Construction progress monitoring allows schedule and/or cost deviations to be identified early enough to effectively implement corrective actions. At least 77% of transportation projects experience cost overruns, and as much as 75% of these overruns have been attributed to “real” construction management factors like progress monitoring. Progress is measured on road construction sites in terms of completion percentages at various activity and work package levels. This percentage is then used to identify schedule deviations and support the earned value analysis often used as the baseline for contractor progress payments. Unfortunately, the current methods for producing these completion percentages are not as correct or time efficient as they should be to enable effective project control. The objective of this research is to develop, test, and validate a novel solution for automatically producing completion percentages and progress status determinations that are more correct and time efficient than those generated in current practice. The proposed solution seeks to automatically detect incremental progress on road design layers in 3D as-built point cloud data generated using unmanned aerial photogrammetry and a novel data simulation approach. A parallel as-planned progress estimate is also automatically prepared using 4D information, and the progress status determinations are made by comparing the two results. This solution was tested on 15 datasets (13 simulated and 2 real-world) representing a variety of road designs and progress conditions. The method achieved an average 95% F1 score in layer detection on the real-world data, and mostly outperformed current practice in correctness. The automated processing of as-built and as-planned data to produce the progress estimate took 12 seconds for the real world data, which was indeed faster than the current practice equivalent. Although the research objectives were met, there remains room for further improvement, particularly in regards to the solution’s robustness to occlusions on the monitored surfaces.

Progress monitoring in construction involves a set of inspection tasks with repetitive in-person observations on the site. The current manual inspection process is time-consuming, inefficient, inconsistent, and has many safety risks to project inspectors. Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are networks of integrated physical and cyber components, such as robots, sensors, actuators, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and the building itself. Introducing CPS for construction progress monitoring can reduce risks involved in the process, improve efficiency, and enable remote progress monitoring. A robotic CPS uses a robot as the core component of the CPS. But human interaction with technology plays an important role in the successful implementation of any technology. This research studied the human-centered design of a CPS from a human-computer interaction perspective for facilitating construction progress monitoring that puts the needs and abilities of humans at the center of the development process. User experience and interactions play an important role in human-centered design. This study first develops a CPS framework to autonomously collect visual data and facilitate remote construction progress monitoring. The two types of interactions occur between the human and the CPS – the human provides input for the CPS to collect data referred to as mission planning, and CPS provides visual data to enable the human to perform progress analysis. The interaction may occur through different modalities, such as visual, tactile, auditory, and immersive. The goal of this research is to understand the role of human interactions with CPS for construction progress monitoring. The study answers five research questions – a) What robotic CPS framework can be applied in construction progress monitoring? b) To what extent is the proposed CPS framework acceptable as an alternative to traditional construction progress monitoring? c) How can natural interaction modalities like hand gestures and voice commands be used as human-CPS interaction modalities for the proposed CPS? d) How does the human interaction modality between the proposed CPS and its user affect the usability of the proposed CPS? e) How does the human interaction modality between CPS and its user affect the performance of the proposed CPS?. To answer the research questions, a mixed-method-based methodology is used in this study. First, a systematic literature review is performed on the use of robots in inspection and monitoring of the built environment. Second, a CPS framework for remote progress monitoring is developed and evaluated in lab conditions. Third, a set of industry experts experienced with construction progress monitoring are interviewed to measure their acceptance of the developed CPS and to collect feedback for the evaluation of the CPS. Fourth, two methodologies are developed to use hand gesture and voice command recognition for human-CPS interaction in progress monitoring. Fifth, the usability and performance of the CPS are measured for identified interaction modalities through a human subject study. The human subjects are also interviewed post-experiment to identify the challenges they faced in their interactions with the CPS. The study makes the following contributions to the body of knowledge – a) key research areas and gaps were identified for robots in inspection and monitoring of the built environment, b) a fundamental framework for a robotic CPS was developed to automate reality capture and visualization using quadruped robots to facilitate remote construction progress monitoring, c) factors affecting the acceptance of the proposed robotic CPS for construction progress monitoring were identified by interviewing construction experts, d) two methodologies for using hand gestures and voice commands were developed for human-CPS interaction in construction progress monitoring, e) the effect of human interaction modalities on the usability and performance of the proposed CPS was assessed in construction progress monitoring through user studies, f) factors affecting the usability and performance of the proposed CPS with different interaction modalities were identified by conducting semi-structured interviews with users. / Doctor of Philosophy / Progress monitoring in construction involves inspecting and observing the construction site in person. The current manual inspection process is slow, inefficient, inconsistent, and risky for inspectors. Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are networks that integrate physical and digital components like robots, sensors, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. Implementing CPS in construction progress monitoring can reduce risks, improve efficiency, and enable remote monitoring. A robotic CPS uses a robot as its core component. However, acceptance of the technology by people in the industry is crucial for successful implementation. Past literature has suggested human-centered design of technology for better acceptance of the technology. This research focuses on the human-centered design of a robotic CPS for construction progress monitoring, by focusing on the role of human-CPS interactions. User experience and interactions are important in human-centered design. The study develops a CPS framework that autonomously collects visual data and facilitates remote progress monitoring. The interactions between humans and CPS involve the human providing input for data collection (called mission planning) and the CPS providing visual data for progress analysis. The research aims to understand the role of human interactions with CPS in construction progress monitoring and answers five research questions. To answer these questions, a mixed-methods methodology is used. The CPS framework is developed and evaluated in lab conditions, industry experts are interviewed for their acceptance and feedback, methodologies are developed to recognize hand gestures and voice commands for human-CPS interaction, and usability and performance of the CPS are measured through human subject studies. Key contributions are made in this research in terms of identification of the application domains of CPS in inspection and monitoring of buildings and infrastructure, a CPS framework for remote progress monitoring, identification of the factors affecting acceptance of CPS in construction progress monitoring, development of methodologies to use hand gestures and voice commands for interactions with CPS, assessment of the effect of interaction modalities on the user experience with the CPS.