Tracking the Location of Materials on Construction Job Sites |
| |
Authors: | Jongchul Song Carl T Haas Carlos H Caldas |
| |
Affiliation: | 1Postdoctoral Fellow, Dept. of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering, Univ. of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station C1752, Austin, TX 78712-0276. E-mail: uniastro@mail.utexas.edu 2Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Univ. of Waterloo, 200 University Ave. West, Waterloo ON, Canada N2L 3G1. E-mail: chaas@civmail.uwaterloo.ca 3Assistant Professor, Dept. of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering, Univ. of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station C1752, Austin, TX 78712-0276 (corresponding author). E-mail: caldas@mail.utexas.edu
|
| |
Abstract: | Automated tracking of materials on construction projects has the potential to both improve project performance and enable effortless derivation of project performance indicators. This paper presents an approach by which materials tagged with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags can be automatically identified and tracked on construction sites, without adding to regular site operations. Essentially, this approach leverages automatic reading of tagged materials by field supervisors or materials handling equipment that are equipped with a RFID reader and a global positioning system receiver. To assess the technical feasibility of this approach, a mathematical model has been formulated such that the job site is represented as a grid and the location of materials within the grid is determined by combining proximity reads from a discrete range. Field experiments were conducted using an off-the-shelf RFID technology, and several metrics were developed to quantify the field performance and compare it with the theoretical positional accuracy derived from the discrete formulation. |
| |
Keywords: | Construction industry Construction materials Construction management |
|
|