Project Partners: Arup, Atkins, Canal & River Trust, Environment Agency, Geosense, High Speed Two, Highways England, ITM Monitoring, Kier, National Grid, Network Rail, Rail Safety & Standards Board, Scottish Canals, Transport Scotland. The Challenge: The development of the Proactive Infrastructure Monitoring and Evaluation (PRIME) system is driven by the increasing rate and severity of failures in flood defence, transportation, and utilities earthworks. This is due to aging assets (many canal and rail earthworks are over a hundred years old) and more extreme weather events (e.g. the extreme rainfall during winter 2013-14 & 2015-16). Asset failures are enormously expensive, costing hundreds of millions of pounds per year in the UK alone, not to mention risks to human health and disruption of transport systems, utilities and the wider economy. Assessment of the condition of geotechnical assets is essential for cost effective maintenance and prevention of hazardous failure events. Early identification of deteriorating condition generally allows low cost preventative remediation to be undertaken (post failure interventions are typically ten times more expensive) and reduces the risk of catastrophic failures. Conventional approaches to condition monitoring are often inadequate for predicting earthwork instability. They are heavily dependent on surface observations - i.e. walk-over surveys or airborne data collection. These approaches cannot detect the subsurface precursors to failure events; instead they identify failure once it has begun. There is growing recognition among infrastructure asset owners, managers, and consultants that automated monitoring technologies have the potential to reduce these costs and risks by providing continuous condition information and early warnings of failure. Aims & Objectives: The primary objective is to deliver a new remote condition monitoring and decision-support system for assessing the internal condition of safety critical geotechnical assets. This will be realised by implementing a fully automated software workflow for data analysis and information delivery, building upon the recently developed PRIME hardware platform. The integrated PRIME system (i.e. hardware & software) will combine emerging geophysical ground imaging technology with wireless telemetry, 'big data' handling, and web portal access. It will form the basis of a new generation of intelligent decision-support technology capable of 'seeing inside' vulnerable earthworks in near-real-time using diagnostic imaging methods routinely used in medical physics. By the end of this project, the software and hardware will be demonstrated to technology readiness level (TRL) 7 at new and existing stakeholder sites, ready for commercialisation and use by the wider stakeholder community. Benefits: The key benefits of PRIME to asset owners include cost savings through minimising unnecessary renewals and providing early warning of failure events, time savings associated with fewer manual site visits, and risk reduction by preventing dangerous earthworks failures, and minimising the need for people to enter potentially hazardous operational environments. Geotechnical monitoring providers, consultants & contractors will benefit through new cutting-edge geotechnical monitoring services and, for the first time, near-real-time volumetric subsurface monitoring information. Key Deliverables & Outputs: - New software to fully automate PRIME data processing and information delivery - including a web-based decision support dashboard. - Demonstration of the complete PRIME system at existing rail and waterways pilot sites, and new highways, power transmission and flood defence sites - establishing TRL 7 (demonstration in an operational environment). - A commercialisation strategy agreed with project partners to ensure technology translation to the stakeholder community. Duration: 18 months Cost: £183,000 (at 80% FEC)

Infrastructure represents a large part of the UK's asset base, and its efficient management and maintenance are vital to the economy and society. The application of emerging technologies to advanced health monitoring of existing critical infrastructure assets can help to better quantify and define the extent of ageing and the consequent remaining design life of infrastructure, thereby reducing the risk of failure. Emerging technologies also have the potential to transform the industry through a whole-life approach to achieving sustainability in construction and infrastructure in an integrated way - design and commissioning, the construction process, exploitation and use, and eventual de-commissioning. Crucial elements of these emerging technologies include the application of the latest sensor technologies, data management tools and manufacturing processes to the construction industry, both during infrastructure construction and throughout its life. There is a substantial market for exploitation of these technologies by the construction industry, particularly contractors, specialist instrumentation companies and owners of infrastructure. In this proposal, we seek to build on the creation of the Innovation and Knowledge Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction which brings together leading research groups in the University of Cambridge Departments of Engineering and Architecture, Computer Laboratory and Judge Business School. The Collaborative Programme will see these groups working with industrialists and other critical stakeholders on challenging research projects which deliver practical solutions to the problems that industry faces and which promote the dissemination and adoption of valuable emerging technologies. The development and commercialisation of emerging technologies can provide radical changes in the construction and management of infrastructure, leading to considerably enhanced efficiencies, economies and adaptability. The objective is to create 'Smart Infrastructure' with the following attributes: (a) minimal disturbance and maximum efficiency during construction, (b) minimal maintenance for new infrastructure and optimum management of existing infrastructure, (c) minimal failures even during extreme events (fire, natural hazards, climate change), and (d) minimal waste materials at the end of the life cycle. The Centre 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). These are coupled with emerging best practice in the form of the latest manufacturing and supply chain management approaches applied to construction and infrastructure (e.g. smart building components for life-cycle adaptive design, innovative manufacturing processes, integrated supply chain management, and smart management processes from building to city scales). It aims to develop completely new markets and to achieve breakthroughs in performance. Considerable business opportunities will be created for construction companies, and for other industries such as IT, electronics and materials. The Centre is able to respond directly and systematically to the input received from industry partners on what is required to address critical issues. Through the close involvement of industry in technical development as well as in demonstrations in real construction projects, the commercialisation activities of emerging technologies can be progressed to a point where they can be licensed to industry. The outputs of the Centre can provide the construction industry, infrastructure owners and operators with the means to ensure that very challenging new performance targets can be met. Furthermore breakthroughs will make the industry more efficient and hence more profitable. They can also give UK companies a competitive advantage in the increasingly global construction market.

The Quantum Technology Hub in Sensors and Timing, a collaboration between 7 universities, NPL, BGS and industry, will bring disruptive new capability to real world applications with high economic and societal impact to the UK. The unique properties of QT sensors will enable radical innovations in Geophysics, Health Care, Timing Applications and Navigation. Our established industry partnerships bring a focus to our research work that enable sensors to be customised to the needs of each application. The total long term economic impact could amount to ~10% of GDP. Gravity sensors can see beneath the surface of the ground to identify buried structures that result in enormous cost to construction projects ranging from rail infrastructure, or sink holes, to brownfield site developments. Similarly they can identify oil resources and magma flows. To be of practical value, gravity sensors must be able to make rapid measurements in challenging environments. Operation from airborne platforms, such as drones, will greatly reduce the cost of deployment and bring inaccessible locations within reach. Mapping brain activity in patients with dementia or schizophrenia, particularly when they are able to move around and perform tasks which stimulate brain function, will help early diagnosis and speed the development of new treatments. Existing brain imaging systems are large and unwieldy; it is particularly difficult to use them with children where a better understanding of epilepsy or brain injury would be of enormous benefit. The systems we will develop will be used initially for patients moving freely in shielded rooms but will eventually be capable of operation in less specialised environments. A new generation of QT based magnetometers, manufactured in the UK, will enable these advances. Precision timing is essential to many systems that we take for granted, including communications and radar. Ultra-precise oscillators, in a field deployable package, will enable radar systems to identify small slow-moving targets such as drones which are currently difficult to detect, bringing greater safety to airports and other sensitive locations. Our world is highly dependent on precise navigation. Although originally developed for defence, our civil infrastructure is critically reliant on GNSS. The ability to fix one's location underground, underwater, inside buildings or when satellite signals are deliberately disrupted can be greatly enhanced using QT sensing. Making Inertial Navigation Systems more robust and using novel techniques such as gravity map matching will alleviate many of these problems. In order to achieve all this, we will drive advanced physics research aimed at small, low power operation and translate it into engineered packages to bring systems of unparalleled capability within the reach of practical applications. Applied research will bring out their ability to deliver huge societal and economic benefit. By continuing to work with a cohort of industry partners, we will help establish a complete ecosystem for QT exploitation, with global reach but firmly rooted in the UK. These goals can only be met by combining the expertise of scientists and engineers across a broad spectrum of capability. The ability to engineer devices that can be deployed in challenging environments requires contributions from physics electronic engineering and materials science. The design of systems that possess the necessary characteristics for specific applications requires understanding from civil and electronic engineering, neuroscience and a wide range of stakeholders in the supply chain. The outputs from a sensor is of little value without the ability to translate raw data into actionable information: data analysis and AI skills are needed here. The research activities of the hub are designed to connect and develop these skills in a coordinated fashion such that the impact on our economy is accelerated.

Globally, national infrastructure is facing significant challenges: - Ageing assets: Much of the UK's existing infrastructure is old and no longer fit for purpose. In its State of the Nation Infrastructure 2014 report the Institution of Civil Engineers stated that none of the sectors analysed were "fit for the future" and only one sector was "adequate for now". The need to future-proof existing and new infrastructure is of paramount importance and has become a constant theme in industry documents, seminars, workshops and discussions. - Increased loading: Existing infrastructure is challenged by the need to increase load and usage - be that number of passengers carried, numbers of vehicles or volume of water used - and the requirement to maintain the existing infrastructure while operating at current capacity. - Changing climate: projections for increasing numbers and severity of extreme weather events mean that our infrastructure will need to be more resilient in the future. These challenges require innovation to address them. However, in the infrastructure and construction industries tight operating margins, industry segmentation and strong emphasis on safety and reliability create barriers to introducing innovation into industry practice. CSIC is an Innovation and Knowledge Centre funded by EPSRC and Innovate UK to help address this market failure, by translating world leading research into industry implementation, working with more than 40 industry partners to develop, trial, provide and deliver high-quality, low cost, accurate sensor technologies and predictive tools which enable new ways of monitoring how infrastructure behaves during construction and asset operation, providing a whole-life approach to achieving sustainability in an integrated way. It provides training and access for industry to source, develop and deliver these new approaches to stimulate business and encourage economic growth, improving the management of the nation's infrastructure and construction industry. Our collaborative approach, bringing together leaders from industry and academia, accelerates the commercial development of emerging technologies, and promotes knowledge transfer and industry implementation to shape the future of infrastructure. Phase 2 funding will enable CSIC to address specific challenges remaining to implementation of smart infrastructure solutions. Over the next five years, to overcome these barriers and create a self-sustaining market in smart infrastructure, CSIC along with an expanded group of industry and academic partners will: - Create the complete, innovative solutions that the sector needs by integrating the components of smart infrastructure into systems approaches, bringing together sensor data and asset management decisions to improve whole life management of assets and city scale infrastructure planning; spin-in technology where necessary, to allow demonstration of smart technology in an integrated manner. - Continue to build industry confidence by working closely with partners to demonstrate and deploy new smart infrastructure solutions on live infrastructure projects. Develop projects on behalf of industry using seed-funds to fund hardware and consumables, and demonstrate capability. - Generate a compelling business case for smart infrastructure solutions together with asset owners and government organisations based on combining smarter information with whole life value models for infrastructure assets. Focus on value-driven messaging around the whole system business case for why smart infrastructure is the future, and will strive to turn today's intangibles into business drivers for the future. - Facilitate the development and expansion of the supply chain through extending our network of partners in new areas, knowledge transfer, smart infrastructure standards and influencing policy.

This project aims to develop a low cost ground imaging system (PRIME - Proactive Infrastructure Monitoring and Evaluation) for remote monitoring of infrastructure earthwork assets. PRIME will assess the condition of the earthworks on a continuous 24/7 basis, helping to predict failures and enable timely intervention. Conventional asset monitoring involves examining the surface (either by people on the ground or from aerial photos) and using point sensors, like moisture content and tilt meters, which only give information in the immediate vicinity of the sensor. But PRIME will use geophysics to 'see inside' the earthworks, enabling volumetric tracking of moisture content changes and ground movement, and so identifying problems at a much earlier stage. The development of PRIME is driven by the increasing rate and severity of infrastructure earthwork failures. This is due to aging assets (many canal and rail earthworks are over a hundred years old) and more extreme weather events (e.g. the extreme rainfall during winter 2013-14). Asset failures are enormously expensive, costing hundreds of millions of pounds per year in the UK alone, not to mention risks to human health and disruption of services, transport systems and the wider economy. There is growing recognition among asset owners, managers, and consultants that remote monitoring technologies have the potential to reduce these costs and risks by providing continuous condition information and early warnings of failure. To this end, low-cost PRIME hardware has already been successfully developed and demonstrated during a pilot phase project. But in an operational environment, the processing and interpretation of the large volumes of data that PRIME will produce must be automated for the technology to be commercially viable. Manual oversight of the systems simply would not be able to deliver cost-effective near real-time condition assessments and early warnings over extended monitoring periods. To address this, the project aims to develop a fully-automated data processing, image analysis and decision support system for PRIME. Methods already used in medical physics will be employed to recognise conditions likely to give rise to failure and will automatically generate alarms. The near real-time interpretation of the earthwork condition will be provided by an end-user interface (the dashboard), which will also enable PRIME information to be exported to, and interface with, industry-standard monitoring systems. The system will be validated at two test sites on operational rail and waterways infrastructure, and its development will be steered by a broad consortium of stakeholders to ensure that the technology is fit-for-purpose. Implementation of the PRIME information delivery system will represent a step-change in asset condition monitoring, providing high frequency subsurface information at unprecedented resolution. This will facilitate a powerful new approach to near-real-time decision-support and early warning, which will provide the information necessary to implement low-cost early interventions and avoid catastrophic very high cost infrastructure failures. Moreover, the development and commercialisation of PRIME will enable specialist consultants and technology companies to provide cutting edge services and monitoring solutions. By the end of the project, the aim is to have developed and demonstrated PRIME technology to a point where it is ready to be translated to the commercial sector. Stakeholders: Arup; Atkins; Network Rail; Canal and River Trust; Scottish Canals; National Grid; HS2; Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB); ITM Monitoring; GeoSense; Transport Scotland. Keywords: Remote monitoring; early warning; subsurface information; geophysical imaging; environmental risks; infrastructure condition.