Dr. Leonhard E. Bernold, Assoc. Prof., Dept. of Civil. Engrg., North Carolina State Univ. Raleigh, NC 27695-7908

A native of Switzerland, he received a diploma in Civil Engineering from the Swiss Institute of Technology in 1978, an MBA from the Saint Gall Graduate School of Economics and Business Administration, Saint Gall, Switzerland, an M.S. in Industrial Management from Georgia Tech in 1983, and a Ph.D. in Construction Engineering and Management from Georgia Tech in 1985.

1985. Dr. Bernold spent five years as an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland before startinghis present position at North Carolina State University in 1991. As the founder and director of the Construction Automation & Robotics Laboratory, as well as the Center for Construction Technology & Integration he is involved in spearheading several innovative projects. He teaches courses in Construction Engineering and Management and conducts NSF sponsored research related to engineering education. The Engineering News Record gave Dr. Bernold one of its prestigious Newsmaker Awards in 1999, honoring his contributions in the area of trench technology.

Phone: (919)515-3677
Fax: (919)515-7908
Email:  bernold@eos.ncsu.edu

Dr. Bin Li, Research Scholar, Dept. of Civil Engg.

A native of P. R. China, he received a diploma in Mechanical Engineering from Dalian University of Technology in 1982, an M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Northeastern University in 1992, and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from China University of Mining Technology in 1997. Dr. Li worked at Shenyang Architectural and Civil Engineering University as
Lecturer, an Associate Professor and Professor for more than tenyears. He has taken on the responsibility for developing the new mechanical engineering and robotics projects in CT&I-CARL.

Phone: (919)515-3677
Fax: (919)515-7908

Suchart Nuntasunti, Ph.D. student, Civil Engineering.

Suchart , from Thailand, got his bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Civil Engineering from Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok. After working in building construction business in Thailand for nine years, he decided to pursue Ph.D. in construction at NCSU.  He interests in construction planning and controls, lean production, and construction resources management.  The latter has become his topic of dissertation.

Research Topic : Logistic Engineering for Construction.

Research Website : Web Based Construction Management.

Phone: (919) 515-3859
Email:  snuntas@unity.ncsu.edu

Lashminarayan Venkatesan, Master's student in Computer Engineering, Graduate Research Assistant.

Native of India, Lashminarayan got his Bachelor of Engineering from Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute in Mumbai, India in June 2001. He is presently pursuing a Master's degree in Computer Engineering in the ECE department at NCSU.

Ongoing research : Heading a team to develop a prototype to accurately detect and underground utilities. Involves using metal sensor antenna and Ground Penetration Radar and use parallel processing to perform on-the-fly sensor contour derivation, intelligent data fusion and develop a probabilistic model for pipe detection. He has also worked on a project aimed at researching the energy savings in houses of various shading techniques.

He has been working with CARL since August 2001.

Research Topic : Multisensory approach to 3D mapping of underground utilities.

e-mail: lvenkat@ece.ncsu.edu

Sushil S Suvarna, Masters student : Computer Science Department. Graduate Research Assistant

Sushil, having completed his bachelors degree from PVPP College of Engineering, Bombay, India, joined NC State under the Masters programme in Computer Science. In addition to a bachelors degree in Electronics Engineering and a Masters major in Computer Science, his present work in the Civil Department, outlines his interest in various fields. His present field of research inculdes detection of buried underground utilities from the images generated by a ground penetrating radar.

Research Topic : Buried utility detection using GPR.

e-mail: sssuvarn@unity.ncsu.edu

Matthew J Baldwin, Undergraduate Student: Electical Engineering Department.

Matthew J Baldwin is a undergrad student working toward a degree in electrical engineering. He is currently a second semester junior and plans on focusing his degree on automation and mechatronics. Before returning to school, he worked as a foreman for a local construction
company installing gas lines. He has extensive practical experience with undergound utilities and directional drilling. He will be assisting with many of the research projects being performed at the CARL lab.

e-mail: mjbaldwi@ncsu.edu

Bopanna, completed his Bachelors degree in Civil Engineering from S.J. College of Engineering, Mysore, India. He joined the graduate program in Construction Engineering and Management at NC State in August 2002, and has been a member of the CARL team since May 2003. His research work involves using electro-magnetic induction for detecting buried underground utilities. He is currently working on testing the accuracy of the Equipment Mounted Buried Utility Detection System (EM-BUDS), which is also the topic for his final masters project.

e-mail: btkolera@ncsu.edu