To be presented at the ASCE International Conference on Computing in Civil Engineering

July 12-15, 2005 in Cancun, Mexico

ADVANCED INFRASTRUCTURE SYSTEMS:

DEFINITIONS, VISION, RESEARCH, AND
RESPONSIBILITIES
James H. Garrett, Jr.1

ABSTRACT

The U.S. infrastructure is a trillion dollar investment, but we in the US have not been as
aggressive as we should be in making better use of information and communication
technology (ICT). ICT can be used to more efficiently and effectively construct
infrastructure systems, monitor their performance, assist in the management of an entire set
of assets, and assist in the operation of these systems. Advanced Infrastructure Systems
(AIS) are defined here to refer to sensor data-driven and intelligent systems, components,
devices and processes that improve the performance and/or reduce the life-cycle cost and
societal impacts of a broad range of physical infrastructure systems. This paper presents a
motivating vision for such advanced infrastructure systems, discusses some research within
the Advanced Infrastructure Systems group at Carnegie Mellon that is currently being
conducted towards this vision, and discusses responsibilities for delivering this vision.

INTRODUCTION

The U.S. infrastructure is a trillion dollar investment, defined broadly to include road systems
and bridges, water distribution systems, water treatment plants, power distribution systems,
telecommunication systems, commercial and industrial facilities, etc. In spite of the
enormous investment made in these systems and their importance to the U.S. economy, we
(as in government, industry and academia) are not being very good stewards of this
infrastructure. The ASCE recently announced the “grades” for our infrastructure systems:
Aviation, D+; Bridges, C; Dams, D; Drinking Water, D-; Power Grid, D; Hazardous Waste,
D; Navigable Waterways, D-; Public Parks and Recreation, C-; Rail, C-; Roads, D; Schools,
D; Solid Waste, C+; Transit, D+; and Wastewater, D- (ASCE 2005). Such grades are
unacceptable and they have basically gone down since they were last measured in 2001.

Such a scathing assessment of the current condition of our infrastructure begs several
questions. Do we have more infrastructure than we need and thus do not have enough
money to manage and maintain the infrastructure we actually need? The demands on these

1
Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, College of Engineering
Director, Advanced Infrastructure Systems Lab, Institute for Complex Engineered Systems
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213-3890

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To be presented at the ASCE International Conference on Computing in Civil Engineering
July 12-15, 2005 in Cancun, Mexico

systems would indicate otherwise. Do we have more necessary infrastructure than we can
affordably manage? The grades being assigned by the ASCE would suggest that we do.
Would getting more money solve the problem? It seems that we need a phenomenal amount
of money to replace the backlog of decayed or functionally obsolete infrastructure systems.
ASCE states in their recently issued report on the infrastructure that USD 1.6 Trillion over
five years is needed to bring the infrastructure up to acceptable standards (ASCE 2005).
However, it is not clear, under the current crisis management mode in which most
infrastructure agencies find themselves operating, that any realistic amount of money would
begin to address this problem so long as the agencies continue to operate in this fashion. I
do agree that we, as a nation, have shortchanged the upkeep of our infrastructure. However, I
also strongly believe that we in the U.S. have not been as aggressive as we should be in
exploring all available tools to lower life-cycle costs, among them information and
communication technology (ICT).

How might we better use finite resources to better manage infrastructure using ICT? For
example, there are over 600,000 bridges in the National Bridge Inventory that must be
inspected at least every two years. The current bridge inspection and management process
utilizes a paper form-based condition rating method, whereby the rating of the entire bridge
is based on the conditions of all of the elements, no matter the relative importance of the
elements. The results of these inspections move up the reporting and decision-making chain
for maintenance appropriations. New reliability-based approaches are being developed and
promoted by Frangopol that could potentially save at least 50% of the total costs of
conventional maintenance strategies (Frangopol 2001; Kong 2003) by allowing maintenance
resources to be applied only to correct problems that lead to unsafe conditions. However,
these approaches will also require access to, collection, and processing of a much greater
amount of spatially-distributed condition and performance data. ICT can be used to more
efficiently and effectively construct infrastructure systems, monitor the performance of these
systems (if one maintains accurate performance records, they should also inform future
design decisions), assist in the management of the entire set of assets having to be managed
within an allocated budget, and assist in the operation of these systems. As an example of
the kind of transformation that can occur, consider the 1106 km of the Portuguese system of
toll roads operated by Brisa (the main part of the whole Portuguese network), which recently
adopted an aggressive policy to deploy and use ICT in their operations over the entire toll
road system (Bento 2004). 57% of their tolls are collected by electronic means, currently
using RFID tags. They have installed a 1-8Gb/s network over the entire road system and use
it for data transmission, voice over IP (VOIP), office applications, distributed data storage,
and roadway telematics (namely for the streaming of digital video generated in some 450
CCTV cameras along the motorway network). They also have a number of back office
applications: SAP, database services, CRM and data warehousing, on top of a large set of
information systems related to their operation (tolls alone do generate over 800 000
transactions per day!). They use this ICT infrastructure to assist in the coordination of
roadside operations, roadway incident monitoring, toll collection, and roadway
incident/condition monitoring. Brisa has seen significant and demonstrable economic benefit
from their effective deployment of ICT. Thanks to a number of efficiency factors that have

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occurred after they intensified their ICT usage, their operating margin nears 75% (the world’s
highest amongst listed tolled operators). This is one reason why the company maintains their
current level of ICT spending at around 1.5% of their operating revenues. As a matter of
illustration, that compares with some 4% spent in road maintenance (Bento 2004).

As civil engineers, we must take action to move away from traditional modes of constructing,
monitoring, maintaining and operating these infrastructure systems and move towards the
deployment and effective use of much more sensing-based approaches (and related ICT
technologies for data analysis and decision support). The vision, is inevitably of sustainable
infrastructure – i.e., systems that are optimized across considerations of cost, performance,
security, and environment. At Carnegie Mellon, my colleagues and I refer this direction
towards a much greater amount of sensing as Advanced Infrastructure Systems.

DEFINITION AND MOTIVATING VISION

Advanced Infrastructure Systems are defined here as sensor data-driven and intelligent
systems, components, devices and processes that improve the performance and/or reduce the
life-cycle cost and societal impacts over a broad range of physical infrastructure systems.
For example, during the construction phase, the use of a variety of sensor systems, and
information and communication technologies, will make it possible to collect data and
immediately determine the state of the project, what problems are emerging or are likely to
emerge, and what should be done to mitigate those problems. As another example, building
commissioning would be conducted continuously using a wide range of sensor systems,
some of which were deployed during the construction phase, to determine that the specified
building performance is continuously maintained during building operation. As a last
example, various data from highway bridges would be continuously collected and analyzed
to determine usage, performance, and condition.

The life-cycle of a constructed facility affords a plethora of opportunities for sensor systems,
from the first stages of construction through the demolition and reclamation of the
construction materials. The following scenarios illustrate how we might take better advantage
of sensors and other types of ICT to improve our construction, management and operation of
infrastructure systems. During construction, a significant amount of material is placed over
time and space using different types of labor and equipment distributed over time and space;
the position and quality of this material need to be frequently verified. During facility
operation, the condition and performance of the structure need to be monitored to ensure the
safety, efficiency and usability of the facility. During an emergency, the state of the facility
and its occupancy must be determined, and the emerging threats must be identified and
characterized. During renovation or demolition of a facility, a variety of contaminants must
be identified, monitored and tracked to ensure that they do not find their way into the
environment. Each of these scenarios presents a unique set of demands on the form and
performance of a sensor system and will be described in more detail in the next four
paragraphs.

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Construction is the first phase in the facility delivery process where sensors can actually be
deployed and used. However, the data collected during this phase and downstream phases,
can also inform the upstream phases of planning and design. During construction, thousands
of activities are conducted by hundreds of people to place a large amount of material and to
configure a hundreds of engineered-to-order components of a facility or component of an
infrastructure system. There exists a number of opportunities for material to be misplaced or
material quality to be affected. As such, there are a significant number of sensing
opportunities on a construction site. Integrated microchips with multiple sensing functions,
local storage, and integrated processing and communications can be used to track
temperature, strain and acceleration on structural components (Sohn 1999; Tanner 2003;
Sohn 2003). Rewritable RFID tags can be used to track the minute-by-minute movements of
equipment, material and engineered-to-order parts (Akinci 2004; Song 2004). Embedded
concrete maturity meters can be used to track the developing strength of cast-in-place
concrete (Ansari 1999; Collins 2004; Gordon 2003). Wide-area sensors, such as laser
scanners, can be used to scan the physical locations of many components at the same time
and help determine that they are properly placed and aligned (Stone 2004; Cheok 2000;
Akinci 2004). Such a system of construction sensors must be distributed over three
dimensional space, composed of a heterogeneous collection of sensor components,
subsystems and systems, and have different sensor systems acquiring data at varying
frequencies and reporting the data in different aggregations and at different times (Gibbons
2003; Singh 2003; Anderson 2002) . These sensor systems will have various forms of power
supply; some will be wired to an emerging power grid, some will scavenge power from
ambient vibrations (Sodano 2004), while others will be powered by battery or RF energy
(Churchill 2003). Sensors within this system will also need to detect their location and
associate location with the measured values (Shaffer 2003; Tseng 2004; Brooks 2003).
These systems will also need to be self-monitoring and able to detect and correct errors in
their sensed quantities before they are reported (Tanner 2003). As these devices will be
deployed in harsh environments, they must be robust and able to withstand rugged, dirty, and
humid conditions. To be used on construction projects, these systems must also be cost-
effective, preferably from a first-cost perspective, but definitely from a system’s life-cycle
perspective. Finally, these systems must be accessible and usable by humans at the home
office, field office and workface (Reinhardt 2005). To that end, Pena-Mora has developed a
platform for supporting project management where information can be exchanged from
anywhere using any computing device (2002).

The operation phase of a facility offers the greatest need for sensing and probably the most
challenging context. From a management perspective, it is this phase that consumes the most
energy and leads to air emissions. The loads on the facility (e.g., wind, live loads, snow), the
performance of that facility, and the condition of the various components of that facility need
to be monitored so as to permit its efficient and safe operation and to allow for efficient
facility maintenance and management. The use of sensing to control the operation of the
mechanical and electrical systems in a facility is not a new problem. Many companies
manufacture and sell building control systems. However, the extensive use of sensing to
determine the loads, performance, and condition of the structural and other functional

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To be presented at the ASCE International Conference on Computing in Civil Engineering
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elements is less common. For example, the integrity of roof and wall systems is paramount
for maintaining a healthy facility and keeping water from entering the building envelope.
Sensors could be deployed throughout a building façade and roof system to act as sentinels
looking for penetrating moisture. Depending on the grid size of the sensor network, the
system could simply locate the existence of a leak or more accurately pinpoint the specific
location of the leak so that a very efficient and cost-effective maintenance process can be
conducted. All too often in built facilities, small problems that could have been easily and
cheaply fixed if detected early grow into costly and extensive maintenance efforts. If the
actual loads experienced by a facility (from the environment and from usage) are tracked, the
performance of the structure can be much better understood. Such knowledge could also
significantly inform future design activities about the actual nature of the loads likely to be
experienced. The challenges for deploying sensing during operation are: large scale; long
time-frame; and harsh environment.

Emergency response also provides a demanding context for sensing systems. Structures
experiencing a fire, earthquake, or man-made explosion would benefit from a sensing system
that could locate the threats, locate and characterize damage to structural and building control
systems, determine the damage and potential effects on the ventilation system, determine the
condition of various components in a facility and help in escape planning and safe entrance
of emergency personnel. The ability to enter a building knowing where the fire is, how long
it has been burning, what material loss has occurred and what changes have occurred in the
material properties, would allow firefighters to better plan and execute their activities. If
there are sensors at all of the major connections, damage caused to steel buildings can be
more quickly detected, allowing emergence personnel to know which buildings are safe to
enter. If sensors are attached to each piece of HVAC equipment and distributed within
rooms, they can also be monitored and then shut down or set to high based on the rooms they
serve and their ventilation needs. Pena Mora et al have explored the use of IEEE 802.11b
devices for locating people trapped in collapsed buildings (Aldunate 2004).

Demolition of a facility generates a great deal of construction debris that contains a variety of
dangerous and toxic materials. Sensors (or at least material information stored on RFID tags)
could be used to identify the nature of and hazards associated with the various materials used
in constructing the facility. The best time to determine what material is used in a facility is
when the facility is being initially constructed. However, we often do not have the historical
information about what materials have been used or replaced within a building. The actual
materials placed, the renovation history, and the degradation of certain materials in place in a
facility all need to be tracked so as to ensure that hazardous materials are properly disposed
of when the facility is demolished. A great deal of additional expense must be incurred if
hazardous materials cannot easily be separated from the much larger volume of non-
hazardous construction debris. Such a separation would be made easier by labeling the
nature and history of the materials used within a facility. These labels could take the form of
a writable RFID tag that not only is usable during the construction phase so as to track the
creation and installation of a component, but also used during both facility operation and

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To be presented at the ASCE International Conference on Computing in Civil Engineering
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facility demolition. Wide-area sensors might also be deployed to sample the environment at
a variety of locations and evaluate data for signs of imminent or emerging threats.

RESEARCH TOWARDS THIS AIS VISION

The vision for AIS is essentially one of data-driven intelligent decision making about, and in
some cases by, infrastructure systems, subsystems and components. The data are collected at
different times and frequencies from sensors of different types, modalities (including
humans) and accuracies. These sensors have been rationally selected and placed to best
support the collection of data that will be needed over the entire life-cycle of the system.
Those data are effortlessly collected, modeled, analyzed, mined and transformed into useful
information about the condition and behavior of the system. The information derived from
these data continually is used for intelligent decision making within the processes that make
up the life-cycle of the system. In fact, the information not only influences the operation of a
specific system, but goes on to influence future design practice. Such a vision requires
research and development in the areas of sensors, data modeling and analysis, simulation,
decision support, visualization and human-computer interfaces, to name a few of the issues
that need to be addressed to deliver this vision. Research that places these ICT systems into
realistic large-scale test beds and evaluates their performance is critically needed. Research
is also needed to help understand where ICT is most effectively being deployed in practice
(e.g., at Brisa) and leading to clear economic benefit. Without this latter research, the
success experienced by Brisa may be the exception rather than the rule. If too many
organizations “get burned” by trying to deploy ICT only to see it have a fractional benefit-to-
cost ratio, we will continue to see failing grades for our infrastructure systems.

Some of this needed research is being conducted by the Advanced Infrastructure Systems
group at Carnegie Mellon in clusters of research related to sensor development,
mobile/wearable computer systems for infrastructure-oriented data collection applications,
advanced data modeling and management tools to improve classification and retrieval of the
ever increasing amount of data generated by new data acquisition tools, novel data mining
and analysis tools, system level approaches for using combinations of sensors, data analysis
and advanced reasoning. Each of these clusters of research is described in more detail in the
next few paragraphs.

Sensing-related Research. Sohn is developing a new form of active sensing for in-situ
infrastructure monitoring. Here, active sensing is achieved by using smart materials such as
lead zirconate titante and macro fiber composite for simultaneous sensing and actuation. He
applied the active sensing to a time reversal process of Lamb wave propagations in order to
detect delaminations in composite plates (Sohn 2004) and cracks in steel girders (Kim 2005).
The combination of the active sensing with the time reversal process allows detecting local
incipent defects without relying on prior reference data. Furthermore, active sensing is being
used to monitor the performance of the sensor itself as well as the structural condition.
Oppenheim and Greve have been exploring different microelectromechanical systems
(MEMS) devices made up of thousands of diaphragms for use as ultrasonic sensors or

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acoustic emissions sensors (Jain 2002). They are applying these devices to detect weld
defects, acoustic emissions in steel and concrete structural connections, and for glass
breakage. Garrett et al. had originally explored the use of nuclear magnetic resonance
(NMR) for the determination of chloride concentrations in concrete, where they determined
that NMR, while able to detect chloride ions in situ, was not able to detect chloride ions in
the low concentrations of interest (Yun 2004). However, Greve and Oppenheim are having
much more success creating a sensor for detecting the presence of chloride ions in concrete
using sacrificial anodes made of tin, sensing circuitry, and RF communication capabilities.
Bigrigg has developed inexpensive sensors that are deployed on existing computing
infrastructure, and Matthews et al. are exploring the use of these sensors for the purpose of
monitoring of the overall performance of a building from an energy and user comfort
perspective so that these structures are more environmentally sustainable and productive
environments for their occupants (Singhvi 2005).

Mobile/Wearable Computing-related Research. In addition to collecting data via

embedded and mobile sensors, research has also been conducted concerning the types of
computer support and interfaces that are needed in the field. Garrett and Sunkpho developed
a framework in which speech controlled inspection applications could be rapidly developed
and deployed as prototypes to better ascertain the functional and user interface requirements
for an application domain (Sunkpho 2003). Based on his observations about the various
types of interfaces being developed for different inspection-oriented applications, Buergy
developed a framework where by applications could be represented by a set of constraints.
Given the constraints representing a new application, similar applications could be searched
for and their interfaces used as starting points for that new application (Buergy 2002).

To allow construction personnel in the field to use product and process models more
efficiently and effectively, Reinhardt developed the concept of a navigational model
(Reinhardt 2004; Reinhardt 2005). A navigational model is essentially a construct that maps
the objects in a product or process model to different levels of abstraction or different levels
of aggregation that best supports the onsite tasks conducted by construction personnel. Users
define these navigational models to suit their specific tasks, and are actually able to combine
several of these navigational models to improve the efficiency and effectiveness with which
they can access the objects in a product model.

Finger and her colleagues are developing and testing a concept of a Kiva, which is an
interactive physical and digital workspace that addresses the needs of interdisciplinary design
teams. Using the Kiva, teams can share non-dedicated physical spaces and can recreate their
project room anywhere. The Kiva includes a web application designed to extend a team's
ability to share information. Using the Kiva, teams can organize ideas throughout the project,
allowing team members to construct multiple connections among the artifacts that are
produced.

Data Modeling and Management-related Research. In one project, the data modeling
and management aspects of the building commissioning process are being explored by Akin

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et al. (Akin 2004). Building commissioning is defined to be the process that ensures the
various systems (e.g., HVAC, lighting control, security) in a building are properly installed
and operating. The team is exploring the idea of embedded commissioning (EC), where
commissioning is an embedded process that is continuously verifying that the design intent is
being satisfied throughout the building delivery lifecycle. The objectives of this research are
to explore the representational needs of the EC process and the management, visualization
and exchange issues surrounding the EC data that are collected. (Akin 2004)

Hendrickson et al. have explored an approach for automatically indexing photographs taken
on construction sites. They use a combination of time-stamp, location and orientation
(determined by GPS) of the picture to classify and organize the photos (Akinci 2003).
Soibelman et al. are currently exploring the use of content-based search engines for searching
over the large collections of digital photos now collected for most construction projects.
Currently, they are usually stored in a large flat directory, or possibly in a hierarchical
directory, but the photos are not well classified, if at all. They are exploring the use of
pattern recognition methods for searching over a large collection of photographs to identify
photos that are similar to a target photo (Brilakis 2005).

Another data modeling project led by Akinci is related to the use of RFID tags for tracking
engineered-to-order components from the point of manufacture, through their storage and
transport, to the delivery of the part on a construction site and its placement in the structure.
This research project is exploring the data that can and should be stored on these tags, the
effects on the manufacturing, transport and installation processes, and the benefits and costs
associated with the use of these tags (Akinci 2004).

Soibelman et al. are exploring the data management, classification and search issues
associated with document-based construction information, because a large percentage of the
large body of information created concerning a construction project is document based.
These documents must be classified and organized so as to facilitate better access to this
important information. For example, in one project he and his students have explored the use
of automated classification methods for organizing and accessing the large collection of
electronic documents generated within construction projects (Caldas 2003). Based on this
exploration, they have developed the Construction Document Classification System, which is
able to achieve an automatic classification accuracy between 86 and 95% (depending on the
level to which the document was being classified).

During the early stages of the design process, designers rarely have accurate models of
system behavior, yet the success of their designs depends on understanding the effect of
changes in the design parameters on the system response. When models are available, they
are often expensive to evaluate and difficult to run, in large part due to the imprecise
knowledge available at the beginning of the design process. Pacheco, Amon and Finger
have developed the concept of surrogate models, or metamodels, which are mathematical
approximations of the true response of a system, built using data collected from
experimentation with the system or from a mathematical model of it (Pacheco 2003). By

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building surrogate models using a limited amount of data, the total cost of modeling
associated with the design process is reduced.

Data-Mining Related Research. Buchheit et al. developed a two-level data quality

assessment procedure to identify different types of errors that occur in infrastructure-related
sensor data, such as common systematic errors (calibration errors, threshold errors, missing
data, and extra data) and random errors (Buchheit 2002). In the first level of the procedure,
several different data quality assessment methods are used in a voting scheme to identify
concentrations of anomalies in aggregate data. In the second level, differences between
anomalies and normal data at the individual data level are identified; combined with domain
knowledge, these differences can be used to identify different types of errors, such as missing
data and calibration errors. Then, the data can be cleansed effectively. Matthews et al. is
exploring the use of data mining and analysis of economic input-output data for the U.S.
economy as a means to quantify the degree of interrelationship between various
infrastructure sectors and determine how vulnerable certain infrastructure sectors are to
disruptions in other sectors.

As part of their research to develop construction data management approaches, Soibelman et

al. are doing an extensive amount of research concerning the performance of various data
mining approaches on construction-oriented applications. For example, he and Caldas have
compared and contrasted the performance of a number of machine learning approaches for
text classification (e.g., support vector machines, Rocchio algorithm, rule learning methods,
naïve Bayes, k-nearest neighbors, regression methods, and neural networks). The findings of
this work revealed that support vector machines exhibit a much higher level of performance
for text classification than the other methods tested. As part of this investigation, Soibelman
has also developed data preparation processes for construction-oriented data using
approaches derived from knowledge discovery in databases (KDD) (Soibelman 2002).

System-level Applications of Sensors, Data Analysis, and Advanced Reasoning. A large,

interdisciplinary project being led by Akinci is exploring the use of laser scanners and
embedded sensors during the construction process for the purpose of identifying and
classifying construction deviations (Gordon 2003). The team is developing modules that first
take as-designed models from design and scheduling packages and determine the necessary
information that must be acquired based on reasoning with the construction specifications
and the as-designed information. Another module then plans the inspections and
deployments of sensors that are necessary to acquire this information. After executing these
sensing plans and acquiring as-built information, another module evaluates the as-built and
as-designed information to determine deviations, Another module then reasons with the
specifications and the identified deviations to determine whether the deviations are actually
construction defects, normal variances that occur during the construction process, or
undocumented design modifications. This project is exploring a variety of sensor types
(laser scanners and embedded maturity meters for concrete strength determination), a variety
of data management and modeling issues (as-designed models, as-built models, construction
specifications, etc.); and a number of intelligent reasoning issues (determining information

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goals from construction specifications, inspection planning, deviation detection, etc). This
project truly touches on all of the major areas of research related to the Advanced
Infrastructure Systems vision.

Life Cycle Assessment and Sustainable Infrastructure. Sustainability is a concept that

means meeting the needs of the present without compromising the future. An
interdisciplinary project is being led by Matthews that is assessing the areas of infrastructure
life cycles that lead to the greatest environmental and energy impacts. For waste generation,
it is the construction phase. However most other impacts (energy, environment) are largest
in the building operation phase. That further inspires the need for life-cycle pervasive sensor
networks that can help balance the needs of user comfort and performance with energy
efficiency and other environmental goals.

While a great deal of research has been described in this section, it is by no means meant to
describe all that is going on in this area. Research groups around the world are making
progress in this area of Advanced Infrastructure Systems as it has been defined in this paper.
The previous section was more intended to show the various clusters of research being
performed within the AIS group at Carnegie Mellon that begins to address the larger body of
needed research. More research is needed in the areas of sensors and mobile data collection
systems, data modeling management, mining and analysis, intelligent decision support, and
system level integration of these components into prototypes. These prototypes must then be
tested in realistic test beds and evaluated for true potential to make infrastructure able to be
more cost effectively delivered, operated and maintained.

RESPONSIBLITIES FOR AIS VISION

Civil Engineers, not just electrical and computer engineers and computer scientists, can and
should be involved in delivering this overall vision. To make this happen, we must have
broad participation of civil engineering academics, the AEC industry and government
agencies.

Facility owners, with the guidance of organizations such as FIATECH (a consortium of

owners, vendors, government researchers and academics), are in the process of creating a
vision for how information technologies could be integrated into a facility delivery process.
FIATECH is defining a roadmap for the creation and deployment of technology to radically
improve the performance and quality of the construction industry (FIATECH 2005). The
FIATECH technology roadmap for capital project delivery is providing a useful system-level
vision for what can be achieved in the construction industry given an appropriate investment
in infrastructure technology research, development and deployment. However, while this
roadmap should motivate our research in the IT community, detailed specification should be
avoided. As such, it is important that FIATECH proposes interfaces whereby academics,
government and industry can participate actively in this endeavor.

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Government agencies, such as FHWA, are now promoting a vision for proactive use of
sensing in the management of bridge networks. Dr. Steven Chase states, “The
implementations of customer driven quality improvement programs or asset management
supported by true engineering economic analysis are immediately hindered by the lack of
necessary information. We currently guess at average daily traffic values. We do not know
the size, number and weight of the trucks our bridges carry. The actual stresses, strains,
deflections and displacements the bridges experience are unknown. There is a need to more
accurately quantify the operational performance of highway bridges. The performance
measures, which are most immediate to the traveling public, are concerned with congestion,
accidents, and service. These same performance measures can help to quantify the value of
bridge as assets in terms of user costs and benefits. These need to be measured. It is a basic
tenet of modern management theory and practice that if you can’t measure it you can’t
manage it.” (Chase 2004)

The National Academy of Engineering is actively promoting a need for systems-level

interdisciplinary thinking about our infrastructure in their report entitled “Engineer of 2020.”
(NAE 2004) The report acknowledges that “The challenges include, among others,
deteriorating infrastructure, environmental issues, and providing housing, water and health
care for a rapidly growing population.” It also suggests that our engineering profession must
“(1) agree on an exciting vision for its future; (2) transform engineering education to help
achieve this vision; (3) build a clear image of the new roles for engineers, including broad-
based technology leaders, in the mind of the public and prospective students who can
replenish and improve the talent base of our aging workforce; (4) accommodate innovative
developments from non-engineering fields; and (5) find ways to focus the energies of
different disciplines toward common goals.” (NAE 2004)

The ASCE Body of Knowledge (BOK) Committee has requested that students actually not
only be educated to achieve the 11 outcomes specified by the Accreditation Board of
Engineering and Technology (ABET) for all engineering programs, but that they also have
“an ability to apply knowledge in a specialized area related to civil engineering… an
understanding of the elements of project management, construction and asset
management…an understanding of business and public policy and administration
fundamentals…and understanding of the role of the leader and leadership principles and
attitudes.” (ASCE 2004) I find it very interesting to note that the BOK as written appears not
to address the need for knowledge of other disciplines that our CEE graduates may need as a
basis for leading the sort of transformational change being described by the NAE and Chase.

Academic institutions must start to more broadly educate civil engineering graduates in the
various areas of sensing, data modeling and analysis, and intelligent decision support as
preparation for participating in the achievement of the AIS vision. At Carnegie Mellon, we
have recently launched a graduate program in Advanced Infrastructure Systems that will
educate students able to assist in defining and delivering this vision. It is our intention that
graduates of this program will: (1) gain a deeper understanding of one or a few specific
processes related to an infrastructure system (e.g., construction management, infrastructure

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July 12-15, 2005 in Cancun, Mexico

monitoring and management, facility management, environmental monitoring and

management, building energy management, sustainable design and life-cycle management);
(2) gain an understanding of the functional needs and drivers within one or more of these
infrastructure domains for intelligent behavior. In this context, intelligent behavior is defined
to be the ability to sense conditions, the ability to see patterns of behavior, the ability to
reason with these data, and the ability to recommend action; (3) gain an understanding of
how to deliver such behavior through appropriate use of technologies for data acquisition
(including the areas of sensors, data capture, signal processing, data preparation, data
modeling, data exchange, data analysis, statistical pattern recognition, data mining, etc.) and
decision support (including topics such as deterministic search, stochastic search,
knowledge-based search, and genetic search, development and analysis of symbolic models,
and visualization techniques for supporting decision making); (4) be exposed to a wide range
of available technologies and methods associated with data acquisition and decision support;
(5) gain a deeper understanding of one or a few specific data acquisition and/or decision
support technologies; and (6) gain an ability to design and evaluate systems for delivering
intelligent behavior in an infrastructure-oriented domain. We believe that such a graduate
program will produce students who are able to understand both the needs for, and
technological options available for, sensing, data modeling and analysis, and intelligent
decision making.

CLOSURE

What must happen in order to make this vision for AIS a reality? Civil engineers will need to
become much more proactive and drive the development and deployment of Advanced
Infrastructure Systems. For example, FIATECH and the FHWA must continue to articulate
this vision from the perspective of infrastructure owners. Academic researchers must
participate in the definition of, take note of, and align research and development efforts with
these articulated visions. Academia and government labs, such as NIST, must also develop
realistic test beds within which various technologies and approaches can truly be tested,
proven to perform reliably, and compared on a consistent basis. Academic civil engineering
departments must update the way they teach civil engineers (both undergraduates and
graduate students) related to this AIS vision. I discussed a graduate program we are
launching at Carnegie Mellon in AIS, but we need to be exposing our undergraduates to such
concepts early in their education, too. What new types of knowledge must our students
possess and what new technologies do our students need to know and apply in the future? To
begin with, we must not assume that engineers only need to know how to write computer
programs, or how to use analysis and design packages, or how to use math packages and
spreadsheets. While these are important skills, they alone will not allow civil engineers to
significantly contribute to the achievement of the AIS vision. Raphael and Smith promote
the idea that civil engineering undergraduates must be exposed to a wide variety of
fundamental computer-aided engineering topics, and they have developed a text to support
efforts in that direction (Raphael 2003). The types of knowledge that are needed to educate
and train our future generation of civil engineers must include issues related to the design and
deployment of sensor systems, advanced data management and analysis systems and novel

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July 12-15, 2005 in Cancun, Mexico

decision support systems. It is interesting to note that such subjects are only indirectly
mentioned in the ASCE Body of Knowledge. Civil engineers must not give over
responsibility for this AIS vision to other disciplines; rather, we must take the lead through
active research and educational programs in AIS, through the establishment of national test
beds to evaluate and demonstrate the effectiveness of AIS technologies, through more
aggressive adoption of these technologies in actual practice with follow up study and
documentation of the true benefits of their use.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I gratefully acknowledge the advice, feedback and years of excellent interactions and
collaborations provided by my colleagues in the AIS group at Carnegie Mellon: Burcu
Akinci, Susan Finger, Chris Hendrickson, Scott Matthews, Irving Oppenheim, Dan Rehak,
Hoon Sohn, and Lucio Soibelman. The collaborations with colleagues in other disciplines at
Carnegie Mellon are much appreciated and critical for success. I also gratefully
acknowledge and thank the many contributions of my national and international colleagues
who make this an intellectually rich and vibrant community for computing in civil
engineering. Finally, I thank all of the sponsors of AIS research.

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