Ubiquitous Sensor Network for Construction Material Monitoring

Timely acquisition of construction resource information is an essential task for construction engineers and managers. Due to the harsh and dynamic construction environment, it is not easy to acquire construction information in real time. This paper presents a radio frequency identification (RFID) and ZigBee (IEEE 802.15.4)-based system to manage materials on a busy construction site where a data communications system is not in place. RFID tags are attached to and used to identify various kinds of construction materials, and the ZigBee communication technology is used to wirelessly transfer this information. To confirm the viability of our system, the RFID and ZigBee technologies were assessed using an indoor experiment. Following this, a field experiment was then conducted. On a building construction site, a range of construction materials was identified using RFID tags and this information was transferred to an end user with the help of ZigBee multihop networking. The results of the field experiment showed an acceptable reading range and rate for the proposed system. Therefore, the integrated system with RFID and ZigBee modules demonstrated great potential for improving the existing management processes for construction resources on large and complex construction sites.