AUTCON-01145; No of Pages 14

Automation in Construction xxx (2010) xxx–xxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Automation in Construction
j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / a u t c o n

A development of next generation intelligent construction liftcar toolkit for vertical

material movement management
Chang-Yeon Cho a,1, Soonwook Kwon c,⁎, Tae-Hong Shin b,2, Sangyoon Chin c,3, Yea-Sang Kim c,3
a
Korea Institute of Construction Technology, Goyang 411-712, South Korea
b
Samsung SDS., Seoul 135-918, South Korea
c
Dept. of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental System Engineering, Sungkyunkwan Univ., Suwon 400-746, South Korea

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: High-rise construction sites, especially those situated in spatially-constrained urban areas, have difficulties
Accepted 3 May 2010 in timely delivery of materials. IT-driven management techniques can be further benefited from state-of-the-
Available online xxxx art devices such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags and Ubiquitous Sensor Networks (USN), which
have resulted in notable achievements in automated logistics management at the construction sites.
Keywords:
Based on those achievements, this research develops USN hardware toolkits for hoists, which aims to
Construction lift
Material management
automate the vertical material delivery by sensing the material information and routing it automatically to
USN the right place. The gathered information from the sensors can also be used for monitoring the overall status.
RFID To support the system, a hoist-mountable intelligent toolkit was developed. Its feasibility test was conducted
Wireless sensing by applying the implemented system to a test bed and then analyzing efficiency of the system and the
Material movement toolkit.
© 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Especially in construction sites in spatially-constrained urban

Unlike other industries where single standard manufacturing
process can be applied to a batch of production items, each
construction project requires its own production process highly
customized to individual project characteristics. As a result, each
construction project has a unique, flexible logistics process for
procurement of materials [4]. Therefore, planning of a supply chain
management system should be flexible, which would accommodate
highly variable project environment, from large-scale urban renovation
to high-rise building construction [3].
In such environment, where only limited number of material
lifting equipments are available, careful planning for the operation
of the equipments is needed for efficient logistics management
in construction site [13,19]. According to the precedent re-
search [1,2,6], it was indicated that the efficiency of the lifting
equipments varies with regards to the building height, and that
planning of the material lifting affects the overall duration of the
construction; furthermore, increased building height would lead to
exponential increase of the information to be managed such as
scheduling and cost, let alone the increased material quantity.
⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 31 299 7578; fax: +82 31 290 7570.
E-mail address: swkwon@skku.edu (S. Kwon).
1
Tel.: +82 31 910 0284; fax: +82 31 910 0114.
2
Tel.: +82 2 3429 2114.
3
Tel.: +82 31 299 7578; fax: +82 31 290 7570.
areas, planning and managing the logistics of the materials directly
affect the construction schedule and the cost; if a problem breaks
out, it would trigger cascading problems in other parts in the
project which would result in production delays and cost overrun.
Many techniques such as Six Sigma, JIT (just-in-time production),
Lean Construction have been applied to the area in order to
improve its efficiency; however, the industry demands automated
system for the management tasks, which have progressed rather
slowly [1,2].
This paper describes the development of an intelligent lift car,
which is a part of the multi-year national research project in
development of the intelligent construction logistics system. The
system under development utilizes remote sensing and communi-
cation technologies such as RFID (Radio Frequency Identification)
and USN (Ubiquitous Sensor Network) to capture the information of
material movement and to manage it in an intelligent manner. A
toolkit (which consists of various sensors and wireless communi-
cation modules) has been developed to convert existing lift cars into
the intelligent ones easily. The new lift car is designed to increase
the efficiency of vertical transportation, which is crucial for
successful on-site logistics, and to improve information manage-
ment related to it. Several field tests were conducted to assess the
capability of the new lift car. Overall goal of the development effort
is to propose a new alternative for the next generation construction
sites where many parts of their jobs are automated and intelligently
controlled.
Fig. 1 illustrates overall procedure of our research work.

0926-5805/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.autcon.2010.07.008

Please cite this article as: C.-Y. Cho, et al., A development of next generation intelligent construction liftcar toolkit for vertical material
movement management, Automation in Construction (2010), doi:10.1016/j.autcon.2010.07.008
2 C.-Y. Cho et al. / Automation in Construction xxx (2010) xxx–xxx

2. As-is construction supply chain management (CSCM)
2.1. Precedent researches in CSCM
This section reviews precedent researches in the construction
supply chain management area we surveyed, which can be summa-
rized as the following paragraphs. An earlier version of this survey can
also be seen in [1,2]. According to our survey, those past researches
fall in one of the following categories: first, enhancement of the
logistics management including application of new management
theories; second, improvement of the material procurement; third
(the last), adoption of new technology.
For the third category (adoption of new technology), it was
observed that the barcode-based systems were being replaced with
RFID-based ones, and that development of the management system
also reflected the transition — for instance, utilization of the wireless
communication and development of decision support models based
on the new technology. When we narrow the scope down to vertical
material movement (e.g., lift cars and cranes), the related researches
may fall into the following categories: finding optimal arrangement of
tower cranes [11,12], load distribution between the vertical move-
ment equipments (for tower cranes, lift cars, and both) (Jung, 2004;
[3,14]), and support system for the equipments [13,19].
In [1,2], efficiency of high-speed construction lifts was analyzed.
According to it, the time needed for single lift operation can be
calculated as below:
Time needed for a single lift =favg: lifting height ðmÞ = lifting speedðm =minÞ
× 2ðround tripÞg + extra timeð needed for loading; unloading; etc:Þ
mechanical performance was steady. It was also found that,
considering their importance, there were surprisingly few researches
on automated systems for monitoring movement of the construction
materials via the lifting equipments as a part of the construction
supply chain management.
2.2. Precedent researches using RFID/USN technologies in CSCM
Efficient management of the supply chains for construction materials
is becoming more important as large-scale, high-rise projects are being
common. Around the world, many research activities on this area are
currently going on; among them, various practical approaches utilizing
RFID/USN technology, which can prevent time consuming chores and
potential mistakes in information handling by automating many parts of
the CSCM process, have been introduced.
In this section, precedent researches on application of the RFID/USN
technology are reviewed.
Among the state-of-the-arts, [15] showed a practical approach in
engineered component tracking using RFID; in [16], a convergent
approach that combines RFID with GPS (Global Positioning System)
and wireless communication technology was proposed. Automated
detection of the material location is another key research theme:
[9,10,17,18] proposed computational models for localization of the
RFID-tagged materials stored in a stockyard; also, attempts to use
the tracking information for managerial operations such as produc-
tivity analysis [7] and for progress management [5,8] have been
made.
2.3. Concept of next generation vertical transportation (and logistics)
management

Cho also argued that reduction of the extra time would be the best Our research described in this paper aims to develop a construc-
tactic for improving efficiency of the lifting operation, if the tion lift car toolkit-based on RFID/USN technology, to support vertical

Fig. 1. Research procedures.

Please cite this article as: C.-Y. Cho, et al., A development of next generation intelligent construction liftcar toolkit for vertical material
movement management, Automation in Construction (2010), doi:10.1016/j.autcon.2010.07.008
 C.-Y. Cho et al. / Automation in Construction xxx (2010) xxx–xxx 3

movement of the construction materials and works depending on
them. The background researches of its development made by the
authors were the development of the intelligent CSCM process [5]
identification mechanism for inter-equipment material movement
[4], and efficiency analysis of various construction lift types [1,2].
In the context of our research, the term ‘next generation intelligent
CSCM automation system’ refers to the CSCM environment envisioned
by the authors where RFID/USN technology is widely used for optimal
management of the supply chain in construction projects from
material factories to construction sites, especially for large-scale
projects such as high-rise buildings [4].
The system will monitor overall flow of the construction materials
from a production line to their destinations in a construction site and
will be able to track current location of each material in real-time.
Fig. 2 illustrates the concept of the vertical CSCM, which is the main
objective of this research.
The intelligent CSCM for vertical transportation of the construction
materials consists of the following parts: a lift car equipped with RFID
readers and necessary wireless communication functionality; an RFID
reader-equipped intelligent mover (IM) that will load/unload the
RFID-tagged materials to the lift car; a CSCM logistics management
server that will provide the destination and quantity information of
the transported material to the lift car; and a monitoring system
which is responsible for the tracking current status of the material in
real-time [1,2].
At the construction site, whether given material is delivered to the
right place in right time can be monitored in real-time via project
management information system (PMIS); also, work progress
compared to construction schedule can be determined from the
monitored information. These aspects allow confidence in construction
management as well as improved efficiency in CSCM.
In this paper, we would like to propose a prototype of the
intelligent construction lift, based on an easily-deployable toolkit
which provides RFID reading capability and necessary wireless
communication capability.
3. Next generation intelligent construction liftcar
toolkit architecture
3.1. Performance requirements for the toolkit
There are two categories for performance requirements of the new
construction lift car with respect to the intelligent CSCM context:
software requirements and hardware ones.
For the lift car hardware (especially for the CSCM support), it must
fulfill the following requirements:
First, the RFID/USN functionality should be portable so that the
functionality can be transferred to new hardware (such as an
elevator) when the lift car is no more needed and therefore to be
removed; a toolkit system which integrates the required function-
alities seems desirable for satisfying this requirement.
Second, the hardware should be weather-proof because construction
sites are inherently exposed to adverse weather conditions.
Third, for the communication capability, it must support mid-to-long
range communication, for both wired and wireless one, in order to
contact with the logistics management server and other servers such
as PMIS.

Fig. 2. Concept of intelligent vertical CSCM.

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movement management, Automation in Construction (2010), doi:10.1016/j.autcon.2010.07.008
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Fig. 3. 3-Tier based system architecture of toolkit software.

Fig. 4. Information model of toolkit software.

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movement management, Automation in Construction (2010), doi:10.1016/j.autcon.2010.07.008
 C.-Y. Cho et al. / Automation in Construction xxx (2010) xxx–xxx 5

Fig. 5. Illustration of the intelligent lift toolkit concept for elevator and intelligent lift.

Fourth, it must provide short-range wireless communication capa-
bility also for communicating with other intelligent equipments (for
instance, an intelligent mover) and handheld devices such as PDA.
Fifth, it must be friendly to the field users at the construction site in
terms of usability.
Sixth, it should provide backup power (e.g. batteries) in case the
fixed power service fails.
Seventh, there must exist RFID readers and antennas for
identification of RFID tags.
For the software embedded to the toolkit, its requirements can be
summarized as below:
First, it must allow its users to access the loading information via
touch screen display; also, if any event breaks out during the
process of loading, it must be able to display the event in real-time.
Second, initial loading plans stored in the PMIS must be relayed to
the onboard computer in the toolkit so that the intelligent lift car
system can be operated as planned. This functional requirement
can be implemented using web service for the PMIS and its proxy
running on the toolkit's control computer.
Third, overall software must be configured as three-tier system
architecture so that ‘plug-and-play’ concept of the toolkit can be
implemented easily.
Fourth, if something went wrong during the loading process,
details of the problem must be logged to the system and notified to
the responsible personnel.
Fifth, end result of the loading process must be reported to the
logistics management server from the toolkit's control computer
via asynchronous web service.
3.2. Toolkit software design
In order to operate properly, the control computer (based on an
industrial PC) must be able to communicate with other systems such
as the logistics management server and the PMIS; the latter system
will have the actual plan of the material movement. As mentioned
above, the toolkit system's control software is configured to have the

Fig. 6. Setting up embedded control module.

Please cite this article as: C.-Y. Cho, et al., A development of next generation intelligent construction liftcar toolkit for vertical material
movement management, Automation in Construction (2010), doi:10.1016/j.autcon.2010.07.008
6 C.-Y. Cho et al. / Automation in Construction xxx (2010) xxx–xxx

3-tier architecture as the configuration provides flexibility and
extensibility, which suit well for our toolkit-based approach (Fig. 3).
Fig. 4 shows the information items regarding the operation of the
intelligent lift. This information model diagram follows the UML
(Unified Modeling Language) notation, which illustrates the relation-
ships between the toolkit and other related systems regarding the
information exchange among them.
planned loading information to the control PC of the intelligent lift car
via Web service; similarly, the logistics management server accepts the
result information from the control PC of the lift via Web service too. In
this manner, the planning information and the information of actual lift
operation can be managed in a single intelligent CSCM framework.
4. Manufacturing and test result analysis

3.3. Toolkit hardware design 4.1. Manufacturing and test plan

Fig. 5 summarizes tasks the intelligent lift toolkit is supposed to do,
which is based on the hardware requirements listed earlier.
Figs. 6 and 7 show a prototype toolkit we designed for the tasks
sorted out in Fig. 5. Fig. 6 shows the design of the control module that
contains the embedded computer.
Because construction lifts typically have two doors — one for entry
(loading) and the other for exit (unloading), two separate RFID
readers are used for each door. For the control computer, we used an
industrial PC with integrated touch screen display. The display is
ergonomically mounted at 120 cm from the floor deck for comfort of
the human operators.
To provide emergency power service in case main power service
fails, a lead-acid battery pack is installed with a power inverter to
provide AC power to the toolkit.
Fig. 7 shows the console-section design of the toolkit.
3.4. Toolkit software design
Fig. 8 shows a UML activity diagram of the information exchange
process during the intelligent lift operation. The PMIS provide the as-
To evaluate the feasibility of our intelligent lift car toolkit, we built
a working prototype system and then conducted performance tests
against it. The following sub-sections describe the detail of the tests.
4.1.1. Manufacturing toolkit
Our prototype system consists of the toolkit hardware and its
control software. Table 1 lists the hardware specification of our
intelligent construction lift car toolkit.
Fig. 9 shows the picture of our toolkit apparatus and description of its
components. The entire toolkit is hosted in a single cabinet enclosure,
which also has two RFID readers and one battery pack inside.
4.1.2. Toolkit test plans
With the prototype toolkit, we have conducted three tests in total.
Table 2 gives a brief description of each test.
The first one was a pilot test for evaluating the performance of the
individual components. It evaluated the RFID readers (for their
identification ranges with various tag positions) and communication
modules including Zigbee and wireless internet over CDMA cellular
telephony network.

Fig. 7. Detailed design of the intelligent lift toolkit on console section.

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 C.-Y. Cho et al. / Automation in Construction xxx (2010) xxx–xxx 7

Fig. 8. Process model of toolkit software.

The second test was made against the assembled toolkit prototype, 4.2. Toolkit performance tests
which comprised tests of eight RFID antennas for measuring
identification performance, tests of short-range data communication 4.2.1. Pilot type test
between the intelligent equipments, tests of wireless internet services The pilot test was conducted against the individual component of
using CDMA and Wibro modules, and tests of the backup battery the toolkit to see whether it met our functional requirements. It
measuring its service time. comprised three sub-tests and each one is described as follows:
The third one was the field test of the toolkit installed to the lift
hardware with the system software we developed. To assess the real- First, identification range and S/N ratio of the RFID antennas
world performance of the prototype, the test evaluated functionality Second, short-range communication test using Zigbee
of the system software and its interoperability with external systems Third, operation of the wireless communication module.
such as the intelligent logistics server and the PMIS.
Fig. 10 illustrates test settings and various test conditions.
The result from the first test can be summarized as follows:
First, inside the construction lift car which was made of steel,
Table 1 short-range communication using Zigbee within 5 m was stable
Specification of toolkit hardware. and noise-free.
Second, when a door of the lift car was closed, the RFID tags of the
Hardware Specification
materials outside the lift car were not identified; when the door
1 CDMA/WiBro 900 Mhz/1.8 GHz
opened more than 1 m width, tags on the materials located within
2 Zigbee 2.4 Ghz
3 RFID reader 900 Mhz
5 m were able to be identified; when the door was fully open, the
4 RFID tags Passive tag range extended to 8 m.
5 Battery pack D.C 12 V Third, wireless internet access was attempted using a CDMA/Wibro
6 Industrial computer CPU Intel Pentium 4 2 Ghz dual-mode modem for accessing external PMIS; 10 tests were
7 Touch screen monitor 12 in TFT LCD
conducted, all of them were successful. Based on this result, a

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Fig. 9. Developing an intelligent lift toolkit.
Table 2
Test type definition.
Tests Test purpose
1 Pilot test Toolkit device performance test
2 Proto type test Toolkit performance test
3 Field test Toolkit + PMIS communication performance test
decision was made to use the technology for communicating with the
PMIS.
4.2.2. Prototype test
The second test mainly evaluated the performance of the toolkit
hardware, which was developed based on the result from the earlier
pilot test.
The test evaluated the following items:
First, identification ratio with respect to various antenna types
Second, changes in identification ratio with varying locations of the
antennas
Third, changes in identification ratio with adjustment of the antenna
gain.
Fig. 11 illustrates the field condition for the test.
From the figure, dashed line around the material box and the
construction worker represent the entrance area to the lift car which
was made of steel meshes. The test used passive-type tags attached on
two different places — top of the material box and side of it.
For the first test item (identification ratio over various antenna
types), which was conducted to determine the best antenna type for
our toolkit, the antennas were placed on sidewall of the lift car, which
was 130 cm above the floor deck and 30 cm away from the entrance
door horizontally. A receiver antenna and a transmitter one were
installed symmetrically to the sidewall so that they can face each
other.4
4
An RFID antenna can play two roles: a transmitter (TX) which sends off radio
signals to the RFID tag so that the tag can generate electrical power to send off its ID
information by induction; and a receiver (RX) which receives the radio signal from the
tag. These roles are interchangeable on a single antenna.
Please cite this article as: C.-Y. Cho, et al., A development of next generation intelligent construction liftcar toolkit for vertical material
movement management, Automation in Construction (2010), doi:10.1016/j.autcon.2010.07.008
The test result was summarized in Fig. 12.
For the second test item (identification ratio over varying antenna
locations), we used the circular type antenna, as it performed better
than the linear type in the previous test. For this test, two antenna
pairs (each pair consisted of a receiver and a transmitter5) were first
placed at 2.65 m above the floor deck (highest location), and was
gradually lowered at 30 cm intervals as measurements were made for
each height setting. The test result is shown in Fig. 13.
Also, we tested different pair locations: symmetric locations of
RX–TX pair versus asymmetric locations, which result is shown in
Fig. 14.
As a result, there was no observable difference in the identification
performance over different antenna heights; on the other hand,
location of the tag on the material box did cause the difference,
especially for top mounted vs. side mounted — for right side vs. left
side, the latter performed better.
For the last item (identification performance over varying antenna
gains), we started from the maximum gain (zero value) and gradually
reduced the gain by 30 (the numeric value actually increased) until
the number reaches 255 (the minimum gain).
Fig. 15 shows the display screen of the control computer during
the test. Its test result showed that the antenna gain only marginally
affect the identification performance.
4.2.3. Field test
Finally, we conducted the field test of our toolkit for evaluation of
its feasibility in the context of the intelligent CSCM environment, with
the system software developed for it.
The field test took place in the settings illustrated in Fig. 16.
The scenario for this test, for measuring feasibility of the toolkit for
vertical logistics management process under the intelligent CSCM
environment, is described as follows:
We first loaded four material boxes to the intelligent mover (IM),
which was developed in our earlier research [4]. Each box was
attached with a 900 Mhz passive RFID tag, and their information
5
In Fig. 13, when the left-side antenna acted as RX, the right-side one would act as
TX, and vice versa. The RFID reader decided which one would be the RX.
 C.-Y. Cho et al. / Automation in Construction xxx (2010) xxx–xxx 9

Fig. 10. Pilot test layout and test conditions.

was picked up by the IM to be sent to the toolkit via the Zigbee
communication. The toolkit, which had already received the
shipping list from the intelligent logistics server, displayed the
destination floor on its touch screen and controlled the lift car to
move to the floor. When the lift car arrived, the IM moved out of
the lift car with the tagged box, and then the toolkit reports the
updated state, including the ID of the IM, the material, and the
floor and the materials were unloaded, to the intelligent logistics
server wirelessly.
Fig. 17 shows snapshots taken during the field test with
annotations.
The test result conformed well with our scenario: we conducted
three tests, and all of them exceeded our performance requirements —
for RFID identification ratio, successful communication ratio with the
intelligent movers, and successful communication ratio with the
intelligent logistics management server.
4.3. Test result analysis
From reviewing the tests we conducted, their test results can be
summarized as follows:
The first pilot test was intended to see whether development of the
intelligent lift car system, was feasible; the test proved that
development of the system was feasible using available
components.
For the second test (against the prototype hardware), it was
intended to evaluate our design of the intelligent lift toolkit in
terms of its RFID identification performance, to see whether it was
deployable to actual construction sites where radio signal was easily
disrupted by various obstacles. The test result showed that the
hardware had enough performance to be used in such environment.
Finally, the third test sets up a scenario of the intelligent CSCM
process, and evaluated the system's performance within the
scenario. Also, the test evaluated whether the system could
interoperate with other equipments (e.g. the intelligent mover)
and remote systems such as the intelligent logistics server. The test
result confirmed that the tested system performed well and could
be deployed to the real-world construction sites.
5. Conclusion
In this paper, we discussed our research in development of the
intelligent construction lift toolkit, as part of our ongoing research in
the next generation CSCM system. We built the prototype hardware of
the toolkit and its system software also. Using the prototype, we
evaluated its performance and verified its feasibility through multiple
performance tests. From these research activities, we have reached
the following conclusion:
First, the RFID technology can be applied to construction sites even
though they have adverse conditions in terms of radio signal

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10 C.-Y. Cho et al. / Automation in Construction xxx (2010) xxx–xxx

Fig. 11. Prototype test layout.

transmission due to various signal-blocking obstacles. This finding
allows automated recognition of the logistic items using the
technology.
Second, short-range data communication between the intelligent
equipments using Zigbee is feasible at the construction sites.
Third, application of long range data communication using
wireless internet technology such as CDMA/Wibro to construction
sites is also feasible (presumably in urban areas where its
infrastructure is well established) for communication with remote
systems such as the intelligent logistics server and the PMIS, which
allows real-time information exchange.
Fourth, our toolkit-based approach allows easy deployment of the
system to both construction lift cars and elevators.
Therefore, the intelligent vertical CSCM toolkit developed can be
transferred to elevators when they are installed to the building under
construction and they replace the lift cars, so the management system
can persist even after the lifts are removed.
In the future, as demonstrated with our prototype system, the
RFID/USN technology, which is technologically more superior than
conventional barcodes, will enable more advanced construction
project management once they are widely used in the CSCM area.

Fig. 12. Result of antenna type recognition test.

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Fig. 13. Result of RX = TX test.

Fig. 14. Result of RX ≠ TX test.

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Fig. 15. RFID antenna detection range sensibility test.

Fig. 16. Field test conditions.

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Fig. 17. Toolkit scenario field test.

We hope this research will contribute to the transformation of the
construction industry from labor-intensive to a more systematic and
information-centered one.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Korean Institute of Construction &
Transportation Technology Evaluation and Planning (KICTEP) with
the program number of “06-Unified and Advanced Construction
Technology Program-D16.”
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Please cite this article as: C.-Y. Cho, et al., A development of next generation intelligent construction liftcar toolkit for vertical material
movement management, Automation in Construction (2010), doi:10.1016/j.autcon.2010.07.008