DPM is an innovative University of Michigan Civil Engineering research lab that aims to integrate and manage traditional construction technologies and pipelines such as construction robots, workers, etc, with human-infrastructure interface through sensing, data analytics and computer simulation. DPM is interested in creating an automated system using technologies like wearables, cloud infrastructure, and smart contract based cryptocurrencies to modernize today's construction workflows.
Current construction site workflows can be quite convoluted and inefficient. Complications in changing architecture designs, different source of building materials, evaluating constractor's quality of work, all makes payment and building inefficient. DPM is trying to solve these problems by introducing cutting edge technologies like cloud, and smart contract based cryptocurrencies to track work progress, visualize locations of resources, visualize data for construction sites, and make the building process safer and more efficient.
I worked for Dr Dongmin Lee for a year, building a real time Digital Twin system using Unity and Azure. This was mainly to visualize and track robots in the physical construction sites in a digital application in real time. I then worked on with implementing an RL algorithm to optimize the robots construction sequence, as well as integrating smart contract based ethereum cryptocurrency into the system to model automated payment between workers, contractors, and resource owners, in a construction project.
Please visit the DPM website for more information!