Univ.-Prof. Dr. Raul Fuentes

Director of Chair of Geotechnical Engineering and Institute of Geomechanics and Underground Technology (GUT),
Faculty 3 of Civil Engineering
RWTH Aachen University

Website: https://www.gut.rwth-aachen.de
Email: raul.fuentes@rwth-aachen.de

The ever-growing urban population faces challenges of ageing infrastructure. The process for renewing the infrastructure is costly, and current practices for maintaining and repairing are often ineffective and labour intensive. Road networks, for instance, which act as the arteries of cities, suffer from reoccurring potholes (in the UK, a pothole is filled every 21 s). A more effective way of maintaining road networks is through a proactive approach, where condition assessment and intervention are conducted throughout the asset life cycle. However, there are barriers to a proactive approach, including budget constraints and the lack of effective technology for early defect detection (followed by a cheap yet effective repair). This presentation puts forward a new paradigm for city infrastructure maintenance where robots work in harmony with other systems to undertake proactive infrastructure maintenance.

Lectures:

Construction Robotics Lecture Series

Mar 30, 2020