I enjoy making things. Here are a selection of projects that I have worked on over the years.
Summary: The rail digital twin can incorporate advanced technology such as AI-based computer vision to detect cars on the track (as shown in the inset), implement how this information would affect the rail operation (such as triggering signal lights as shown) and determine how the autonomous rail car would then respond (e.g. by slowing down to give the car time to exit the track or coming to a complete halt before the rail crossing).Hence the digital twin can be used to assess the full operational viability of the autonomous rail car before future investment in a real-world pilot. Funder: New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) Innovation Fund through Reureu Kotahitanga Ltd (RKL) Team: Yang Zou (PI), Michael O’Sullivan (University of Auckland), Zhengxing Chen (University of Auckland), Graeme Everton (RKL) Duration: 2023
Summary: Offsite construction (OSC) is a promising solution to address the housing affordability and supply challenge in New Zealand (NZ). However, most OSC is still ‘new’ and untested in NZ and cannot effectively reduce costs, time and risks, which hinders the broader use of OSC across the country. It has been revealed both in the literature and by interviewing industry experts that OSC knowledge learnt from previous projects is highly valuable to new projects; however, currently the designers, engineers and contractors do not effectively capture and reuse knowledge from existing projects. In this project, we propose to affect industry-wide behaviour change for capturing and reusing OSC knowledge, through developing an open OSC knowledge base, a best practice guideline and multiple case studies. Additionally, a longitudinal survey will be conducted to evaluate how effective the proposed knowledge base and guideline can affect OSC professionals’ behaviour change on knowledge reuse. Funder: Building Research Association of New Zealand (BRANZ) Team: Yang Zou (PI), Johannes Dimyadi (Codify Asset Solutions), Brian H.W. Guo (University of Canterbury), Roy Davies (University of Auckland), Lixin Jiang (University of Auckland) Duration: 2023-2025
Summary: Smart construction is the second research program that we have in our Construction 4.0 research programme. This program will investigate the intrinsic properties and invariant signatures of construction objects, such as footings, slabs, beams etc, as well as their synergistic structural performance, to create a new end-to-end computational platform for design and manufacture. This opens the door to full automation of prefabrication and modularisation, which will significantly improve building performance, environmental profile and productivity in the sector. The platform we develop in this program will be able to analyse planning for building product/system manufacturing and construction projects. It will create optimised solutions for constructability of buildings taking the near real-time capacity and capability in a value chain process. Building product manufacturers, suppliers, builders, contractors and subcontractors will be able to better plan for new projects and prioritise resources. Change will likely be seen in business models in the construction sector and improved efficiency in adoption of new technologies. Funder: New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) Endeavour Fund (Research Programme) Team: Alice Chang-Richards (PI; University of Auckland), Yang Zou, Yuqian Lu (University of Auckland) Duration: 2022-2026 This is an external link to the research programme from Heavy Engineering Research Association (HERA)
Summary: Fast search & rescue (S&R) and emergency assessment of building conditions are critical in the case of major earthquakes. Current practices are, however, often conducted by human, which is labour intensive, dangerous and subject to errors. The project aims to analyse the feasibility of developing an intelligent robotic system prototype that can perform efficient post-earthquake S&R and emergency assessment of building conditions by applying various state-of-art digital technologies. It focuses on understanding New Zealand needs and testing technologies to develop an overall framework for the proposed robotic system. Funder: Building Research Association of New Zealand (BRANZ) Team: Yang Zou (PI), Jason Ingham (University of Auckland) Duration: 2020
Summary: Developing a simulation framework that considers how people behave during post-earthquake evacuations. It will consider human behaviours such as decision making and psychological/social patterns. The project aims to have a more human-centred design of buildings, where not only the mechanical and functional properties of a building matter in the design process, but also human behaviour. Ultimately, the simulation framework is used to predict how an evacuation will go when the building design is modified using human behaviour as input and can be improved before a building is constructed and occupied. Funder: New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) National Science Challenge (NSC) – Science for Technological Innovation (SfTI) Team: Vicente Gonzalez (PI; University of Auckland), Yang Zou, Jiamou Liu(University of Auckland) Duration: 2019-2022
