Wireless Networking for Integration of Real-Time Construction Metrology Systems

The evolution toward sensors/metrology systems with embedded processing holds great potential for construction automation, provided that effective, standard communications and data-exchange techniques can be developed. Unfortunately, most metrology systems have limited interfaces that slight the communications/data- exchange issues. Serial, hardwired links (e.g., RS-232,422) are a common, low denominator.The NIST virtual site simulator (VSS) is a test-bed system for exploring system architectures, interfaces, and data-visualization methods for construction automation. The architecture of the VSS has features useful for construction-site metrology systems, e.g., wireless networking and machine-independent data for- mats. The VSS system is described, and initial experimental results are presented, with emphasis on communications and data-exchange. Key aspects of the VSS system design include: a real-time, networked operating system; wireless Ethernet; machine independent data representations; and a data-exchange service based on a publish/subscribe model. This paper discusses how these architectural choices provide for mobility, robustness, efficiency, and extensibility, that are vital for construction automation. Finally, some conclusions and suggestions for future communications and integration work are presented.