115. Smart Gateway for Bridging BIM and Building

Building information modeling (BIM) has been emerging as a digital platform to create, exchange, and manage the information in a construction project. Over the past decades, researchers have explored various techniques, including laser scanning and sensing devices, to keep the BIM up-to-date. Their efforts have been conceptualized as bridging BIM and building (BBB). In the BBB framework, a key component is the smart gateway which is the middleware to ensure information input/out between the physical project layer and the BIM layer. The aims of this research is multifold: (1) to highlight the importance of smart gateway for BBB; (2) to generate the definition of the smart gateway based on existing gateways in other industries; and (3) to describe the essential functions of the smart gateway based on the BBB framework. Theoretically, with four major functions including device configuration and management, data filtering and processing, temporary information storage, and supplementary information input, the proposed smart gateway can significantly facilitate the integration between the physical project information with BIM. Future research will be conducted to develop and implement a prototype of the smart gateway in actual construction projects where multi data-acquisition devices are used.