The literature states that project duration is affected by various scope factors. Using 168 building projects carried out in Spain, this paper uses the multiple regression analysis to develop a forecast model that allows estimating project duration of new builds. The proposed model uses project type, gross floor area (GFA), the cost/GFA relationship and number of floors as predictor variables. ...

Building actors need accurate estimates in order to efficiently undertake the construction of buildings. The knowledge of real expected costs of construction works is a necessary condition for contractors to submit competitive tenders and for developers to be aware of the magnitude of their investment. In this paper, an innovative process-based model is presented, the POP model. This model aims...

One notable capability of social insect colonies that has traditionally inspired distributed robot systems is their construction activity. In this paper, I describe a system of simple, identical, autonomous robots able to build two-dimensional structures of arbitrary design by rearranging blocks of building material into desired shapes. Structure design is specified compactly as a high-level ge...

This paper explores the process of designing and building a virtual classroom using a 3D environment building tool. This is part of a larger project to create a virtual education environment to facilitate the communications interactions present in the teacher student matrix, while investigating the role of these interactions in the learning process. There are many initiatives to enable virtual ...

We have developed a genre of software construction kits and a framework for developing them, which is both conceptual and structural. The kits are highly graphical and highly interactive. They are characterized by two main processes: players’ building of objects from graphical elements, and the software’s activation of the constructions. The existing kits demonstrate a range of interaction desi...

A revolution in the building industry over the past decade has spawned a new generation of safer materials and practices, decreasing some health risks for construction workers. Concerned consumers, builders, materials manufacturers, and government regulatory agencies have all contributed to a turn toward "green" building materials and practices, meaning that homeowners and office workers now ar...

of presentation during the First Conference on Robotics in Construction. 1 Statement of the Problem Employment of robots for performance of various production tasks is gaining an ever growing application in the manufacturing industries. The number of robots employed in the US industry grew according to [R2] from 200 in 1970 to 5,000 in 1981. It is estimated by the American Robot Association tha...

For the coming years SWEA is planning for communication and information actions. One of the sectors concerned is the building and construction industry. Focus of the information is to avoid accidents and injuries, and how companies by themselves can prevent risks. The objective of the information is to increase awareness among all stakeholders in order to secure that they are willing and able t...

These techniques consist basically in the reconstruction of virtual 3D models based on real data acquisition from buildings (i.e. photographs, range images and video). Afterwards, the sensor input is processed by using a reconstruction algorithm that estimates depths of the elements in the scenes and incorporates techniques such as epipolar geometry [1], triangulation [11], structure from motio...

In this paper, we develop an autonomous construction system in which a self-contained ground robot builds a protective barrier by means of compliant pockets (i.e., filled bags). We present a stochastic control algorithm based on two biological mechanisms (stigmergy and templates) that takes advantage of compliant pockets for autonomous construction. The control algorithm guides the robot to bui...