what is nice actually is that you create the Digital model during the disassembly and you could basically reconstruct it in the same way which is
Somehow nice of course not super accurate to the extent that we it would be required but if we can trick this this would be a nice way how to think also into reconstruction again you can see here the the five patches so while it’s not super super accurate it’s super
Robust somehow so we had 100% uh task success rate with this 48 bricks and five times relocating um and uh here are some of the numbers that basically uh quantify um a little bit of the cycle times and the post estimation of the single bricks
We would now need to measure it a bit more precisely to really make some better assumptions on the accuracy of what we can achieve so while we are very invested let’s say with developing these Technologies um we are also very invested in working with architecture students and really bringing these
Technologies into the design sphere and this is uh also very much um connected to this additive manufacturing and construction cluster um and um we have initiated two pilot projects in the last two years uh where we have set up designed Studios where we work together with the students really on
Architectural design topics and I will now talk a little bit bit about this um where um the focus is on on the design not only in terms what is built but also the how the whole process is performed and of course also leveraging additive Manufacturing Technologies to some
Extent as a design driver in the system and what we try to teach is that uh when I mean this is nothing new for you but I still repeat it but in the classical way you you design then you engineer and then you construct and of
Course you try to see is all in a in a coherent sort of very early stage design to bring all of these topics together and um in infrastructural design which we have looked a little bit into it of course um these functions that we want to integrate so um is always related to
Form and force and the material or the production technology you can see here a spanning uh structure for a pedestrian bridge that is first uh taking into account uh the um mechanical properties of the materal material and then in the Second Step uh the limitations of the
Printing system so that the form is then discretized into the parts such that they can be 3D printed and uh in building construction this goes far beyond form and force But it includes also an Extended functional hybridization so we try to kind of integrate uh multiple functions do they
Relate to structural terminal platic uh building design requirements into the building components all um sort of enabled by the additive manufacturing or digital building fabrication Technologies um three projects I will browse through them quite fast hopefully so the first one bridge the gap was a design studio that um I uh did together
With pigi duno um Professor for structural design um now two years ago uh in which we aim to explore the integration of forum Force but then also the fabrication technology as a main design dve D in in the design process um and for this particular uh design we uh
Focused on a method called selective paste intrusion so this is a method where um a cement base or actually any kind of binder is intruded into a gravel bed and then layerwise he can build up a structure um these structures are not reinforced so they’re very brittle uh
And in particular this uh in this case we use the lightweight aggregate meaning that the mechanical property of the material are quite weak however um you can react to that of course with with geometry know with a geometric design and knowing this you can also take these
Features very early uh into the designed thinking in this case um to set up a model for sort of a compression dominant uh sort of BL um um shape and we have developed a method to kind of go sequentially not to kind of first uh have a very rough outline on the global
Geometry uh then uh go detailed more into the segmentation and then into the final structural design and we have been able to realize this also within the um uh additive manufacturing AMC cluster as a onetoone prototype um and uh this video guides you a little bit more through it also
Yeah you can see here again the design um me method um so first uh basically because uh it’s a sort of uh unreinforced system with uh post engine cables of course but it takes into account that you want to go into the arch like or shell like shape um then
The um the mechanical properties need to be tested uh and then fedback to the material model um in this case the the which type of aggregate you use is really defining also the mechanical properties of of this um but we looked into taking a very weak material with a very low cement uh
Paste but having it a bit more bulky so that we have more interface between the parts so um so it of course follows the stress lines and then this is not automated so we did this all manually uh but basically it follows the stress lines and then uh kind of um integrates the
The detailing or how these parts come together into the 3D printed Parts uh this is the post tension cables how they rooted basically through the structure and then because we didn’t want any lateral roots in the supports also the Cy that would put the two things uh that would uh kind of hold
The supports together this is the 3D printer uh it’s an industry partner in um s stars to roll uh who have developed this printer together with tomb um which is uh six by three by two met something like this and the segments can be printed in one go uh which is nice and
It’s a very robust process because uh basically you can uh uh very easily remove the gravel that afterwards um and then here um you can see the not very uh smart way of assembling a lot of uh um support uh needed um but something that we we would need to look
Into and what is super nice is that you don’t need any so there’s no mortar needed between the parts because because it’s so precise and also the um the connections are form fit um yeah have to wait for the credit slide uh of course uh you can see here
The the associated researchers so we work with the mpa then the material science scientists and also the people who develop the process at to um and uh while this very much looked into uh sort of the structural capacities of the system uh when we look into really creating building components
For for it uh then the climate uh functions are very important or the insulating functions um must be taken into account both for the indoor climate but also for the outdoor climate um and so we have started to look into Building Systems um in this case um uh the architecture
Reference of marel brya uh a prefabricated Passad systems from the 60s already um and a method for the design and manufacturing of this uh augmented with the possibilities of additive manufacturing So In traditional industrial construction we always have a loadbearing layer an insulating layer a sort of protection layer and uh this is
Done of course to comply with the code and to be able to um react to all of the requirements that we have um this multi nature but also leads to that once we deconstruct the building that it’s very difficult to dismantle usually these layers are glue to each other and uh
When we think about this we want to think about um like kind of using as little materials as possible for doing that and also not so many processes um this has already been thought out in this uh reference um so this IBM Research Center in lagod in in in France
Aimed to unify Building Technology installations and passive solar protection measures in a single modular prefabricated facade component but of course um sort of limited with the production of casting techniques at the time and in this case we looked into uh SCA selective cement activation technology which is similar to the first
One but the bed is not gravel the bed is like cement powder and you activate it uh selectively with water um and I would say that is uh it’s it’s much more higher resolution but it’s of course also way more brittle um and it’s not so
Easy to scale no so you will also see the limitations of this so we try to um develop also a design methodology to integrate both the insulating functions and the Ling functions into this prefabricated building components um where we made a hypothetical design where you can see that we first
Basically parametri adapt the size of the glazing area to the solar sort of situation of this circular that building layout is a hypothetical design not a real building um and concurrently design the internal structure to conform with the uh termal insulation and also the uh sort of structural Zone uh to conform
With the structural requirements and um I will also play a quick video of this one doesn’t to play so um this is again uh a one print bad uh Endeavor now this is not discarded it’s really printed as one uh piece so it’s 38 M High uh so it’s really large and of
Course we had to uh sort of deal with all the cracking and the deformations that uh play into there um and also all the sort of the constraints of the fabrication system are also reflected in how the how the details are are made so these channels have to have a certain size because
Really difficult to take out the cement powder um so they are much larger than they actually would need to be um and um and also since the material is less loadbearing than the process that I’ve shown before we had to integrate it sort of as a stain place formwork to then
Also put reinforcement and sort of cast parts of it for the structural Z and then uh it’s printed basically in a horizontal way uh it’s taken out uh and um um basically the powder has to be removed um and it’s much more difficult than in the process that you saw before
Because the powder um yeah is more sticky and not so easy not so easy to take out um then you can see here how the basically the rest uh these channels are filled with the reinforcement and the cast concrete um so it still doesn’t really conform with what I said before that you
Just use one material no so um and here you can see all the little cracks it’s still sort of um um yeah it was still kind of a major achievement that we managed to put to to realize this at that scale um then again here the reinforcement uh the the insulation
Material was kind of blown in from the side um and here um this the Dr students took some uh measurements of the uh sort of surface temperature of the of the comp and you can see here also some of the parts where sort of the cracks have
Taken over yeah so we have tried because we like the concept in principle we have now tried to to go back to the other process and kind of rethink that kind of how can we State us really with one material um and we have looked back into this selective Bas intrusion um starting
From uh this concept that you really can construct the building really just with one process one material both for the wall elements and also for the ceiling elements um envisioning basically uh how the components could be prefabricated and then put together into one uh building uh without reinforcement
But maybe potentially again with post tensing methods and this really draws um of course the inspiration from this ancient stone uh masonry architecture but with the ability to really have a hollow Stone no so what is uh kind of inside this elements is has all of the functions that I’ve been talking before
Um so the the shape of these components first react to the size of the printer then also to the statical requirements so uh this sort of uh compression dominant load uh transfer then also how these pieces are assembled so uh if you assemble from Top you want to have this
Kind of segmentations line uh tilted also and also such that they can interlock nicely so that you don’t need any more mechanical connectors and what is really nice about this that it really goes very close to this infr light Bon so or light Lim so these two things are
Kind of in the same field um and uh the binder whether this is uh like cement or um any other binder is basically the low theying component and the particle itself is a lightweight aggregate uh which is highly insulating um and uh you can imagine that if you selectively uh
Bind the material that the particles which are trapped inside such close cell geometries are remaining in the structure both as a insulating component uh but also of course there a little bit of a termal mass um and um what we refer to as this Tri particle principle uh you
Can then also see that uh the more you bind in the in the system the more it carries but the less you bind the more it’s insulating so with that knowledge we can kind of steer the internal geometry of of these parts um and we have uh also now made the first
Prototype of of this which is like just a very small cutout because we have just started this um This research um um but with some uh kind of promising results as well yeah here also the process of printing is detailed a bit better um so this binder is super liquid and it goes
Into a print head that kind of makes droplets of materials uh like a printer thinker um and um you can see here that the flow behavior of the C bases liquid um because it has to intrude the material a little bit uh and it also
Cannot Harden so fast so that it kind of doesn’t give the cachun we know all these issues um and then here you can see how the gravel is basically put into the aggregate container um the and this agitation container that kind of steers the the binder um and then just press
Print never works but say so uh and then you can see that uh how the gravel is basically distributed on the on the bed um and um layer wise um manufacturing the part this is the small version of the bigger one that you saw before the first prototype that
We have in the uh Material Science Lab um and then you can see also again how EAS just to I mean Rock print like it is to remove the gravel around it um yeah you can see here this was now the size that we have now firstly
Produced uh and we now in the process of also taking the sort of measurements to see if the simulation basically fits the fits the um the assumptions and this is just a photograph of um kind of internal cell structure yeah so uh with this I thank
You for your attention um if I probably have you have not seen all of the credits is like really a a big group behind especially the last uh three projects um and you can find more information on the website AMC um and also on the website of of our
Professorship and now I’m happy to take questions of her thank you [Applause] thank you cine I will propose to put the questions to the end so we put both questions uh together for both uh lecturers and then also can then after the next lecture make a smooth
Transition to the drinks and abaro that we have I am very happy to introduce uh uh Professor Katarina Clem Albert she’s director of the Icom The Institute of construction management digital engineering and Robotics in construction at arv Aran University before joining Aran University clim Albert was chair and professor at lies
University in um Han Hanover since 2016 her academic career began with studies in civil engineering ATU University in bom in 2001 she earned a doctorate with honors from the Technical University univ of dad in cooporation with the Northwestern University USA Professor Clem Albert has extensive management and E industrial experience she spent 14
Years in top management and dutan a most recently as managing director of an international engineering company with 1,500 employees she was responsible for numerous Mega project with a focus on the Gulf region Asia and South America she’s also the founder of Albert in GM Bea A specialized provider for digital
Transformation tby I welcome you very uh with happiness and I’m looking forward to hear your talk well thank you so much for the nice introduction I’m very glad uh that I have the possibility to speak to you tonight yes and uh to follow up perhaps
A little bit on Kine derla but I think I brought a little bit different perspective since I’m a civil engineer so um I would like to I want to talk about sustainable digitalization in infrastructure and construction and give you a small perhaps uh also German perspective what
Is going on let’s say from also from the governmental side in in Germany and uh how can we catch up from the from the research and scientific part so what are the enemies of construction the first of all it’s sustainability so from construction part we owe like 38% of the CO2
Footprint this is true for the construction itself but also for maintaining our built environment so this of course is a hard word yeah but on the other hand we do have have a huge possibility so if we change something in construction we will have a big impact also on the CO2 and
Also on the climate so first sustainability so second productivity so if you look at the productivity this is the statistics from Germany but it’s pretty the same also for the US so it might be the same in the Switzerland as well so you can see
The um the average line here um in is the Gray Line over the last three decades so we did in productivity overall like let’s say 150% plus but if we look at construction so we are lucky if we are above 100% so we really really low in productivity so it’s more like
Decreasing rather than increasing so we have the certain amount of people like for three decades at our construction sites and it’s not a nice work but can be done there of course and this is now combined with the problem which we have in all hour this doesn’t work so
Nicely this is combined now with a lack of workforces which is of course very true for all of our Industrial countries but especially for the branches of uh let’s say food so restaurants and so on and construction again so with the lack of efficiency and combined the lack of workforces we need
To do something and uh so I see with challenges here lack in sustainability inefficiency and the lack of skilled Personnel Plus well I know some Pro projects which don’t meet the time and budget cost um budget goals at the end perhaps not your projects but we all know some of them so
We need a solution for that and I think digitalization is key so we need a very consistent digitalization at this point otherwise we won’t uh cope and we can’t face these challenges in construction so if we look now what is going on I promised to talk a little bit
About Germany how does Germany reach sustainable digitalization in buildings and also in infrastructure so what are the initi initiatives let’s say from the from the governmental side here so first of all there are lots of Master plans in charge at the moment so these are a couple of them focusing on
Infrastructure like traffic infrastructure so you have a master plan for example for federal highways on also one for Road and brid Bridge construction at the state level this for example is from Bavaria so they all say that for new projects we have to implement building information modeling I think you’re
Aware with this so for the new projects where we start the new design we will have at the end a building information model so a digital model so this the same is true if we look at the federal level in Germany for let’s say uh buildings so for example there’s
A master plan Bim for federal buildings I know it quite well because I had the the chance to write it so I really suggested there that we set a goal to implement obligatory building information modeling and this is already done now but still you do have most of
For buildings are existing buildings so if we start now to get like with the new ones building information models we don’t have them for the whole infrastructure at the moment and it will let’s say take years and decades to get for all the existing buildings there so we
Need different solutions for that plus we have different um I’ll say uh challenges also uh with respect to affordable housing for example in Germany so there’s a governmental goal to build up 400,000 affordable housings every year and uh we were thinking at a round table about that how can we fulfill this
Because it should be affordable and it should be sustainable and the approach here for example was to um tenure a a big framework agreement at a at a federal level and there were 20 companies now getting these this tender ship there so in every let’s say every
City and every commune in Germany can now take these um these tender um proposition and um get something like a Serial and modular construction so that we have a more scale effect for these affordable housings I think there’s something ongoing at this point and we also have of course if we look at
Digitalization we had last week this was a picture from no this week actually um we had a good big digital giftful so a really Summit from the German government I think half of the um for of the ministers including um Minister Schulz were there and they um we were
Discussing on how could we enhance and Foster digitalization in Germany in general and also I had a session on concerning construction industry so there’s lots of ongoing at the moment but of course I think we need to speed it up that I I would say in my
In my own words at this point so what I want to show you I picked out some very specific examples to show you what are we doing yeah specifically at some points to solve some of the questions which are there so one of the questions
Is how can we extend the lifespan of in infrastructure so the question is traffic infrastructure so we have a huge challenge here in Germany sorry this is in Germany but we have 65 bridges in Germany and we need to renovate 4,000 with respect to the highways oh no it’s
Working um with respect to the highways and with respect to the railways we even need to renovate 9,000 bridges in the next let’s say years so it’s a lot of capacity which we know and we don’t have really the capacity in the construction industry to
Go for all the bridges so it’s more than we could could go on for uh let’s say reconstruction this is one point and the other point is we can’t we can’t just um take away all these Bridges because we need to to to have some mobility and
Logistics anyway so it’s a real problem so if we could kind of enhance the lifespan of the infrastructure and use the bridges some of the at least let’s say like five or 10 years longer that would be have a very sustainable impact and that would cope with for us with the
Situation so what do we need if we want to kind of enhance this lifespan so we need of course at first a digital twin of the infrastructure so if we have the wheel building with geometry and with different let’s say data we could make a building information modeling of the existing structure and
Then we could set up a monitoring system with condition and monitoring and so find it we call it structural Health Bim so we you could use this model this digital twin combined with the data we are collecting from the existing infrastructure to really predict the um let’s say the health of
The bridge and then of course go there and do some very specific maintenance there and enhance the lifespan in this point so of course we need the geometry well that would be quite easy we can do laser scanning so there are some automation processes behind it so so
Would be quite okay but we need some more data than the geometry we need materal material information so which type of let’s say construction did we do there so we need some data so what do we do today so they are Engineers sitting about lots and lots of
Paper and looking at these existing plants so in these existing plants they look like this so it’s horrible they are dig digitalized but they are like a PDF so like a scan so you can’t see anything on it so you you you can imagine how long
This this um it’s time for for the for the engineers to really collect the data out of that so we said we would like to train artificial intelligence to collect the data out of these um existing plans and uh combine it with uh the information which we get from the
Scans so what we did in our project is called multi- dat Fusion so we have the laser scan you do it by drones and robots and so on and then we have the existing plants evaluated from um artificial intelligence and then we combine it and put it together in a a
Geometric model enhan with the information with the content data we get from the existing plans and then we put it on a so-called common data environment to get all of the information for the bridge for example and then we can of course like have a bir directional data
Um exchange at this point from the digital twin which we get with let’s say monitoring systems for example from uh from the bridges itself so we have all the linking there so we have a localization you see on the on the top left here localization of the
Sensor systems and uh we get the monitoring data mostly it’s not really real time because we don’t need like the every second but it’s like weekly uh data we can collect there so we have the building data and then we can combine it also with like damage reports and so on
So you will have with this multi dat data Fusion we really have the whole bridge on the common data environment and enhance with all the let’s say uh current structure and the current um health of the bridge itself and this data now goes to the predictive maintenance so the one
Who is kind of doing the maintenance itself s he can have a look at the bridge and then he can see if they are like traffic lights if it’s green then everything is fine so if it’s yellow they can look into inside and really look at the data from the monitoring for
Example and if it’s red then he has to do something for the bridge so in this case we really can kind of optimize the process of maintenance and also use the bridge much longer than we could if we wouldn’t do the monitoring at every time and we’re
Looking this is uh this is already quite um quite nice this project we’re looking also a little bit further to do the inspection then onsite because also here we have a lack of personnel so we have the structural inspector we have the asset owner so the one who is owning
Like the bridge like the German Railway for example and we have a manager of the maintenance and we want to have them at different um at different parts so we don’t want that everybody has to go out to the bridge so the one who’s doing like the maintenance specialist the um
The owner of the bridge he should sit in his office and there would be just one person at the site really looking at the bridge and then perhaps another expert from another office and what we are doing now with this Digital model is like to really do an inspection of the bridge
While just one person is on site and um so we have setup this is still uh in the making so my film is not as nice as the ones from from um we have seen before but let me check however yes so we have like a virtual environment here and then the inspector
Can look have a look at the bridge and gets like augmented reality all the information and then they can really talk about these informations um in real time at the same time and get all the uh expert view there is just one person standing out on the bridge so that’s what we are
Currently working on so next topic how can we build with less CO2 output and if we look at concrete of course concrete is a real problem but on the other hand it’s very nice material so has um convincing um let’s say strength and so on and uh well if you
Look at the concrete slabs we usually build them like in the same thickness why do we do it it’s not necessary uh in terms of that we need the materials so from the structural side but we don’t manage to build it in a different way so there are some uh
Let’s say techniques to do it differently for example you could put there some um some plastic voids inside the concrete which are f with air so you won’t need the concrete at these points so if you look at a slab for example then you have the calculation here and
You can see that here in the middle you wouldn’t need all you would need uh for example at a column or so you would need from the structural part you would need the material but further away from the slaps you don’t need uh the material so if you put just here these voids
Into it then you could reduce the whole concrete volume by 30% and this is a nice thing because if you reduce it by 30% in the Upper Floor then of course the columns and flows be Beyond it they would also have less material and uh need less strength so
You can really over the whole uh building you can reduce everything about but this is a nice approach but why isn’t it done it’s even you must say cheaper than if you use the whole material there because concrete is quite expensive but the problem is that we
Don’t have the people as for the assembly at this point so the uh these voids they come in half parts and you put them to the side and you have to put them together to a to a hole holistic part and this is done uh with manual
Workforce and so uh this company who are building with these uh with these voids they ask us could we find something to do it by to do the assembly process by by robots here so the idea is really to go with a robot to the construction side
And to let it assemble these these parts and then to uh install the um uh these uh construction process at the site and to get uh the reduction of uh of concrete there so the last example from my side is a completely different one it’s nothing to do with let’s say uh
Realization and robotic but it’s how can we get citizens more involved in construction processes and in construction projects so we have the problem usually that if we have a new construction project there are lots of uh people from the public who are well reluctant in the acceptance of
These projects and we have very long spans how long um until we get an acceptance for these projects and there are some examples also that even when we got the acceptance that at the end uh when starting the construction part then there was a lot of uh let’s say recent
Mon against these these projects so what we kind of set up at this point is to do the whole um visualization concept um digitalized so we have the designers here the planners with the building information method and then we have a Bim model as a single source of Truth
And we want to do like visualization and use this with an augmented reality also for the public to participate in the project so we have several use cases defined at this point so like a visual conceptualization then a modular design how can we approach with a modular design and also a digital planning
Approval so the whole Pro approval process gets to be more digitalized at this point so this project just started at our Institute but we see already that we have lots of interests especially let’s say from the federal ra highways and also from the German Railway because
They say we have like processes I don’t know if you’re aware but in Germany it’s like processes from one year or sometimes two years until we get with approval and it’s because we can’t really involve the laymen because if we show them like design plans they don’t
Understand it but if we visualize then we have a really um possibility to reach them a little bit clearer at this point so the question what we are thinking about of course is how can we really reach construction and how can we reach also construction industry and
This is I would say the goal of our Institute um where we are looking at so one is that we are focusing on infrastructure and also in building structures and we try to enhance like circular construction and tackle it also with automation processes but we are always looking at the digital
Transformation so you can’t do a digitalization and automation without the people and um well construction industry is quite conservative at this point so if we look at this digital transformation I would say we start from an improvement in transparency and validity with building information modeling so this is the first step and I
Think we know where we want to land at the end we want to go to I say rethink construction with circular construction with individualized automation value oriented process design and also people centered collaboration but this step going from here to there is very huge you can’t reach it in the next
Moment so what shall we do what could we do and uh we could do a middle step here and not to information of subprocesses to really look at which processes especially those which are not very efficient so where we need a lot of people or which are not and or which are
Not safe so if they are either let’s say very hard work yes or if they are like uh in a big or with let’s say um material which are not nice to uh with with regard to health we can look at these processes and then we can have
Like Solutions which I call which are more like lwh hanging fruits so it mustn’t be the 100% solution but rather say which part of the processes can we really automate here and here we can combine things like additive manufacturing punctual robots extended reality and combine it also with uh artificial
Intelligence approaches here and how can we find this pro pro processes and how can we find industry so in Germany we have a very small and mediumsized construction industry and lots of Craftsmen also and they face now that they don’t have the people so they have
This lack in Personnel so they say we can’t do on our projects anymore because we don’t have the people so if they I provide them them a solution which is I think ready in 5 years then they are not interested but if I provide them a small solution then they would be interested
But they say what is automation what is robotics they don’t know so we set up a robotics learning Factory at our Institute and we have different it’s not a like a production line but it’s rather like workstations there so we have a workstation for EDI manufacturing we have one for extended
Reality we show what can be done with big data and mobile robots and also a functional robot this is our Coler and people from construction industry come to our learning Factory and they go get handson workshops so they really work with the robot and they teach the robot for example to set this
Bricks and this is kind of having this learning effect because you know the Craftsman you can’t show just slides he must feel it he must get to know how it works this is the first part of the workshop and the second one is that we go through the processes of the
Companies of the workers there and say which of your processes could be with your knowledge now of these different forms of automation could be automated and then we create something and then we can also provide like prototyping here and implement it at the site and we
Rather look at the let’s say par PRP principle with like 80% and not with the one who the robot who can do everything but rather a collaboration then between the human workers and the robots itself so to to give you some examples here so
This is a a view of one of our workshops here at at The Institute and for example here we have somebody working with an exos scalet which is automated uh also and helps him to to lift the things here then we have a platform robot for example which is finding its way itself
And we show just here what can be done there and of course we can com combine so we could have the platform robot and we can can mount on it for example um such a function functional robot and here is a guy who’s just teaching it’s not so fluently at the
Moment but uh he’s just teaching here uh the robot to set this bricks and this is the appear um I’ll say experience which they are doing there and it’s fascinating uh for us as well but also for for our industry Partners so last slide I want to want to
Uh show you so we are planning a um a Bim and Robo Expo in aen next year uh end of August um where we have some let’s say International speakers also like from Japan from Korea from Singapore we’re doing lots of things from the uh let’s say from the
Governmental side and from the us and we have like practical rep from uh the big uh International experts and also an expert exhibition there and perhaps you might be interested then you are invited of course to come there to to AA next year so thank you very much for your
Attention and uh I think we are both happy to answer some of your questions thank you thank you very much for these nice talk I would propose we have two chairs here just drag them okay to the stage and I ask Kine to also come back on
Stage and I would give the first questions to the to the audience um thank you oh we get you it are there any questions from the audience wait did we I was wondering this uh program I think it’s interesting to to get craft people uh into technology uh the question is how far
Can you go is it just a teaser to to show you to show them what would would be possible eventually uh and if they uh are interested what’s next then yes you know this is a matter of education so are people educated inside the industry does
Uh does uh government have to care of it is it government the right player know because the the one we know that already exist uh what we could call uh digital craft people are coming for example from Timber construction industry but they have been formed within the industry not
Outside what is your experience or the vision for future steps there well uh we are working in uh North for faia with all we have these associations of Craftsmen uh it’s called HX Kama in German and we have there seven big hunb scama seven organizations there and uh
They provide now 100 companies will come to our lab and really do these workshops with us and uh the government at this uh time at the state level they are kind of financing the workshops for them but still we have um let’s say it’s the more Innovative
Companies we must uh we must say because um of course we have lots of Craftsmen which are very reluctant with these Technologies but we have some which are really Innovative and of course uh the ones who work with uh with wood but there are different from different
Perspectives there and um I think if we just uh try to teach them the first steps there there will be also or this is my yes I’m convinced that it it works like this um so we can show them so much more and get so much more let’s say um
Uh ideas of how to automate and how to use all these digital Technologies uh that we can really make an impact there and then we will have like um lighthouses so uh really projects where we can say okay look this is done so you
Can if they are doing it you can do it at themselves so the project just started we opened this lab this year I’m in Aran since two years so I think uh yes we are we are going our steps there and uh I see there’s lots of interest
From the very small one from the Craftsman but also we have lots of interest from the big ones which have own let’s say organizational Parts where they go with digitalization so they book the whole LA with their with their people and they are of course a little bit more advanced
In thinking already so regarding to your question uh I think it’s a combination we need a little bit uh let’s say financial support from the government but we of course we need to take the people at the point where they are standing now and I think this is one of
Our at least I believe this is what one one of our uh tasks which we can do and provide from University side thank you any more questions from the audience K as you know we we love working with bricks also uh I likeed a lot that you deconstruct bricks and and and
Reconstruct a model while deconstructing bricks so I think conceptually this is very nice I was wondering um if you have been thinking about you know maybe also tracking or maybe even marking the bricks with their provenience because in a way this would mean that you would could directly label while building back
Where a building part came from right which where you then could provide the model of where building part part came from uh with the building part um and so I think this could be interesting for for the question of reuse that you could actually know where did the piece come
From exactly even in the assembly understanding maybe parts of its functionality parts of it performance or or use yeah um yeah no thank you for the question because the I mean it’s we are only starting to look into this so it’s a little bit we also learning as we’re
Doing um but of course the uh being able to capture uh or um measure the quality of the parts that you reclaim um would be would be something that that we are trying to look into um of course now we only using Vision so there’s also like some uh limitations uh
To that part um and uh to actually also Mark the parts um while taking them apart no we have have not actually thought about this but it’s actually um a good idea when you think about this whole kind of tracing and tracking the materials where they are uh this would
Be the moment when we any anyway taking it apart uh to also tag them at at that very moment yeah I would say we can take one more question and then um I will open the up all so of course you can ask more questions but while we drink some drinks together sounds
Good I have a short one um so maybe start with Katherine um in your first project you seem to have your own AR system solution for visualizing uh the environment and movements uh my question is have you tried any available solution like from Hall and magically or AR kit
From for example from iPhone or iPad to help you with VIs ization and to because some of them already have some spatial awareness and if you did did you have any problems with this to using this Technologies um well maybe also goes for Professor clamp Albert you showed some
AR uh setup did you have any issues using this technology how easy is it to use thank joing um yeah so we actually used also kit in that case uh and also really just Market tracking so the thing that we developed was not the spatial awareness
In this case but really just the um sort of in the layers of instruction on top of it no but the the measuring uh of the environment is based on the algor on the sort of API provided by by a kit um and um only in the sort of La last project
What Matas also referred to we um looking into developing their own algorithms for this kind of spatial awareness yeah and for instance when a user has assembled a part then it depends on the user input to say okay I’m done no so there’s no automation behind recognizing which action has been
Performed um and we are also I mean there’s another research going on which I haven’t been showing but we are also looking into tracking people and recognizing not just the parts but also the actions which is yeah extremely complicated so we are not having having
Any like useful results so far um but of course it would be the best if or the like it would be the best if some autonomous system in the background would recognize not just where the objects are but also which action have been performed automatically not to not
Depend on any sort of clicking buttons so far yeah thank you yes well there’s really uh also a problem um with the uh let’s say how exact can we work with uh there so we want to with regard to the bridges we want to do it uh without markers and uh
We use then of course GPS there and we have at the moment I must admit like um one two cm perhaps apart which is sometimes not so problematic but sometimes it is so we are working now on a more exact uh way uh to do this and um
Yeah yes I think it’s working out quite quite fine but if you have seen very exactly at my video there was this 2 cm Gap so still it’s an ongoing project uh so we have the first year I think now uh at this point but I’m quite convinced
That this is uh working out at the end and I think we will get a huge impact with it because uh we really don’t have the uh the maintenance people and usually for special problems we need some experts there so if we send just one guy on the side and the others can
Sit in the office and uh tackle of course several of the projects and be um yes support from from in in real time but and and say okay look at this crack look spe specifically at this and then they can discuss what to do I think we
Will we will uh very much use make use of these uh AR technology yeah thank you very much uh thanks to everyone joining uh want to uh invite you to our next and last lecturer for this seminar series Dr kristofh VI and will talk about powering the CD simulation optimization and machine
Learning and um with that I’m closing for today please join us for a drink and thanks again to both of you