So yeah I want to start a little bit talking about what we are doing in in bochum regarding new technologies so I want to talk a little bit about not only blockchain also cyber physical systems artificial intelligence and of course also blockchain and I think we can connect these Technologies very good
And I will show how we try to do this and what other projects we are also do some research in okay it’s not working okay sorry it’s not working um so now it’s working okay thank you very much um so so I will start a little bit um about my
So let’s click here and now about about my home University so we are located located in Berlin it’s in the East part of Germany you see Berlin there and Borum actually is uh in the west part so for us in Germany it’s far away because
It takes uh three and a half hours per train I know from other participants maybe the connection you’re saying guys that’s nearby it’s a it’s a neighborhood of Berlin so in this area we have a lot of uh a lot of universities and bigger towns bohrum is one of the smallest town
Here so maybe more famous is cologne Dusseldorf or for soccer Dortmund so we are more or less in the middle however we are one of the biggest universities in in Germany so we have around about 42 000 students and also uh more than 6 000 International students mainly PhD
Students also so we are more or less a campus University um so you see it a little bit below so we are a little bit outside and we were founded after the second world war so in uh we were the first University in this area this was more a mining coal mining
Area where a lot of industries were located there now we change a little bit of course more or less do some science and some Innovations in this area so a short introduction about my team so uh so I’m at The Faculty of civil and environmental engineering so we are
Normally organized in so-called chairs you can also say it’s an Institute so we are the chair of computing and Engineering it’s very general because we are not only doing research in civil engineering of course also in environmental engineering but we have also some research in manufacturing we had projects with chip
Building companies and so on um so we have at the moment I think 20 maybe 21 research assistant PhD students I would call them also and we are organized in three main groups so it’s data management artificial intelligence and sensors and visualization and we have also some some quite nice equipment
So very often we use our Boston Dynamic Sports to maybe collect some data and then we analyze this later afterwards um so but today I don’t want to talk uh about all the research we are doing in this group so I will concentrate on uh
Two or three topics so one main topic we are uh just investigating is a little bit the production flow of Precast elements so of course this is very you say okay maybe dissolved um however we are thinking about maybe we can create some kind of a cyber
Physical system here with a digital twin behind it and I will also show you a little bit how we integrate maybe iot and also blockchain technology so we are just starting with that into this whole system so the idea is a little bit to have a very controlled production
Workflow and we have a very big group there so it’s I think uh in in order 25 PhD students do research at different universities we are organizing this so-called framework program a little bit for our National Science Foundation and so we work together with Material Science we
Are with production systems and so on and we are more responsible for the Digital model or the digital twin to control everything so the idea is also to create new modules so new structures how we can build like like you know Lego so really to say okay how
We can build based on a legal system maybe a bridge or and how we can replace some components so not doing uh in C2 concrete more precursor elements so I think um so we can also learn of course from other countries here so of course as you can see it’s a complete
Production process also with assembly and maybe also measuring the um condition of the elements further on so what we apply here is a very special um yeah concept from industry 4.0 it’s called the so-called asset Administration shell so this is a standardized representation of an asset
Of a digital twin so it’s it’s coming from the manufacturing industry mainly from Germany and so the idea is that you forever every asset you build a shell around it so with information and models and sub models you can easily add a model maybe you have some communication
So and you can dynamically update every asset Administration shell so if you have further information it’s not like a fixed digital twin it’s a modular digital twin so we’re applying this technology here and very important is also maybe that’s why I’m coming also then to blockchain is that every component has its own
Digital twin and has a communication layer where it can can communicate between different digital pins it can be in a digital twin of maybe a column communicating with another column it can be communicating with a sensor or maybe also with a robot or something like this
So so it’s mainly based on linked data Concepts a lot of ontologies I use and we have very good standardized protocols for for doing this and there’s also an open source implementation which you can easily download and create digital twins so we applied this um
For uh in in our field so of course we thought okay we have a Bim model something like this where we have more or less everything in one file of course this is also a data structure and so for the production we separate all the elements and for every element
We are producing we are creating a digital twin so an so-called asset Administration shell for every element and then we always use this uh digital twin for maybe quality control or whatever so this is a little bit the the idea and we developed some Concepts to integrate also the Bim
Model and also iot data into these asset Administration shell so so here this this is example is the quality control where we have also some kind of AR augmented reality features to support maybe the inspection of uh just a produced element here um so of course the the nice thing is
Then that you can really combine all these digital twins together to a larger structure so it’s not a digital win about the complete building so we are collecting digital twins of single components maybe also single installations and they built maybe a virtual digital twin and of course then you can also
Decentralize the storage of this digital twin so and here of course um we are thinking about how we created there we are working on that at the moment how we can create an overall platform to look up which digital twins are available how they can communicate and how we can maybe integrate further
Data here so as you can see on the lower part we have not only for the modules we have to for the whole structure then also um separate a digital twin digital mod is this linking model but you can also integrate the sensor and and the
Machine so the good thing here is really we have this standardized protocols and also data formats and it’s really easy to integrate new information into these models so um so so of course what what we can do with distributed Ledger Technologies maybe blockchain so we are just testing out there’s a nice
Um uh paper about not from our group uh also how we can integrate um these Technologies to store the digital twins in a distributed way so it’s a little bit like you have a digital twin so these asset Administration shell and you want to
Look it up and how to look it up you can use maybe the blockchain Technologies to your store the information in the blockchain or maybe they they’re using this field tangle that’s a more network based uh distributed Ledger technology and of course also the information that
Is an update and something like this all the transactions that you create in in New us Administration shall you update something all these transactions you store in the blockchain and you just look it up and then of course to load the real digital twin you need only a
Link in url so and then you download maybe the digital twin for your purpose and do some some kind of uh yeah simulation uh analysis so it’s it’s it’s quite interesting so we just starting with integrating this um into our concept also for digital twins in construction
Um so another topic is of course uh it’s very very huge topic everywhere it’s of course artificial intelligence so um so we have also a big project funded by the ministry here also uh I think we also bring some demonstration later on in this this room when we finish uh
Where we finish the project next year and it’s about generating um s build models based on documents Point clouds drawing images and so on and I don’t want to explain this in detail so the but what is the idea so we need a lot of AI services so
We have now in total 65 AI services for creating parts of the digital twin for House Office Buildings and mainly and bridges so sometimes you need really uh some kind of a sequence that you create first or the extract first the information from an image then from a drawing then combine this then
Extracting something maybe from from a document and you have all this information then in the end and then you generate based on that the the digital twin so as you can see so it’s not really good to to read but you see you have a lot of services and every service
Produces something kind of data so how we can organize this and therefore we have in in Europe a very interesting concept for so-called open data ecosystems it’s called Gaia X so that means we want to have a distributed more open and more transparent ecosystem that we are not depending on
Microsoft or other big cloud services that we have smaller technology or clouds where we can connect the data a little bit so a lot of countries in Europe joined this so-called guy X Project and we have also South Korea and Japan and I know also we are now working with us together they
Also try to integrate this concept so what is the main idea of course to give the user really easy full control about the data so what does it mean in in in reality so it’s about data exchange so what we when we exchange data from one participant to the other
Participant maybe a data provider and a data consumer so we need a data contract so that we say you get use my data for a certain purpose but only for this and only once or you have access for a week or only for 20 years or something like
This and of course here we are using a smart contract based on a blockchain technology so that means we we need some kind of trust service where you find something like authorization and that you are allowed to access the data then we have a logging service it locks the
Transaction and stored into the blockchain and of course we have to build a data contract Service where you can have a contract between some someone who provides data in consumes data so it’s a really complex architecture so there is a so-called reference implementation open source you can just download and use it
However of course it’s it’s not that easy it’s not really a software what you just can buy it’s more or less a concept where we want to create some kind of ecosystem so and we also create an ecosystem based on this concept for our AI Services here so what is the idea so
We we used an existing we call this a catalog it’s like a portal or marketplace where you can just um deploy some of your AI Services say okay I’m the provider of a service or data and you can buy this service and therefore we need some kind of so-called self-description in this sales
Description everything is written what you need as Hardware requirements which which kind of data you can process and so on and also this one you see there’s a wallet connected so this everything is maybe based on a so-called ocean protocol it’s a also blockchain based a protocol with ocean
Tokens and everything and we have also some kind of payment in this system that you say okay the service is nice I integrated this service maybe via an API into my existing environment and I pay by use or you have other Concepts how you can pay it so we are just creating
This this Marketplace and all the things around here so this is a little bit the idea um for that um it’s very essential that you not only can access one single service because maybe you analyze an image and you get out maybe on this image is some kind of
A column or a window or something like this or like here we have some drawings where we can extract some some kind of elements for 3D models sometimes you have a chain of services and therefore we developed at our share a so-called composer it was also in a project funded by this
Ministry here also we have some some kind of prototypes here it’s called Bim swarm it’s it’s like swarm surfaces and we’re now using the composer and the new project as well for AI services that we just connect services and they and the composer is checking if the connection is correct if
The input and output matches and how we can it can execute this and then we set up a so-called message oriented system so because the service is always running on different computers and then they’re sending messages around okay I’m already I’m providing the data and then you can
Access the data for the next service and so on so this is also what we are doing and of course the transactions we are storing in a blockchain so two applications where we combine several Technologies here um so about five cyber physical systems so more or less iot you’re collecting
Some kind of data have some interactions of course you are doing artificial intelligence and sometimes it’s really necessary maybe to store these transactions in a secure way in a distributed way so therefore for me always blockchain you have to think about when really you need a blockchain
So if you have the need for distributed data storage and you are not not sure who is participating then maybe it’s good to start in a blockchain or it must be very secure that you say okay nobody can maybe change the transaction it’s always very important then of course
Also blockchain sometimes if you only need is a database maybe then maybe blockchain is a little bit too much so for for me it’s always like what is the what is the problem what you want to solve and and really sometimes blockchain is a good technology to do
This and I think especially for open ecosystems here so where a lot of people working together in a digital way I think we need something like this and we also published a paper about uh smart contracts where we can apply then I think there are a lot of possibilities
Still so thank you very much and yeah if you have some question of course I’m I’m happy to answer them thank you [Applause] so now we have to maybe pick questions from the audience or maybe we have some some kind of question or we do this
After I think we can do this now right yeah so if there any is if there’s any question from from the online participants I think we can also hear them I’m not sure maybe just turn on your microphone or just send me a chat message no maybe some some question here Wilson
I have a question to say thank you Max Marcus a lot of interesting blockchain and a cyber physical system applications really quite some new ideas to me but particularly I have two um that I’m particularly interested in the first one is a distribute digital tooling so very often we use a digital
Wind as an centralized uh information hub for the like a single source of choose but now we are thinking to distribute the information to different places the different blocks so uh what kind of rationale behind it is initiative and yes that’s a first question so so I
Think so it’s obviously of course it’s much easier to store something Central that’s however then you need the access to all the data and especially if you’re thinking about the building or infrastructure maybe some of this information belongs to to the material supplier or to the construction company and especially if
You’re thinking about the whole life cycle and maybe you’re collecting data maintenance I I think there is really a need that everybody can have their own data source and provide some of the data for certain applications and therefore of course there must be always a link so I need maybe further information about
The product and I can say okay you give me all the information we’re doing the Handover uh then maybe you have to start but if there are some updates or something like this you will have maybe then just contact the material supplier but it
Would be nice then to have a link to the supplier and say okay directly for that purpose I get really easy information so um so I I think this is really for operation it’s it’s quite necessary that you have more or less a network and I
Think that’s what also the in this the manufacturing industry or the more automotive industry also doing they say okay I have some data Maybe of a supplier of a certain product for the car and I we connect them only on demand so and of course therefore we have to store something the
Blockchain is also where you say okay I have a central way to access it but of course we are not storing the data it’s always like there’s the ID a link to something and then you can maybe download it however you have to guarantee that the data is always
Available it’s also a challenge yeah really I respond a little bit really answer them a question because so I have a student his proposition is to uh also allocate the data through blockchain but his proposition is you have a decentralized database in a blockchain and then the machine learning can be
More local responsive I actually question I doubted that let you say that when you have a different supply of materials and then to provide the information on demand that actually can indeed increase the responsive speed I think so so for example so in Germany we have some we have a lot of regulations
In Germany so one regulation is about Construction Products you have to check as maybe as an Architects or responsible to to build a house you have to check if this product is valid and you can it can be used in Germany So based on our standards what
They do at the moment uh they get the material on the side and I’m checking this a little bit and sometimes the material is not the correct material it looks very similar to the one you ordered but it’s not the correct one what they want to do of course to check
It and you get always the information only from the manufacturer or um provider of this material and they want to do it online say okay check it I’ll look it up and then I get the certificate okay it’s it’s valid in this state it’s in Germany it’s sometimes not
In every state every material is is valid you cannot use it in every state but something like this and then you always have to have a connection to someone who provides you the data for a certain uh yeah request check yeah thanks for your nice presentation and very interesting concept so and you
Talk about your twin and you probably know that we also work on Deal between for the entire Hong Kong University campus and I would like to seek your advice on some practical application of the deal between you you talk about those uh the very very forward-looking concept but what we have encounter is
That for example for dual twin because Steel Twin needs to reflect the actual situation and then but the actual situation keeps changing and then how can we make sure that the Dual twin itself will be kept updated particularly for example the Dual twin will also need to link with other information other
Data but sometimes the links probably will be outdated how can we make sure that the the it will not be that link Etc so particularly who two things should be responsible on the updating of the deal twin or mixer that is kept update and then how to
Motivate them to do so yeah very good question so of course if you have a linked data structure then always the links are the difficult part because uh so if you change here something maybe it’s not it’s not any more fitting to the other side uh of course
Um I think we have at the moment we have also the problem maybe you get normal conventional maybe updates uh via email or documents it’s the same someone has to take care about it and maybe if it’s correct or not and you have to update however I think if you have a good
Structure you can check if where is the modification is there a new version and maybe we can Define some kind of checking rules which we not always we also know from Bim where we say okay we have a quality check and a coordination check and something like this that we
Have rules just to check if the data is updated and what are the consequences and maybe you have to check the other data source or maybe we request a new update I think we can manage this a little bit in this way that we just say you’re checking and then of course we
Have to say okay maybe this data is outdated so that’s that’s the way then of course we have to deal with that but we have we need to the information about it so that’s that’s important um of course who’s responsible oh yeah it’s always a question so I I think um
Um if you are thinking a little bit about uh automotive industry of course um of course you have one big company and you get a lot of parts from different companies maybe for from Bosch you get some some control elements for the car and of course there there’s some
Kind of agreement that you always update this information so we need a strong relationship between the suppliers and the building owners and the construction companies maybe we have also some kind of contracts for that that there’s a need so maybe and then they pay also for
This information so I think we need also new business Concepts business models for that uh it’s not soft I I we’re seeing we are still at the beginning you know this also so we have no digital twin of our city no of our campus or something like so it’s really new for
Everyone but we have to think about also new business Concepts models thank you very much and then evil eye head over