Team
People
Meet the principal investigator, PhD/MASc students, and full-time/part-time research assistants.
View teamHKUST · Smart Infrastructure · AI
Machine Vision & Smart Infrastructure Lab
The MVSI lab is focused on AI and machine vision-empowered engineering solutions for civil infrastructure, such as buildings, bridges, roads, and tunnels, which involves the development and application of computer vision, point clouds, signal processing, multimodal feature fusion, agentic AI systems, and robotic technologies for design, construction, inspection, and performance assessment.
Research projects
Computer vision and point cloud-driven structural damage detection
AI, vision, point clouds, UAVs, UGVs, and digital twins for structural inspection.
Construction automation, including site-specific monitoring and robotic installation methods
Robotic construction machinery, site monitoring, path planning, and control.
Computer vision and multimodal reasoning for automated engineering drawing parsing
Vision-language models and computer vision for automated drawing understanding.
Innovative structural components and energy-dissipation devices
Digital twin-aided testing, FE modelling, dampers, and seismic performance assessment.
HKUST
Rooted at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
The MVSI lab is based in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST).
- Seafront campus in Hong Kong with a strong culture of interdisciplinary engineering research
- Close connection to smart infrastructure, construction robotics, and resilient built-environment studies
- Platform for laboratory validation, collaborative research, and global academic exchange
HKUST campus
Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong
Gallery
Lab moments
Selected academic activities, awards, seminars, and presentations from the MVSI lab.
2026 · Conference
Great Tangshan Earthquake 50th Anniversary Conference
Ms. Yumeng Chen attended the international conference in Beijing and delivered an oral presentation on autonomous post-earthquake structural safety assessment.
2025 · Award
Young Engineer Merit Award
Prof. Xiao Pan was awarded the “Young Engineer Merit Award” by the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering (IABSE) in Tokyo in 2025.
2025 · Conference
HKUST CEE Postgraduates and Scholars Association Annual Conference
Prof. Xiao Pan attended the HKUST Civil and Environmental Engineering Postgraduates and Scholars Association 14th Annual Conference, held at Chongqing University, in 2025.
2024 · Seminar
UBCV–UBCO Joint Seminar
Prof. Xiao Pan attended the UBCV-UBCO Joint Seminar on Structural and Earthquake Engineering, co-organized by Prof. Shahria Alam and Prof. Tony T.Y. Yang in 2024.
2024 · Presentation
Technical presentation at HDR Inc.
Prof. Xiao Pan gave a technical presentation about “Robotic and machine vision technologies towards smarter and more efficient construction, inspection, and monitoring practices in the AEC industry”, at HDR Inc., Vancouver, Canada, in 2024.
Recent news
Latest lab updates
Professor Pan chaired a technical session and delivered an invited speech at the 9th World Conference on Structural Control and Monitoring in Sheffield, UK.
Professor Pan delivered an invited speech on a multimodal large language model-driven agentic framework at the 12th Annual Conference on Earthquake Engineering.
Professor Pan joined the Early-Career Editorial Board of the Journal of Railway Science and Technology.
Publications
Selected publications
Recent journal articles and selected outputs are summarized with authors, venues, and DOI links.
View publicationsRecruitment
Join the group
Motivated students, postdoctoral researchers, visiting scholars, and research interns are welcome to contact the group.
Recruitment information