Mobile Ad - Hoc Communications in Aec Industry

Wearable computing along with advanced mobile communication has the potential to revolutionise the working environment and working processes of the mobile worker of the AEC industry. While wearable computing allows the mobile worker to execute his/her work and tasks more efficiently and safer with the support of information provided by novel user interfaces, like augmented reality glasses and voice recognition, advanced mobile communication can transfer the information required in a certain context (location, time, task etc.) to and from the mobile worker. Wearable computing allows the mobile worker e.g. to access data bases like material lists and CAD drawings, to hold video conferences with remote or on-site experts without being distracted by additional hardware he has to handle, i.e. his hands and arms are free to concentrate completely on his work. For transferring data and voice calls numerous different networking technology and communication networks are available, like GPRS, UMTS and WLAN. However, communication costs, bandwidth and coverage limitations might prohibit its use on construction environments. Ad-hoc networking offers means of spontaneous communications between different devices without using an infrastructure and provides a promising communication solution for the AEC industry. This article focuses on the applicability of mobile ad-hoc networking in the AEC industry by providing a detailed scenario of how mobile ad-hoc networking can be used in the AEC industry, giving an overview of the existing mobile ad-hoc networks and addressing some issues of implementation and deployment of the networking protocol called Ad-hoc On-demand Distance Vector routing (AODV).