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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: EP/L010917/1
Title: Innovation and Knowledge Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction - Collaborative Programme Tranche 2
Principal Investigator: Mair, Professor L
Other Investigators:
Seshia, Professor A Echenique, Professor M Jin, Dr Y
Schooling, Dr J Parlikad, Dr A McFarlane, Professor D
Crowcroft, Professor J Mascolo, Professor C Cippola, Professor R
Soga, Professor K Middleton, Professor C Allwood, Professor JM
Elshafie, Dr M Z B Scholtes, Professor S
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department: Engineering
Organisation: University of Cambridge
Scheme: Standard Research - NR1
Starts: 03 February 2014 Ends: 02 March 2017 Value (£): 2,184,284
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
Construction
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Panel DatePanel NameOutcome
24 May 2013 Innovation and Knowledge Centres (24 months review) Cambridge Announced
Summary on Grant Application Form
The Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction (CSIC) research focuses on the innovative use of emerging technologies in sensor and data management, coupled with emerging best practice in the form of applying the latest manufacturing and supply chain management approaches to construction and infrastructure. It aims to develop completely new markets and achieve breakthroughs in performance.

CSIC focuses on the innovative use of emerging technologies in sensor and data management (e.g. fibre optics, MEMS, computer vision, power harvesting, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Wireless Sensor Networks). It aims to develop completely new markets and achieve breakthroughs in performance.

The outputs of the Centre will provide the construction industry and infrastructure owners and operators with the means to ensure that very challenging new performance targets can be met. Furthermore, the potential breakthroughs will make the industry more efficient and therefore more profitable. They will give UK companies a competitive advantage in the increasingly global construction market.

CSIC works closely with our large network of industry partners in developing the strategic direction for the Centre and in collaborative projects. To date, the Centre has over 30 demonstration projects and case studies.

In this proposal for Tranche 2 funding, we seek to build on the research and demonstration projects carried out in the Core programme and the Tranche 1 Collaborative Projects, with a strong focus on developing the outputs of these projects to be market ready, through development of the technologies into products and through standardisation of the deployment of sensor technologies in infrastructure environments and of the analysis of the data produced.

Important to this aim is the creation of an 'incubator team' who will carry out product development activities and will deploy sensor technologies in the field, further demonstrating and refining CSIC's capability and demonstrating the value of this capability to the market. The team will be constituted so that it can respond rapidly to client demand for demonstration and deployment of technologies and interpretation of data, creating maximum value for our industry partners.

This will result in a number of outputs designed to catalyse widespread uptake in the infrastructure industry, including:

1) Specific commercialisation opportunities for the technologies through joint ventures, spin outs or licensing of IP;

2) Consulting services, deploying sensors to assist clients e.g. in monitoring sensitive structures during construction, understanding live performance of assets or designing new assets efficiently based on data from monitored assets;

3) Development of best practice guidance for structural health monitoring of assets, deployment of sensor networks, and analysis of data; and

4) Development of training packages for industry

In addition to this, CSIC will carry out further research to expand the capability of the Centre's technologies into new areas, as identified by our industry partners through meetings and workshops.

Key Findings
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Potential use in non-academic contexts
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Summary
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Organisation Website: http://www.cam.ac.uk