Joana Goerg is the protagonist of the fifth edition of our series “Unlocking the future of research”. She is currently involved with two of our partners — a great example of collaboration within our HumanTech Team! On the one hand, she’s studying for a master’s degree at the RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau University, with a strong reputation in research and teaching. On the other hand, she’s doing an internship at SINTEF Manufacturing, one of Europe’s largest independent research organisations, where she’s working at HumanTech.
Learn about her passion for research and engineering, her work with robots and automation, and the ideas she is contributing to at HumanTech.
“I am fascinated by working in such an international company with such modern approaches. I hope I can continue to think ahead and implement new ideas!”
Even as a child, I was interested in research, and my fascination with bridges led me to study civil engineering. After completing my bachelor’s degree in Mosbach (Germany), I am currently studying for a master’s degree in deepening structural engineering.
My university in southwest Germany is the Rheinland-Pfälzische Technische Universität Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU), where I got the fantastic opportunity to do an internship at SINTEF Manufacturing and work on the HumanTech project.
Before starting the internship, besides the amazing Norway, where SINTEF is based, I was very interested in the company’s way of working, which has helped me to progress.
At SINTEF, I have been able to use my knowledge of construction technology to work with robots. In the HumanTech project, I contributed with a good idea of how bricklayers work, which enabled us to organise a live demonstration in a practical way and better adapt robots to the operations on the construction site.
I also spend a lot of time analysing point clouds, which need to be compared with each other and with a previously created Building Information Model (BIM) to enable automated construction site progress recording. I am doing initial tests in the lab to see how detailed changes to an object can be detected. In addition to the walls and columns, it should also be possible to detect colour differences, for example, due to a finished coat of paint.
My work aims to discover how detailed differences can be recognised and reliably detected. Later in the project, the detection of point cloud differences may be tested on real construction sites. Until now, I have taken 3D images myself, but a mobile robot will later do it automatically. The segmentation of the point clouds also needs to be further automated.
I am fascinated by working in such an international company with such modern approaches. I hope I can continue to think ahead and implement new ideas!
Want to discover more stories of the PhDs, junior researchers, master students and interns working with us? Read the fourth edition of our #FutureofResearch series with Irati Rasines, a PhD student at the University of the Basque Country and our partner Tecnalia, a leading private research and technology organisation in Spain.
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