On June 2nd 2023, iLab welcomed Prof. Dr.-Ing. Markus König, the deputy head of the national center for the digitalization of the German construction industry (BIM Germany). During the visit, he made a presentation on the topic “Generation of initial digital twins using artificial intelligence”. Dr. Frank Xue, Dr. Junjie Chen and other members of iLab also introduced iLab’s research and guided the visitors for a lab tour.

The Department of REC invited Prof. Chimay Anumba, Dean of College of Design, Construction and Planning, University of Florida to give a talk Leveraging Cyber-physical Systems and Digital Twins for Construction Projects on 7 June 2023 in Knolwes Building at HKU. His talk is positioned in the construction industry, which is increasingly seeking to leverage emerging technologies as it continues the quest for greater levels of productivity, quality, safety, sustainability, and cost effectiveness. Two related technologies, which have the capacity to play an important role, are Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) and Digital Twins (DT). These enable the synergistic integration of virtual models and the physical environment and are now being increasingly recognized as vital for improved construction project information management, more efficient project delivery, and enhanced facilities management. A critical aspect of the deployment of CPS and DT in construction is ensuring bi-directional coordination between the physical components and their virtual representations or digital twins. This guest lecture will draw on examples from research prototypes to highlight the key features and benefits of these technologies and the associated systems. It will also outline the lessons learned from developing a variety of systems for several aspects of the delivery of constructed facilities.