At HumanTech, we are working to create a safer, greener and more productive construction industry, as well as a rewarding and digital work environment for a new generation of highly skilled construction workers and engineers. To this end, we have set out to achieve significant advances in cutting-edge human-centred technologies that contribute to the sector’s digitalisation and accelerate the transition to green construction.
This will only be possible thanks to the work of the HumanTech team, made up of 22 partners present in 10 countries. From leading research institutes and universities to highly acclaimed SMEs and large companies — with expertise in robotics, wearables, artificial intelligence (AI) and extended reality (XR).
Over the next few months, we will introduce our team members through the “Meet the HumanTech Team” interview series. We will ask them about their role in the project and the impact they want to achieve with it. Their vision for the future of construction and the evolution towards a safer and more sustainable industry. Their learnings, advice and aspirations.
Here we go!
For the first interview in this new series, we spoke with HumanTech’s Project Coordinator Jason Rambach, a Senior Researcher and Team Leader in Spatial Sensing and Machine Perception at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) in Kaiserslautern, Germany.
This is what he told us.
“I am very happy about the opportunity to lead HumanTech. I believe that, as a consortium, we are all very excited and motivated for the next 2.5 years of the project and the further development of our results.”
Q: Jason, tell us a little about yourself. What motivates you? What are you focused on nowadays?
A: I enjoy working in research because of the freedom to experiment with new ideas, the variability of work and the openness of the research community. However, I think we should not forget the real-world applications of our research and how they can positively impact people.
My research focuses on enabling full spatial perception for autonomous systems by fusing different sensors with machine learning. Acquiring a deeper understanding of the environment at the geometric (where an object is) and semantic (what that object is) levels is key for intelligent applications in robotics and XR.
Q: How interesting! Please, tell us more about what DFKI does and what you have set out to achieve.
A: The German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) is one of the largest AI research institutes in Germany and the world. It has several sites and groups with expertise in different areas of AI, from computer vision to natural language processing and robotics. We perform cutting-edge research in the “Human-centric AI” field and share our work at leading AI conferences. Research is typically conducted in an application-related manner in various fields such as autonomous driving, healthcare, smart buildings and cities, or agriculture. This positions DFKI as an intermediary between basic research conducted in universities and fully applied research and development in the industry, making technology transfer one of DFKI’s main goals.
Q: A much-needed work. Please, keep it up! Now, let us know about your role at HumanTech. What do you do, and what is the most rewarding thing about it?
A: I am the consortium coordinator of the HumanTech project. This makes me responsible for the overall technical coordination of the work and the management in terms of reporting and project deliverables. Although this is a new and quite challenging experience for me, I enjoy working with such a diverse, talented and passionate consortium that is determined to contribute to the construction industry’s digital transformation. Working at HumanTech allows my team and me to work on research topics that interest us greatly. In addition, we believe in the positive effect HumanTech can have on the safety of people and the green transition of construction.
“Although this is a new and quite challenging experience for me, I enjoy working with such a diverse, talented and passionate consortium that is determined to contribute to the construction industry’s digital transformation.”
Q: Without a doubt, a challenging task. But your commitment and interest in the project will greatly help us achieve our goals! What two activities are you working on that you are most excited about?
A: Here, I would have to mention some research activities closer to my interests and experience. First, the dynamic semantic digital twin work in HumanTech aims to enable the creation of digital representations of a construction site in its current state in a very efficient way. This is a core component of HumanTech, facilitating applications such as automatic progress monitoring by comparison with construction plans (BIM). We are addressing this challenging topic by capturing data with different cameras and 3D sensors, applying machine learning techniques for semantic segmentation on 3D data, and subsequent comparison with a CAD database to build our digital twin models.
Another fascinating topic is perception for robotics, where we develop computer vision algorithms for the precise localization of objects and people in 3D space. Together with our HumanTech robotics partners, such as SINTEF, TUK and BAUBOT, we will use this to develop human-robot collaboration scenarios in construction, such as material pickup and delivery.
Q: Sounds amazing. We can’t wait to learn more about the advances we make in developing these innovations. Can you tell us the positive impact you hope to generate through this project?
A: Digitalization is progressing quite slowly in the construction industry. One of HumanTech’s main objectives is to raise awareness of the solutions we develop and shape them so they can be integrated into construction sites in the coming years.
HumanTech technologies aim to have a positive impact mainly on three key aspects of construction:
- The first is worker safety and health, which remains highly problematic in the sector. HumanTech presents a set of wearables (exoskeletons, inertial body sensors, XR glasses) that seek to actively assist workers and reduce the strain produced by repetitive tasks, help them optimize their body posture, and prevent accidents and injuries.
- Secondly, we aim for sustainability and a greener construction industry. We hope to achieve this by helping to avoid costly mistakes through progress monitoring and encouraging best practices through worker training with visualization technologies such as XR.
- Finally, we hope to increase the industry’s efficiency through our digital twin and robotic assistance technologies and create a more attractive working environment for all.
“Digitalization is progressing quite slowly in the construction industry. One of HumanTech’s main objectives is to raise awareness of the solutions we develop and shape them so they can be integrated into construction sites in the coming years.”
Q: And what about the milestones you hope to achieve?
A: There are several milestones defined in our project. However, I think the most impactful and challenging will be our pilots. We plan to demonstrate HumanTech prototypes on real construction sites in 5 different locations, including scenarios such as bridge inspection, remote-controlled demolition, and human-robot collaborative brick-laying.
Q: That’s right. Our pilots will be vital to deploy and validating HumanTech’s technical approach. Before finishing, we would like to know your vision for the future of construction. Do you think achieving net zero emissions in the sector will be possible? If so, what are the biggest challenges to doing so?
A: This remains to be seen, but there is still a long way to go. For now, we hope to be able to contribute in that direction within HumanTech! I think the main challenges are accepting new technologies and moving on from outdated practices. Of course, what we propose in HumanTech is just one piece of the puzzle; for example, a lot of important research is being done in building materials (3D printing, sustainable materials, etc.).
Q: Finally, can you tell us about other projects in the construction sector that have inspired you?
A: When conceptualizing the HumanTech project, we were inspired by two other EU projects that are or were related to the same field. These are the BIMprove project, in the field of digital twins, and the BIONIC project, from the wearable sensors for health and safety perspective.
Curious to learn more about HumanTech and the team behind the project? Subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter so you don’t miss a thing!