Real-Time Spatial Location Tracking of Construction Resources in Lay Down Yards

Emerging wireless remote sensing technologies offer significant potential to improve the management of construction resources in lay down yards by tracking the location of personnel, yard vehicles, and materials in real-time. This paper presents a theoretical concept for real-time lay down yard asset management. A field trial using Ultra Wideband (UWB) positioning technology is presented to track spatial and temporal location of resources (workforce, equipment, material) that are present in lay down yards. The benefits and limitations of the technological approach which were applied in this research will be explained in detail and recommendations for its use in field tracking applications in large and open construction environments will be given. A particular focus of the paper is on the comparison of the accuracy of real-time location data from a commercial UWB system with ground truth measurements from a robotic total station.