Process and Data Modeling for System Integration – towards Smart Concrete Pavement Construction

Construction sites reflect the central concepts and challenges of large-scale data collection, system integration, and process control. For example, many different stakeholders work with different machine types on a concrete pavement construction site. The data collected by these machines often provide a good insight into the quality of the processed material and especially into quality changes. However, most construction sites either do not gather machine-related data or do not systematically analyze the data and use it to improve the entire process chain. In this context, the design of a central data acquisition and process control system for cloud-based automation is presented. A common process and data model is derived based on a concrete pavement construction site. Interactions between concrete production, transport, paving, and post processing are discussed. The results are illustrated by experimental data collected on a construction site. The data are gathered, synchronized, and processed, demonstrating the potential of the proposed method for data collection and system integration.