04/2024: We secured a bronze medal at the 49th International Exhibition of Inventions held in Geneva, Switzerland. We showcased the invention ‘Building RoboAvatar’, in short, ‘BRobo’. With more and more robots used in the built environment, interoperable information between buildings and robots has never become more important. Those who develop the robots and those who design the buildings are two groups of people, and they use different software languages in their respective fields, which is a typical “Tower of Babel” dilemma. BRobo aims to tear down the “Babel Tower” between robots and buildings and provide a common language between robots and buildings to allow them to talk to each other. BRobo presents one of the first attempts to tackle this problem. In the future, BRobo can open many possibilities, including smart design, smart living, and smart inspection. The team includes Dr Junjie Chen, Prof Wilson Lu, Mr Yonglin Fu, Mr Xiang Ji, and me.
03/2024: I was selected as a Carnegie Bosch Fellow, which is a highly competitive two-year award supporting outstanding postdoctoral researchers conducting high-potential research within the excellence-driven environment of CMU. It supports research that seeks to have a positive impact on society in the broad areas of artificial intelligence and cybersecurity/privacy. Fellowships are sponsored by the Carnegie Bosch Institute (CBI). I will join CMU in September 2024.
11/2023: Hong Kong Economic Times reported our research on building material stocks in the Greater Bay Area. This research supports the reduction of the consumption and waste of building materials. It is the third time that our research on building materials has been reported by a local newspaper. (See link)
07/2023: I presented the research, “Determining near-optimal modularization solutions considering manufacturing operations in modular construction,” at the 2023 European Conference on Computing in Construction. In the implementation of modular construction, modularization is a crucial task that overwhelms designers. Different modular solutions influence manufacturing operations significantly, yet this has rarely been studied in the past. We proposed an optimization model that considered the operations of manufacturing and set-up changes.
04/2023: I led a research team together with the representatives from the Hong Kong Development Bureau (DEVB), visited MiC factories in the Greater Bay Area on three separate occasions on the 13th, 18th, and 26th of April 2023. These
factories include Yau Lee Wah Concrete Precast Products Company Limited and
China Construction Science and Industry Corporation Limited in Huizhou, Foshan
Meizong in Foshan Ltd. in Foshan, AluHouse Company Limited in Zhaoqing, Guangzhou Municipal Construction Group Co. Ltd. in Guangzhou, Eastern Heavy Industry Company Limited and China State Construction Hailong Technology Company Limited in Zhuhai, and CIMC Modular Building Systems in Jiangmen. These trips aimed to understand what is happening in MiC factories and form a solid foundation for the MiC factory accreditation scheme.
04/2023: We presented their “Remote e-Inspection System for Cross Border MiC Logistics” at the InnoEX 2023 held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on 14-15 April 2023. InnoEX 2023 was organized by the Hong Kong Government and the Hong Kong Trade Development Council. It brings together influential tech experts, entrepreneurs, thought leaders and investors from the region to discuss collaborations, share upcoming trends and exchange insights into future opportunities. The “Remote e-Inspection System for Cross Border MiC Logistics” received the 2022 Hong Kong ICT Smart Logistics Gold Award in November 2022.
11/2022: We presented a research project “A MiC Digital Transformation Trilogic Solution” led by Professor Anthony Yeh, Professor Wilson Lu, Dr Frank Xue and Mr K L Tam (HKU Estates Office) at the ‘Construction R&D Forum–Bringing Applied R&D to New Heights’, to Mr Paul Chan Mo-po, Financial Secretary of Hong Kong, among other government officials and industry representatives, on 4 November 2022, at Grand Hyatt Hong Kong.
12/2021: I was invited to give a talk on the applications of information technologies in construction management to a research group led by Prof. Huayang Lei from Tianjin University.
11/2021: I presented the research, “A generic framework for BIM component naming,” at the 26th International Symposium on Advancement of Construction Management and Real Estate (CRIOCM 2021).
09/2021: Studies about Construction Waste in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) have been reported in a local newspaper, The Hong Kong Economic Times (HKET), in two successive weeks. (See link and link)
09/2021: We prepared a “Suggested Naming Convention for MiC/Offsite Modules and Components” that was included in “Reference Materials-Use of Digital Technologies for QA/QC of MiC Modules in MiC Factories” as Appendix B published by Hong Kong Construction Industry Council (CIC) in September 2021. (See the document)
11/2020: I presented the research, “A review of BIM data exchange method in BIM collaboration,” at the 25th International Symposium on Advancement of Construction Management and Real Estate (CRIOCM 2020).