BIM to field: Robotic total station and BIM for quality control

Abstract

One of the reasons why some construction professionals are excited about BIM is because of its ability to visualize the installation of prefabricated building modules. As far as using BIM for facilitating the prefabrication process, we expect that all building components are installed correctly as indicated in the model. However, in many cases, building components such as cast-in-place concrete beams and columns are installed a little bit inaccurately because the formworks can be sagged or twisted while fresh concrete is being placed. Our research tested how effectively BIM and Robotic Total Station technology would facilitate to advance the quality control practices on field. For this investigation, we invited three Robotic Total Station technology venders to a 107,000-square-foot academic building construction project jobsite. Our test confirmed that the use Robotic Total Stations expedited the process of marking the layout points on the jobsite or collecting point data from existing facilities. Along with the results of our test, this paper also presents some lessons we learned from the field test.

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PostedonReseachGate
RobotictotalstationandBIM
forqualitycontrol
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Julian,K.;GanapathiSubramanian,A.;Lee,J.andFaghihi,Vahid
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eWorkandeBusinessinArchitecture,EngineeringandConstruction(Proceedingsofthe5thEuropean
ConferenceonProductandProcessModellingintheBuildingandConstructionIndustry),July,Reykjavik,
Iceland
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eWork and eBusiness in Architecture, Engineering and Construction – Gudnason & Scherer (Eds)
© 2012 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-415-62128-1
BIM to field: Robotic total station and BIM for quality control
J. Kang,A. Ganapathi, J. Lee & V. Faghihi
Texas A&M University, College Station,TX., U.S.A.
ABSTRACT: One of the reasons why some construction professionals are excited about BIM is because of its
ability to visualize the installation of prefabricated building modules. As far as using BIM for facilitating the
prefabrication process, we expect that all building components are installed correctly as indicated in the model.
However, in many cases, building components such as cast-in-place concrete beams and columns are installed a
little bit inaccurately because the formworks can be sagged or twisted while fresh concrete is being placed. Our
research tested how effectively BIM and Robotic Total Station technology would facilitate to advance the quality
control practices on field. For this investigation, we invited three Robotic Total Station technology venders to
a 107,000-square-foot academic building construction project jobsite. Our test confirmed that the use Robotic
Total Stations expedited the process of marking the layout points on the jobsite or collecting point data from
existing facilities. Along with the results of our test, this paper also presents some lessons we learned from the
field test.
1 INSTRUCTIONS
1.1 BIM for construction
Building Information Model (BIM), an object-based
parametric three-dimensional computer model of a
building combined with additional engineering or
design information, has been rapidly adopted in the
construction industry. According to the McGraw-Hill
report published in 2009, a half of the construction
firms in the U.S. already started using BIM for their
projects. One of the tangible benefits that encour-
aged construction firms to use BIM is its capability
to detect clashes between building components. Many
BIM applications enable to identify the graphical
objects in the 3D model that are collided against other
objects, which helps construction professionals under-
stand the spatial relationship between clashed objects
and make proactive decisions to reduce reworks and
change orders that could be caused by these clashes.
Several BIM applications also enable to combine the
objects in the 3D computer model with their construc-
tion schedule information such as start date and end
date, and show the sequence of the construction pro-
cess visually by getting these objects appeared on the
computer screen over timeline according to its sched-
ule information. The combination of the 3D computer
model and associated schedule information, which
is often called as 4D construction sequence model,
facilitates construction professionals to better under-
stand how the space on the jobsite will be occupied
during construction by these equipment or tempo-
rary structures, which eventually helps them deal with
the constructability issues during pre-construction
coordination meetings.
1.2 BIM and prefabricated modules
According to the US Dept. of Commerce Bureau of
Labor Statistics report, productivity in the construction
industry has been declining for last 40 years. Among
many solutions suggested by the industry profession-
als to increase productivity during construction, the
use of prefabricated modules has been recently under
the spotlight. Knowing that BIM made it easy to visual-
ize the building to be built in 3D world, it is reasonable
to expect that BIM should effectively visualize the pre-
fabricated modules, which then would facilitate the
construction professionals to discuss how the prefab-
ricated modules are supposed to be installed and how
these modules should be transported to the designated
location on the jobsite. The ability to visually present
the installation process of prefabricated modules in 3D
world should enable construction professionals to use
these modules during construction with more confi-
dence, which is why BIM is expected to promote the
prefabrication methods in construction.
One of the conditions we assume when using BIM
for prefabrication is that all building components will
be built correctly as they are presented in the 3D
model. We expect that any components prefabricated
using information extracted from the 3D model be per-
fectly aligned with other building components that
are already built. However, in many cases, build-
ing components such as cast-in-place concrete beams
and columns are installed a little bit inaccurately, for
instance, because the formworks can be sagged or
twisted while fresh concrete is being placed. Masonry
structures, concrete beams and other critical construc-
tion components have tight tolerances because of other
components to be built on top of them. No matter how
717

accurately the Building Information Model is created,
and no matter how many clashes are detected dur-
ing the preconstruction coordination meetings, many
activities that are associated with the installation of
prefabricated modules on masonry structure can be
messed up when masonry structural components are
not built accurately. For example, any concrete beam
placed half-an-inch off the designated location can
affect significantly the installation of prefabricated
metal components for the building façade. Crews
installing these components on the jobsite may have to
cut some pieces off the prefabricated modules or add
additional pieces if concrete beams or columns that
these components will get attached to. Time needed
to cut off or add additional pieces to the prefabricated
components on the jobsite before they get assembled
is obviously a waste. Contractors may end up spending
millions of dollars if these dimensional inaccuracies of
these components are not detected on time. If we can
collect the dimensional information of these masonry
structures before sub-contractors start fabricating the
modules, it would not be impossible to make proac-
tive decisions to reduce their impact on the cost and
schedule.
1.3 Surveying equipment
In many cases, contractors use tape measures to collect
dimensional information of the building components,
which could bear human error during measurements.
As late as the 1990s, the basic tools used in pla-
nar surveying were a tape measure for determining
shorter distances, a level to determine height or ele-
vation differences, and a theodolite, set on a tripod,
to measure angles (horizontal and vertical), combined
with the process of triangulation. Starting from a
position with known location and elevation, the dis-
tance and angles to the unknown point are measured.
There is a need to improve the way measurements are
taken on the field in order to increase the accuracy
of the measurements. One may want to use survey-
ors to increase the accuracy of the measurements,
but it cost contractors significantly and surveyors are
not generally available when there is an immediate
requirement.
A more modern instrument is a Total Station, which
is a theodolite with an Electronic Distance Measure-
ment device (EDM). EMS measures the distance using
the elapsed time required for a light wave to travel
to a target and get reflected back. Since their intro-
duction, total stations have made the technological
shift from being optical-mechanical devices to being
fully electronic. Recently RoboticTotal Station (RTS)
technology has brought an interesting attending in the
construction industry because of its capability of get-
ting the measurements integrated with the Building
Information Model (BIM). In addition, unlike conven-
tional Total Stations, the Robotic Total Station requires
only one person to operate and take measurements,
which may contribute to saving times and increasing
accuracy in measurements.
2 ROBOTIC TOTAL STATIONS
A Robotic Total Station is the advancement to the con-
ventional Total Station, which requires only a single
person to operate and determine the location of the
points surveyed. With the Robotic Total Station, the
operator holds the reflector and controls the total sta-
tion from the observed point with the help of a Remote
Positioning Unit. Depending whether the target is
static or in dynamic motion, RTS can be categorized
as a passive RTS or active RTS.
A fast reflectorless measurement was also devel-
oped in 1995 (Buchmann 1996). In 1999, Leica pre-
sented the equivalent commercial version, the first
commercial robotic reflectorless total station (RRTS).
Scherer and Lerma (2009) noted that “the new type
of reflectorless measuring TS opened new fields for
practical use, above all intelligent tacheometry, which
comprises the steering of the instrument via a program
which is able to interpret the result of the reflectorless
measurement and in consequence directs automati-
cally the distance measuring ray of theTS to new points
of interest”.
Apart from the remote operation of the total sta-
tion, the integration of the GPS (Global Positioning
System) to the RTS (Robotic Total Station) has been
used to obtain the global coordinates from the local
coordinates.
The next step of the original developments of the
total station was the integration of cameras into the
telescope. The origin of this synergy reminds the idea
of the photo-theodolite that was developed in Italy in
1865 by Porro and in 1884 by Paganini, as well as in
Germany, by Koppe, in 1896 (Luhmann et al. 2006),
which is the combination of digital cameras and high-
end robotic reflectorless measuring total stations. This
type of Total Station (TS) is called Image Assisted
Total Station (IATS).
2.1 Applications of RTS in building construction
Construction managers can use BIM and the Robotics
Total Station technologies for accurate building prac-
tices. Site survey points generated in the Building
Information Model can be uploaded to the RTS. Based
on the points generated from the model, the field
staff then can lay out all of the points. For instance,
the accurate positioning of the hangers would ease
the coordination of the MEP contractors. Further-
more, field staff can survey the components of the
building with robotic total station to ensure that they
are built according to the design and within accept-
able tolerance range. This proactive quality control
approach would prevent any subsequent conflicts.
Overall, robotic total station uses the information from
BIM/CAD to survey both for construction and quality
control purposes. Commercially construction contrac-
tors use Robotic Total Station for building layout works
to check elevations, locate column and walls, layout
anchor bolts and layout utilities for each floor of the
building. Some of the commercial software packages
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offer support to transfer the building coordinates from
the model to the total station. The automatic target-
locking feature of the RTS can be made use of to locate
the points faster with spot on accuracy. Moreover,
there will be certain points in the construction site that
cannot be physically reached to hold the reflecting
prism. In those cases Reflectorless distance measur-
ing option that comes with the Robotic Total Stations
can be used to get the coordinates remotely.
2.2 4D modeling and automated surveying
Building Information Modeling (BIM) is used to gen-
erate and manage essential building data during its
life cycle. The 3D representation of the building ele-
ments together with spatial relationships, quantities
and properties of the components provide several
useful information for the construction and the main-
tenance of the buildings. One of the important aspects
of BIM is the 4D simulation of the construction pro-
cess, where the 3D building components are combined
with line items of a construction schedule. This 4D
simulation will help to visualize the construction pro-
cess at any point in time, which helps to avoid any
unforeseen incidents. The building production models
are represented in the form of 4D models, which are
created considering multiple constraints on site, such
as the lifting capacity of the tower crane, construction
method and activity sequence. It has been studied that
4D visualization of the building components together
with automatic surveying methodologies like Robotic
Total Station surveying, can be used to reflect the real-
time position of the building components when they
are being installed during the construction operation.
Liang et al. (2010) developed 4D PosCon to col-
lect the 3D coordinates of the building components
being installed in real time, update the 3D model of
the building components, and get it compared with
the as-design building model for the position offsets.
This process of quantification of the deviations of the
components that are being installed is expected to help
to adjust operations right away.
2.3 Deflection measurement and oscillation
frequencies of engineering structure
Robotic Total Station has the capability to automat-
ically record the changing coordinates of a moving
target.The accuracy of the RTS is in millimeters, which
will further be helpful in measuring the small move-
ments very precisely. The RTS is installed at a known
location and its location is calibrated by sighting at
least two control points. The prisms that are attached
to the structure are sighted under neutral conditions,
which will be the reference position with no load.
Once the target is locked, desired load is applied to
the structure and RTS will track the prism, which will
be moving under the influence of the imposed load.
The modified coordinates of the prisms are calculated
and by comparing the initial and final coordinates the
deflection value can be calculated.
Robotic Total Station has another important practi-
cal application in calculating the oscillation frequency
of the engineering structures. RTS has been used to
monitor static targets and very slow displacements in
the past. The limitation in the earlier versions of the
total station was the sampling rate (Less than 2 Hz)
and non-constant, noisy outcome in higher frequencies
(Panos et al. 2007). The new generation RTS has an
average sampling rate of 10Hz. Recent studies prove
that they can be used to measure smaller oscillating
frequencies with high accuracy and the accuracy will
be reduced as the measuring frequency increases. This
application of RTS can be dynamically used to check
the oscillating frequencies of bridges under different
loading conditions (Vehicular, Wind etc.), which could
be used to check the stability of those structures. The
structures can also be checked for loading conditions
that would lead to the oscillation of the structures under
resonance frequency, which could be disastrous and
impending threat to them could be averted.
Some of the other common applications of Robotic
Total Stations for construction are as follows:
– Checking or tying into property boundaries
– Layout of excavation lines
– Setting up of control points for laying out concrete
forms and anchor bolts
– As-built checks
– Laying of control lines on concrete pad for subcon-
tractor use
– Topographical measurements for cut/fill balance
3 FIELD TEST
3.1 Objectives
The main purpose of the study is to increase the knowl-
edge base about the use of Robotic Total Station (RTS)
in the construction industry from the Construction
Manager’s perspective. Two main technology vendors
participated in this investigation and their Robotic
Total Stations are used for the field tests. This study
is hoping to give more clarity for construction man-
agers to make use of this technology for their QA/QC
purposes, as currently there are not much sophis-
ticated tools available. QA/QC tasks are performed
to check the as-built dimensional accuracy with the
as-designed Building Information Model. The use of
RTS is expected to identify the potential problems
that could cause schedule delays well ahead of time,
resulting in the savings of time and money.
The field investigation process involving the RTS
of the two vendors demanded some standard proce-
dures in order to establish a standard platform for
comparison purposes. The research team at Texas
A&M University together with participating general
contractor devised a protocol to be followed for mea-
suring some of the critical components in the field.
Some building components to be measured are identi-
fied from the lessons learned in the past, which were
creating some negative cost and the schedule impacts.
719

3.2 Test protocol
Three different methods have been proposed to mea-
sure the beam sides. Each of the proposed method
will then be compared based on the time taken, accu-
racy and ease of measurement to establish the best
suitable method for measuring beam sides. All the
three proposed methods below will involve shooting
of points that will have the X, Y and Z coordinate
information (3D).
PointsAlong Edges – In this method, series of points
along the four edges of the beam face will be shot by
the RTS and those point data could be taken back to the
CAD/BIM software to locate the as-built position of
that corresponding beam face. The number of points
required on each face can be decided based on the
length of the face and the site conditions and the points
to be shot are selected manually by looking through the
eye piece.
Corners Only – All the four corners of the rectangu-
lar beam face are shot and those four point data with
the X, Y and Z coordinate (3D) information could be
used to retrace the actual position of the beam face in
CAD/BIM software.
Automatic points shooting mode – Since the RTS
has a unique feature to automatically shoot some series
of points between two specified points, the two corner
points are specified and a series of points are then shot
along each of the edges for a beam face.
Steel Embeds Location – The location of the steel
embeds on the beam faces should be located by shoot-
ing all the four corners of the steel embeds (3D
coordinates). There could be some cases where all the
corners of steel embed may not be visible as it could be
buried under the concrete (Figure 9). In those cases all
the four visible corners of embeds are shot along with
its rough center.All the steel embeds located between
two columns needs to be shot.
Column Location – The location of the columns
in 2D needs to be determined by measuring the all
the four corners of the column in the plan. Since the
columns considered for this case study are chamfered,
the exact location of the corners cannot be determined
directly. In order to achieve this process, any two (or
more) points are shot on each face of the column and
the lines drawn connecting the points on all the four
faces could reveal the actual location of the column
in a CAD/BIM software. In order to shoot all the four
corners of a column, multiple setup may be required to
establish a line of sight with all the four faces. Using
an offset prism, which doesn’t require a direct line of
sight to the face of the column that needs to be shot,
could reduce the number of setups.
The step-by-step procedure to setup and use the RTS
for measuring points in field is as follows. The proce-
dure is same for the equipment from both the vendors.
– Clean the CAD drawing by removing the x-refs and
bring all the points in the single file
– Place the required points to be staked out in any
of the CAD software available together with the
control points (Trimble LM80/AUTOCAD)
– Transfer the CAD file to the handheld collector
through the standard SD card/USB port or with the
help of a data cable depends on the type of data
collector used.
– Check the scale of the drawing before importing it
to the data collector and make sure it is in 1:1 scale.
– Assemble the prism to the prism pole and fix the
instrument over the tripod.
– The tribarch screws and the fish eye level on the
robot are used to level the instrument to certain
level of accuracy.
– Connection is established between the instrument
and the hand-held controller by setting them in a
common radio frequency channel.
– The instrument is more accurately leveled by see-
ing the digital level of the instrument shown on the
hand-held controller using the tribarch screws in a
similar fashion.
– The instrument can be stationed over a known
location and can verify its position by shooting
another control point or it can be placed over an
unknown location and its location can be found by
resection after sighting minimum 2 (2D) or 3(3D)
control points. For more accuracy the instrument is
setup over a known point as there could be some
inaccuracies due to round-offs in resection.
– The prism pole is placed over the points of interest
once the control points are shot. This method can
be used when the as built dimension are needed to
be recorded, where the actual points to be measured
are already staked out.
– In order to stake out points for layout purposes,
the point to be staked out is selected in the hand-
held controller and the prism pole is moved towards
the designated point. The prism pole is moved in
accordance to the direction shown in the controller
and zeroed in as accurately as possible.
– When placing the prism pole over a point, it should
be made sure that it is always vertical by using the
level bubble on the pole. For higher accuracies the
prism should be as close to the ground as possible.
– During the measurement process if the RTS loses
the target due to some obstructions in the site, the
power search mode can be used to search for the
target in a specified window and can be found. If the
controller is beyond the power search mode range,
the robot can be manually rotated with the joystick
in the controller and can be made to find the target.
– Once the points required are shot, the hand-held
controller is connected back to the computer in a
similar fashion and the data can be imported back.
The controller has the ability to import the point
data in several data formats like DXF, CSV, ASCII
etc. These as-built point data can be placed over
the as-designed drawings and can be checked for
deviations for QA/QC purposes.
3.3 Test outcomes
The protocol formulated was put to use by the robots
from the two vendors and the time required for each
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Table 1. Test results.
Parameter Vendor A Vendor B
Initial setup About 10 min. About 10 min.
Beam Sides (3D)
- 4 corners 2 min. 5 min.
- Series of points 3 min. 3min.
along segments
- Automatic points N/A 6 min.
measurement
Embeds (3D) 1.3 ea./min. 1.25 ea./min.
Columns (2D) 22 min. 25 min.
Figure 1. Imported points represented as sphere.
separate process was recorded and are tabulated in
Table 1. The table shows that the time does not nec-
essarily indicate the efficiency of the RTS from two
vendors. The field conditions were different for both
the cases and they were made to shoot two different
datasets. The result gave a good idea about the aver-
age time taken to accomplish the tasks specified in the
protocol.
3.4 Importing point data to BIM
The as-built point data collected from the robotic total
station can be imported back to the Revit model using
this application. To import the point data, save the
data in x, y, z format along in a txt or csv file for-
mat and use the ‘Import Pts’ option in the application.
While importing, the application will give options to
upload the new points as a new instance or it will ask
to move the existing points that are having the same
point ID as the new points to the modified location.
When these points are tied in to the elements, as-built
models can be generated on the fly from the point data
measured as the application will automatically move
the existing as-designed points based on the as-built
dimensions.
3.5 Issues with poles
With the modifications made, RTS still has a standard
pole. One of the modifications made is in the area of
usual survey application that we have been utilizing
in construction. The bipod legs, which are used, have
to be balanced and leveled before taking the readings,
which takes considerable time for each reading. It also
takes time to adjust the pole offset from the actual
point and level again to calibrate. Actual survey takes
nearly 30-40 points a day, but for usual MEP projects
it usually takes 400-600 points a day in the schedule.
So, this process has to be hastened which is the major
modification in the new RTS. One of the participating
vendors came up with a solid self-leveling base-plate
to replace the bipod. The pole is shortened and made to
be an extendable rod pole to raise the shaft for special
purposes and to take inverted levels so that the rod can
be pushed to the point overhead to take readings from
the prism. The top of the pole is fixed with the X-Y
Positioner, which has a self-leveling laser. The prism
goes on top or bottom of the self-leveling laser, which
helps the subcontractor to make layouton the g round or
on the overhead ceiling, which speeds up their process.
This assembly of prism and self-leveling laser acts as
an entity and creates no deviation from the prism to the
point on the layout.This assembly does not require the
base plate to be leveled. If there is a slight deviation
from the layout point, the X-Y positioner can be used
to minimize the slight deviation and make the laser
point coincide with the actual point.
Other RTS instruments using the conventional
prism poles have to be moved inch by inch to coin-
cide with the actual point. What actually happens is,
as the workers get fatigued they tend to mark points
closer to the actual point, which creates deviations.
The main purpose of reducing the error by using RTS
is lost. This margin of error can be avoided by this
RTS. There is a difference of 10–15 seconds between
the readings taken by RTS and conventional survey
equipment which when cumulated over 4–6 points a
day saves significant time.
When the prism is put on top of the survey rod and
if it is not leveled, the total station takes reading of the
point away from actual point as the rod is tilted and
the margin of error will be the projection of the rod on
the ground. This huge deviation and variance is intro-
duced due to the old survey rod and prism assembly,
which can be avoided by the X-Y positioner, laser and
prism assembly.
RC handle or the communications handle goes on
top of the X-Y positioner, laser and prism assembly
and fixed to the standard pole. This is a long-range
blue tooth technology. The main importance of this
long-range blue tooth technology is that it sends sig-
nals to total station with which it is connected. The
users do not need to worry about the total station lock-
ing on to the reflective safety vests, reflections of a
vehicle passing by or any other equipment.This tech-
nology also prevents it from connecting to any other
RTS being used in the site as it has a committed con-
nection. Furthermore, It also allows tracking the lost
prism for which it takes only 7 seconds. Search win-
dow in the RTS is not required nor we need to see if the
RTS is to the left or right. Line of sight issues are still to
be resolved. Long-range Bluetooth technology enables
streaming of field information to the office through
721

the SIM card or by connecting to the Internet through
wireless network. This assembly works with Monitor-
ing Total Stations, which are extremely accurate.These
are setup permanently throughout the duration of the
project and it records any slight shifting in the con-
struction activity or any adjacent building. The turning
angle tolerance of RTS is 1second to 5seconds. If the
project is large and expanding miles, then this slight
deviation in angle diverges and becomes a large dis-
tance over a certain distance. In this case going to less
tolerance RTS is preferable to minimize this error.
4 CONCLUSIONS
The main purpose of the study is to increase the
knowledge about the use of Robotic Total Station
in the construction industry from the Construction
Manager’s perspective. The study is being initiated by
the Skanska USA as a part of their Innovative Research
program.
Professionals representing two main Robotic Sta-
tion Vendors participated in this investigation. Their
Robotic Total Stations were used for the field tests. The
Liberal Arts Building construction project and Olsen
Field renovation project at Texas A&M University
were used for the filed tests.
The protocol for fields tests were devised by the
research team at Texas A&M University. The protocol
formulated was about executing some tasks using the
Robotic Total Station from the two vendors. The time
required for each separate process was recorded. The
result gave a good idea about the average time taken
to accomplish the tasks specified in the protocol.
From the field tests, the research team figured out
the step-by-step procedure to setup and use the RTS
for measuring points in field. For the QA/QC pur-
poses, the research team confirmed the possibility of
speeding up the process of creating the as-built BIM
using the point data collected from the field. It is rea-
sonable to expect that as-built BIM would facilitate
project managers to identify potential problems that
could cause schedule delays well ahead of time and
make proactive decisions to prevent them from taking
place if the as-built BIM can be created in real time as
project is moving on.
During the field investigation, crews, who were car-
rying out the laying out operations for the dry wall
installation, found that the control point established
inside the building was off by few inches. They were
able to find this discrepancy using the RTS in very
short time, which would have otherwise taken a long
time to figure it out.
In conclusion, the research team believes that it is
safe to address that the use of Robotic Total Station can
expedite 1) the process of laying out the locations for
dry wall, and 2) accelerate the process of collecting
as-built point data and creating as-built BIM, which
can be used for QA/QC in the course of construction.
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