Discrete-Event Simulation-Based Virtual Reality Environments for Construction Operations: Technology Introduction

Rekapalli, Prasant V.; Martínez, Julio C.

doi:10.1061/(asce)co.1943-7862.0000270

Cited by 36 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…The first development step consisted of enabling construction automation under very controlled conditions (i.e., minimal uncertainty) by using a traditional DES model whose activities have pre-determined durations to automate an operation, a goal we achieved by the use of a trace file generated by a DES model to coordinate the actions of the robots. The rationale for the development of this step was inspired by the development history of the concurrent simulation and visualization engine VITASCOPE++ (Rekapalli 2008), which was built upon the visualization capabilities of a trace file driven animation engine VITASCOPE (Kamat 2003). The conceptual framework achieved in this development step is shown in Figure 2.…”

Section: Development Step: Trace File Driven Automationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The attributes of STROBOSCOPE that make it particularly suited to our goal are that it enables the consideration of uncertainty in any aspect (not just time); it combines and allocates resources and control of the activation tasks by subjecting them to complex logical conditions; and it can be used to model any construction operation by virtue of being a general purpose simulation system (Martinez and Ioannou 1994). In addition to the modeling and analysis of construction operations, STROBOSCOPE has been used extensively to validate complex construction simulation models using 3D visualization (Kamat and Martinez 2003) and to create virtual environments where domain experts in construction can interact with and challenge simulations (Rekapalli 2008) through concurrent simulation animations. We believe that our proposed methodology is a natural, yet radical, extension of the capabilities of construction simulation systems in general and STROBOSCOPE in particular by breaking out from the virtual world into the real world.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Automating Construction Operations Using Discrete Event Simulation Models

Louis

Dunston

Martínez³

2014

Construction Research Congress 2014

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The level of automation in the construction industry stands in stark contrast to other engineering industries such as automobile manufacturing wherein most of the tasks are done by machines with minimal oversight from human operators. This disparity can be attributed to the distinctive nature of construction vis-à-vis manufacturing: customized projects, uncontrolled outdoor work sites, and necessary collaboration between disparate entities. New approaches to control are required to address these challenges. This paper introduces such a novel method that enables the automation of entire construction operations by using discrete event simulation models to orchestrate and actuate robots on the construction site. It is hypothesized that the adoption of this method would enable hitherto unexperienced levels of operation productivity and quality, cost and time savings, as well as reduction in safety incidents on construction work sites. A preliminary demonstration of the orchestration of small scale electronically operated equipment models in the real world using a DES model is also presented in this paper.

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Section: Development Step: Trace File Driven Automationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automating Construction Operations Using Discrete Event Simulation Models

Louis

Dunston

Martínez³

2014

Construction Research Congress 2014

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“…The chosen case study is from Rekapalli (2008), which is a revised and modified (to account for equipment breakdowns) version of the earthmoving operation presented in Martinez (1998). The schematic of the operation layout is presented in Figure 1.…”

Section: Sustainability Analysis Of An Earthmoving Operationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainability analysis of earthmoving operations

Martínez¹,

Rekapalli²,

Peña‐Mora³

2009

Proceedings of the 2009 Winter Simulation Conference (WSC)

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Emissions from construction equipment are the main contributor of environmental impacts from construction processes, and mitigating these impacts is an important aspect of operations design and planning. To this end, emission estimation models play an important role in environmental management of construction operations. This paper presents an emission model that integrates with discrete-event simulation (DES) for more accurate emission estimates from construction operations compared to existing models. The paper also presents a case study which analyzes sustainability of an earthmoving operation, to demonstrate the application of DES for estimating emissions.

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“…Rekapalli [16], in his implementation of the incorporation of user interaction affected the model by preempting the relevant activity to a stop. As will be seen in Section 3, we borrow of the concepts that are used in enabling concurrent simulation visualization in enabling the DES model to be used as a control mechanism of real world construction operations and in enabling a novel paradigm of construction visualization using robot simulators.…”

Section: Process Simulation Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While initial implementations including VITASCOPE [15] completely separated the generating process (eg. DES model) from the visualizer, a later advancement in the art of visualizing construction so as to enable user interactivity with the underlying DES model, known as DES-Based-Virtual Reality (VR) [16], is of particular interest to our research goals. This interest is due to the fact that the interactivity could only be achieved if the simulation ran concurrently with the visualization, and allowed for unplanned changes in the underlying DES model due to user interaction.…”

Section: Des Enabled Operation Visualizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modified Discrete Event Simulation Algorithm for Control of Automated Construction Operations

Louis

Dunston

2014

Proceedings of the International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction (IAARC)

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-Few robots are found on the worksite today and the construction process has remained unchanged since pre-industrial times, the only major advancement being the replacement of human and animal power with motors, despite research efforts in construction automation. Contrarily, the planning stages of projects have benefited from advances in simulation and modeling technologies. We propose a mechanism for leveraging information rich models to automate construction operations by using Discrete Event Simulation (DES) models of operations to drive the process in the real world using autonomous robots. This endeavour requires a new method to process DES models as they are currently used for the fundamentally different task of analyzing operations. Technically, this method is necessitated by the fact that activity durations are not known apriori when the DES model is controlling a real world operation. We put forth a novel algorithm for processing DES that enables construction automation. Our lack of prior knowledge of activity durations are accounted for by assuming that initiated activities continue until pre-empted to a stop by communication from the autonomous robot performing it. The primary contribution of our presented research is enabling the unprecedented use of DES models for construction automation. This approach allows for the automation of any construction operation, given the application breadth of DES. This modeling approach also enables new construction visualization techniques with the use of robot simulators that free up the operation modeler from consideration of low level equipment and geometric details and from the collection of activity duration data.

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Discrete-Event Simulation-Based Virtual Reality Environments for Construction Operations: Technology Introduction

Cited by 36 publications

References 19 publications

Automating Construction Operations Using Discrete Event Simulation Models

Automating Construction Operations Using Discrete Event Simulation Models

Sustainability analysis of earthmoving operations

Modified Discrete Event Simulation Algorithm for Control of Automated Construction Operations

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