Tele-Engineering from the Inka Road

Published in: Engineering for a Smarter Planet: Innovation, ITC, and Computational Tools for Sustainable Development: Proceedings of the 9th Latin American and Caribbean Conference for Engineering and Technology
Date of Conference: August 3-5, 2011
Location of Conference: Medellin, Colombia
Authors: Cliff Schexnayder
Edward J. Jaselskis
Christine Fiori
Gerardo Chang Recavarren
Manuel Celaya
Refereed Paper: #21

Abstract

The National Science Foundation sponsored a research project in the cordillera of western South America to reverse engineer the Inka Road. Reaching the Inka Road high in the sierra is difficult, thereby creating a challenge for bringing students and technical experts together collaboratively for the project. In order to meet this challenge, the researchers pioneered the use of a satellite-based audio and video communication tool–tele-engineering. With this tool the team in the sierra of Perú was able to examine the physical conditions of the Inka Road real-time with other engineers and students located at various universities, and with a non-engineer audience at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC. This paper describes how technical Inka Road aspects were collaboratively examined with remote experts and presented to a large non-engineer audience. These communication technologies are applicability in designing and constructing projects in remote locations where specialists may not be readily available and for bringing real engineering experiences into the classroom.