Smart Structures and Building Automation in the 21st Century

Building automation has become increasingly common and advanced in the past two decades. There is also a trend toward design of large and significant buildings such as highrise buildings with unusual configurations. In this Keynote Lecture it is argued that the next big step in building automation will be development of smart structures and its integration with an automated building environment. The author will present a new vision and way of designing and managing building and bridge structures for the 21st century. In this vision strategically placed sensors monitor the health of the smart structure under different loading conditions such as winds and earthquakes and properly designed actuators apply internal forces to compensate for the destructive forces of the nature. A number of key computing and information technologies are presented to achieve the goal of intelligent building and bridge structures.