Cambridge Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction (CSIC) is preparing to create the Centre’s first-ever live laboratory on site at the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge.
Installing CSIC sensing technologies transforms the building from a passive block of material into a living creature. We will be able to ask the building how it is feeling and the building will be able to reply
Dr Mohammed Elshafie, CSIC
Pioneering sensing technologies will be installed in the infrastructure of the new four-storey James Dyson Building for Engineering, due to open in 2015.
Dr Mohammed Elshafie, a member of the CSIC team involved, said: “We have been developing and installing fibre optic sensing all over London and the UK, throughout Europe and in the US, but rarely had the opportunity to showcase our work in Cambridge. This is a chance to populate a new building in our own back yard with a range of sensing technologies so, when CSIC is working with students and industry, we can demonstrate our sensing devices operating in real time. Installing CSIC sensing technologies transforms the building from a passive block of material into a living creature. We will be able to ask the building how it is feeling and the building will be able to reply.”
The extension project is already underway and the CSIC team will be on site from autumn this year. Dr Elshafie said: “It’s very exciting and certainly has numerous benefits. This will be the first time the team has been able to install our technology without having to deploy a group of people at 4am in the morning. As the project is happening at our own university we can work during office hours.”
Keep checking the CSIC website for updates on the building of CSIC’s live laboratory.
