On April 16, 2025, the TRANS Research Group hosted an invited academic lecture by Dr. Junjie Chen, Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Real Estate and Construction at The University of Hong Kong, titled “Enhancing Robot Perception in the Built Environment with Building Information Models.”
Dr. Chen received his Ph.D. in Hydraulic Engineering from Tianjin University in 2020 and subsequently worked as a postdoctoral researcher at The University of Hong Kong from 2020 to 2022. He was also a visiting scholar at the University of Tennessee in 2018 and the University of Cambridge in 2024. He has led or participated in projects funded by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council, The University of Hong Kong, and national key laboratories. His research focuses on construction informatics, intelligent building and infrastructure maintenance, robotics, and AI applications in facility management, modular construction, and construction waste management. During the lecture, Dr. Chen discussed how Building Information Modeling (BIM) can serve as a readily available world model to enhance robot perception in dynamic, unstructured, and complex built environments. He presented applications including BIM-enabled indoor positioning, material recognition, robot–building integrated design, and AI- and robot-based defect mapping.