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Dr. Xi Hu

Assistant Professor
  • About
  • Education
  • Awards & Honors
  • Selected Research

Biography

Dr. Hu is currently an Assistant Professor of Construction Management in the Department of Technology at ISU. He earned his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from New Jersey Institute of Technology and specializes in construction automation and intelligent civil infrastructure systems. He has authored 30 publications in journals and conferences and delivered 10+ conference presentations. The journals include Automation in Construction, Expert Systems With Applications, Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, ASCE Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering, Journal of Building Engineering, and ASCE Journal of Bridge Engineering. He has mentored more than 10 students from high school to graduate school levels for research, and serves the field as reviewers for 30+ journals and conferences, journal guest editors, and through professional organizations such as ASCE.

Current Courses

TEC 292.001 Construction Materials Technology

TEC 292.002 Construction Materials Technology

TEC 400.005 Independent Study

TEC 400.003 Independent Study

TEC 224.001 Soils And Foundations

TEC 224.002 Soils And Foundations

Teaching Interests & Areas

Construction materials, cost estimating, soil mechanics, strength of materials, and building information modeling.

Research Interests & Areas

Dr. Hu's primary research interests are construction automation, civil infrastructure systems, digital twins, applied robotics, artificial intelligence, smart sensing, and data analytics. Research areas include (1) digitization of built environment, (2) smart workforce monitoring and management (workforce safety and productivity), (3) intelligent infrastructure systems, and (4) structural health monitoring.

His research aims to advance and enrich the managerial practices of built assets (e.g., buildings, bridges, and pavements), construction workforce, and civil infrastructures through domain knowledge-enhanced, data-driven, technology-enabled, and AI-powered solutions.

PhD Civil Engineering

New Jersey Institute of Technology
Newark, New Jersey

MS Project Management

Illinois State University
Normal, Illinois

BE Hydrology and Water Resources Engineering

Southwest University
Chongqing, China

Doctoral Excellence Award

New Jersey Institute of Technology
2025

3-Minute-Thesis Compitition Honorable Mention

New Jersey Institute of Technology
2025

Conference Proceeding

Hierarchical vision transformer-based deep learning architecture, RGB-D sensing fusion, and multimodal LLM-based generative AI pipeline for automated pavement pothole segmentation, quantification, and repair recommendation
Xi Hu, Rayan H. Assaad, Mohamad Awada, Thomas Catuosco.
ASCE International Conference on Computing in Civil Engineering, (2025), https://doi.org/10.1061/9780784486436.013
LLM-based retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipeline with multi-modal RGB-D sensing fusion and deep learning computer vision for automated monitoring, scene understanding, and mitigation of worker-machinery proximity safety issues on construction jobsites
Xi Hu, Rayan H. Assaad, Mohamad Awada, Harshit Singh, Ananya Choubey.
ASCE International Conference on Computing in Civil Engineering, (2025), https://doi.org/10.1061/9780784486443.084
Automated heat stress monitoring and water-spraying robotic system for improving work conditions using drone (UAV) infrared thermography
Xi Hu, Rayan H. Assaad.
ASCE Construction Institute & Construction Research Congress Joint Conference, (2024), https://doi.org/10.1061/9780784485262.076
Intelligent inspection and warning robotic system for onsite construction safety monitoring using computer vision and unmanned ground vehicle.
Xi Hu, Rayan H. Assaad.
ASCE Construction Institute & Construction Research Congress Joint Conference, (2024), https://doi.org/10.1061/9780784485293.063

Journal Article

Real-time workforce monitoring and management through robotic teleoperation, mobile multi-modal visual and auditory sensing, and edge deep learning analytics
Xi Hu, Rayan H. Assaad.
Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, 176, 114729, (2026), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engappai.2026.114729
Robotic teleoperation for real-time pavement pothole segmentation, quantification, and localization using multimodal sensing and efficient multi-scale attention–enhanced edge deep learning
Xi Hu, Rayan H. Assaad.
Automation in Construction, 183, 106806, (2026), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2026.106806
A BIM-enabled digital twin framework for real-time indoor environment monitoring and visualization by integrating autonomous robotics, LiDAR-based 3D mobile mapping, IoT sensing, and indoor positioning technologies
Xi Hu, Rayan H. Assaad.
Journal of Building Engineering, 86, 108901, (2024), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2024.108901
An intelligent BIM-enabled digital twin framework for real-time structural health monitoring using wireless IoT sensing, digital signal processing, and structural analysis.
Xi Hu, Gulsah Olgun, Rayan H. Assaad.
Expert Systems with Applications, 252, 124204, (2024), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2024.124204
Discovering key factors and causalities impacting bridge pile resistance using ensemble Bayesian networks: A bridge infrastructure asset management system
Xi Hu, Rayan H. Assaad, Mohab Hussein.
Expert Systems with Applications, 238, 121617, (2024), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2023.121677
Improving the predictive analytics of machine-learning pipelines for bridge infrastructure asset management applications: An upstream data workflow to address data quality issues in the national bridge inventory database
Xi Hu, Rayan H. Assaad.
ASCE Journal of Bridge Engineering, 29 (1), (2024), https://doi.org/10.1061/JBENF2.BEENG-6012
Predicting Urban Heat Island severity on the census-tract level using Bayesian networks
Ghiwa Assaf, Xi Hu, Rayan H. Assaad.
Sustainable Cities and Society, 97, 104756, (2023), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2023.104756
Structural deterioration knowledge ontology towards physics-informed machine learning for enhanced bridge deterioration prediction
Xi Hu, Kaijian Liu.
Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering, 37 (1), 04022051, (2023), https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CP.1943-5487.0001066
The use of unmanned ground vehicles (mobile robots) and unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) in the civil infrastructure asset management sector: Applications, robotic platforms, sensors, and algorithms.
Xi Hu, Rayan H. Assaad.
Expert Systems with Applications, 232, 120897, (2023), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2023.120897

Presentations

Hierarchical vision transformer-based deep learning architecture, RGB-D sensing fusion, and multimodal LLM-based generative AI pipeline for automated pavement pothole segmentation, quantification, and repair recommendation
Xi Hu.
ASCE International Conference on Computing in Civil Engineering, New Orleans, Louisiana, May, 2025
LLM-based retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipeline with multi-modal RGB-D sensing fusion and deep learning computer vision for automated monitoring, scene understanding, and mitigation of worker-machinery proximity safety issues on construction jobsites
Xi Hu.
ASCE International Conference on Computing in Civil Engineering, New Orleans, Louisiana, May, 2025
Automated heat stress monitoring and water-spraying robotic system for improving work conditions using drone (UAV) infrared thermography
Xi Hu.
ASCE Construction Institute & Construction Research Congress Joint Conference, Des Moines, Iowa, May, 2024
Intelligent inspection and warning robotic system for onsite construction safety monitoring using computer vision and unmanned ground vehicle.
Xi Hu.
ASCE Construction Institute & Construction Research Congress Joint Conference, Des Moines, Iowa, May, 2024