The Institute of Digital and Autonomous Construction (IDAC), led by Prof. Dr Kay Smarsly, is conducting research, as part of a German-Greek collaboration, on a revolutionary safety architecture for modern civil engineering structures.
A deep blue sea on the horizon beneath an almost cloudless blue sky, with a white diving tower rising above it – not a holiday idyll, but the setting for high-precision scientific fieldwork: At the National Swimming Pool in the port city of Thessaloniki, researchers from the TUHH, among others, are working on the diving tower in yellow high-visibility vests, using laptops, cordless screwdrivers and small, wireless sensors which they attach to the concrete using magnets.
“We use the sensors to investigate the structural behaviour of the diving tower,” explains Kosmas Dragos, a research assistant at IDAC. “The dynamic properties of the diving platform must meet regulatory requirements to ensure the facility can be used safely.” As soon as wind hits the structure or people use the platform, it begins to vibrate imperceptibly. The sensors capture these vibrations and transmit acceleration response data in real time to Dragos’s computer.
Critical infrastructure in the spotlight
“With modern structures, we can no longer limit ourselves to considering just the physical structure,” explains Professor Smarsly. "The structure, its sensors, the communication networks, the data processing, and the ensuing decisions form a tightly coupled cyber-physical system." According to Smarsly, such an integrated system can be impaired in three distinct ways: By structural damage to the structure itself, by faults in the monitoring systems—such as a defective sensor—and by cyberattacks. Our AI-based systems are designed to autonomously detect and analyse these three threats.
Further information and a video on this exciting research project can be found on the IDAC website.
