Now, a safe, clean bill of health for high-rises too
Like the human body, which needs regular checks to ensure one’s in the pink of health, buildings too are no exception — they call for inspections from time to time to prevent mishaps that could put lives at risk.
For RaSpect — a Hong Kong startup that conducts big data artificial intelligence inspections of edifices — its mission is to create a safer and smarter society by leveraging its strengths in architecture surveillance.
Chief Executive Officer Harris Sun, who founded RaSpect two years ago, got the inspiration while working at Cathay Pacific Airlines’ Innovation Center for aircraft maintenance, where innovative technologies are applied to do the measurements and defect reporting. He decided to apply the solutions to the inspections of Hong Kong’s high-rises with compact space.
“I was wondering why we still need very heavy, intensive manual work for building inspections. I thought whether we could use drones with AI and big data to do such work,” says Sun.
Departing from the traditional way of inspecting buildings, in which professionals analyze potential safety issues based on thousands of pictures taken manually, RaSpect builds big data AI software for inspections and uses automated devices like drones and robots to generate still images and videos, as well as 3D models, for computer vision analysis.
Besides, with comprehensive sensing technology like thermal inspection, RaSpect can identify patterns, cracks and structural problems in a building with its trained AI analytics.
What RaSpect is doing is to build up an architectural neural system to monitor the indoor environment and the facade and to report any potential safety hazards to avoid accidents, explains Sun.
RaSpect does infrared analysis to identify defects like spalling or corrosion on a building’s facade by deploying various types of sensing technology.
“We merely do a preliminary check on the architecture. Previously, we would need plenty of manpower to carry out visual inspections but, now, we can conduct an AI-powered preliminary inspection as the first step,” says Sun.
Based on assembled macro-level statistics and mobile data analyzed by AI, RaSpect produces architectural inspection reports that are examined and endorsed by certified construction engineers to ensure that the results conform to industry standards.
According to Sun, RaSpect could achieve real-time inspections to monitor a building’s decay internally and externally with the upcoming 5G technology that offers a much faster bandwidth network.
“Generally, we can save more than 50 percent of the time and costs, and with much higher accuracy compared with the traditional practice.”
Sun boasts a computer science background, while his team members come from the software engineering and mechanical engineering fields. The company also has a civil engineering expert as adviser.
To increase efficiency in operating in different markets, RaSpect has an office in Hong Kong as the hub and
headquarters for development, while its Shenzhen unit focuses on the Chinese mainland market. “We’re now doing things faster, with the government and various enterprises making a paradigm shift in the industry from the traditional approach to the digitized method in architecture and engineering inspections,” says Sun.
Founded in 2017, RaSpect has participated in various competitions and events to win greater exposure within the industry and gather feedbacks from experienced entrepreneurs and investors.
“We’ve managed to pique industry leaders’ interest, and we’re quite happy to team up with the government and work out some trial projects together,” says Sun.
Apart from cooperating with property management and construction companies to do inspections and surveying work, RaSpect works with the government in turning Hong Kong into a smart city.
“We would like to be among the supporters of the smart-city development, helping the government in building inspections and even infrastructure checks.”
According to Sun, the company also plans to work with the government and enterprises on AI-powered inspection technologies.
In the 2019-20 Budget, the Hong Kong SAR Government set aside an additional HK$50 billion ($6 billion) to develop biotechnology, AI, smartcity and financial technologies.
RaSpect is actively expanding digitized building inspections to railways, dams and other infrastructures.
“One of our goals is to do infrastructure inspections,” says Sun. “We believe there’s huge potential arising from the nation’s two major strategies — the Belt and Road Initiative and the Guangdong-Hong KongMacao Greater Bay Area,” Sun says.
RaSpect is part of the HKAI Lab platform, jointly set up by Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund, SenseTime and Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corp to nurture local AI and data talent by providing $100,000 to selected startups.
According to Sun, RaSpect, having secured funding from Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund, is now working with them on AI development, and will move into the incubation stage with HKSTP after six months of incubation with HKAI Lab.