Dr Munkhbaatar Buuveibaatar

Research Interests 

Dr Munkhbaatar Buuveibaatar’s research interests include digital twins, digital twin standards, open (geospatial) standards, geographic information sciences (GIS), road/highway asset information management, road/highway management systems/databases, and smart sustainable road infrastructure development. 

Strategic Themes 

• Digital Twin planning for road infrastructure network 

• Digital Twin key performance indicators (KPIs)  

• Digital Twin feasibility assessment 

• Digital Twin decision support system 

Research Project  

Title: Developing a Framework for Road Digital Twin Planning  

Theme: Digital Twin 

Abstract: 

Digital Twin (DT) processes consist of DT planning, design, construction, maintenance, and operation. The first stage DT planning is a pre-planning stage of a physical twin (PT) and it occurs before PT planning. The main purpose of DT planning is to support decision-making on whether to plan and build a physical road and to adopt DT earlier in the asset lifecycle. However, the problem is while planning stages for a road PT are known, planning stages for a road Digital Twin are unknown. The purpose of the study is to identify the scope of road DT planning and assess planning steps that estimate/measure key performance indicators (KPIs) and feasibility to enable planning process standardisation compliant with the National DT programme. Ultimately, it aims to produce a Highway DT Planning Manual/Guideline and/or Tool as a possible standard. To achieve the research goal there are several objectives are outlined as (1) derivation of the scope for road DT planning; (2) development of a modeling framework toward the quantification of the identified elements from objective 1; (3) implementation of the modeling framework to generate viable/optimal solutions for relevant stakeholders; and (4) validation and finalization (deployment) of the output.  

Biography 

Dr Munkhbaatar Buuveibaatar is currently a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Future Roads Fellow at the Division of Civil Engineering of the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge. Before joining the current position, after his Ph.D., he gained substantial experience in operating and managing highway asset data and information management systems/databases as a postdoctoral researcher at the Korean Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT). Particularly, he gained expertise in national (state-owned) road management systems such as a Highway Management System and a Highway Asset Registration Information Management System for the Korean national highway network, both of which are GIS-based. Additionally, he is experienced in project management and co-investigated in developing and prototyping a GIS-based road (workers) safety management web and mobile system application for national highways. Moreover, he has a proven track record in his academic works and previously gained some experience in academia while working as a Post-Doc fellow at Kyungpook National University (KNU) in South Korea. 

Munkhbaatar received his Ph.D. degree in Geo-Informatics from the University of Seoul in 2019. His doctoral work focused on applying and adopting international geospatial standards such as the Land Administration Domain Model (LADM) to a local jurisdiction with an emphasis on model-driven architecture and conceptual data modeling approaches. He holds a Master's degree (MBA) focused on empirical analysis of determining factors for foreign direct investment in a local free economic zone from Cheongju University in 2013. He was awarded a full three-year Korean government scholarship (GKS) for his master’s study. He earned a Bachelor's degree (BEng) in geomatics/land surveying from the Mongolian University of Life Sciences in 2009, with a graduation thesis on developing methods to implement highway construction projects accompanied by actual fieldwork. 

Munkhbaatar has particular research interests and focuses on conceptualising and implementing smart road management in the highways industry. Currently, as a Future Roads Fellow, his research is focused on developing a framework for road/highway digital twin planning which can be used to support decision-making for planning a physical road (twin) and building it. He is working closely with collaborators of different backgrounds from academia and industry to develop the research project and achieve its goal. Moreover, he is an active reviewer for several academic journals such as Sustainability, Applied Sciences, Buildings, Land, and ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information.