The SPAR Lab originated in 2014 as a result of extensive interdisciplinary research over the past 15 years among civil engineering, electrical engineering, material science and engineering, computer science, and chemistry.

Directed by Dr. Genda Chen, Professor and Robert W. Abbett Distinguished Chair in Civil Engineering, the SPAR Lab provides unique capability of exploring foundational and use-inspired solutions to aging infrastructure problems, supporting conceptualization, development, experimentation, calibration, and implementation of key measurement technologies towards the development of enterprise digital twins for asset management.

The Lab pioneers “lab-on-a-sensor” designs, engineering-driven machine learning, and adaptive wavelet transform applications to address a multitude of assessment and maintenance issues we face today both nationally and internationally. To date, the Lab produced over 500 research products including six patents, helping translate research results into practices.

The equipment in the SPAR Lab is particularly useful in condition assessment of structural and mechanical systems, including bridges, culverts, offshore platforms, pipelines, ports, roads, and tunnels; chemical plants and nuclear plants; and other civil and power infrastructure.