skip to main content

Explore Research Products in the NSF-PAR

Title: New GPR System Integration with Augmented Reality Based Positioning
The development of modern cities heavily relies on the availability and quality of underground utilities that provide drinking water, sewage, electric power, and telecommunication services to sus- tain its growing population. However, the information of localiza- tion and condition of subterranean infrastructures is generally not readily available, especially in areas with congested pipes, which impacts urban development, as poorly documented pipes may be hit during construction, affecting services and causing costly de- lays. Furthermore, aging components are prone to failure and may lead to resources waste or the interruption of services. Ground penetrating radar (GPR) is a promising remote sensing technique that has been recently used for mapping and assessment of under- ground infrastructure. However, current commercial GPR survey systems are designed with wheel-encoders or GPS for positioning. Wheel-encoder based GPR surveys are restrained to linear-route only, preventing the use of GPR for accurate localization of city wide underground infrastructure inspection. While GPS signal is degraded in urban canyons and unavailable in city tunnels. In this work, we present a new GPR system integration with augmented reality (AR) based positioning that can overcome the limitations of current GPR systems to enable arbitrary-route scanning with a high fidelity. It has the potential for automation of GPR survey and integration with AR smartphone applications that could be used for better planning in urban development.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1640687 1647095
NSF-PAR ID:
10074796
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
ACM Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI (GLSVLSI) Chicago, IL
Page Range / eLocation ID:
341 to 346
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; ; ( , SPIE Proc Vol 11426-08, Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality (XR) Technology for Multi-Domain Operations)
    Dennison, Mark S. (Ed.)
    Successful maintenance and development of underground infrastructures depends on the ability to access underground utilities efficiently. In general, obtaining accurate positions and conditions of subterranean utilities is not trivial due to inaccurate data records and occlusions that are common in densely populated urban areas. Limited access to underground resources poses challenges to underground utilities management. Ground penetrating radar (GPR) is an effective sensing tools widely used for underground sensing. Combining high accuracy GPR data and augmented reality (AR) poses enables accurate real time visualizations of the buried objects. Although GPR and AR collect and visualize high accuracy data, intensive computation is required. This work presents a novel GPR-AR system that decreases post-processing time significantly while maintaining a neutral format across GPR-AR data collection methods regardless of varying Internet or GPS connection strengths. The methods explored in this work to mitigate failures of previous systems include automated and georeferenced post processing, the classification of underground assets using artificial intelligence, and real time data collection path visualizations. This work also lays a foundation for the potential combinations of a 5G GPR-AR system in which the temporal gap between data collection and visualization can be alleviated. 
    more » « less
  2. ( , 11th International Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring)
    This paper presents results from a series of measurements aimed at mapping, assessing and monitoring underground infrastructure, i.e. the water, sewer, gas, electricity, telecommunications and other supply lines that are vital to modern society. Most of this infrastructure is buried out of sight, in uncertain and highly congested locations and in an aging condition. Mapping, assessing and monitoring this infrastructure can lead to significant improvements in management, repair and growth practices. The sensors include multi-band and multi-static ground penetrating radar (GPR), and underground flow and condition sensing of water systems, including acoustic leak detection, linked by wireless and high-speed fiber-optic networks. Ground penetrating radar is one method available for locating underground utilities, but becomes challenging in urban environments due to the congestion of piping and difficulties with GPS-denied position registration. Ongoing efforts to overcome these challenges with advanced GPR techniques and the integration into a mapping database are presented, including results from field tests with pre and post construction ground truth evaluations. Data telemetry from buried infrastructure for IOT-type monitoring is hampered by the high-attenuation rate for wireless electromagnetic transmission. Results from experiments aimed at low-speed magnetic signaling with potential for high penetration through soils are presented. 
    more » « less
  3. ; ( , IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine)
    null (Ed.)
    Cities offer extensive facilities to enrich the quality of life by utilizing smart devices and sensors. The Internet of Things and smart sensors connect various city services with the inhabitants. The services should be convenient and accessible to all, especially pedestrians and people with visual impairment. However, the lack of information about service locations often limits their availability and use. To this end, we developed FinderX, a Bluetooth beacon-based system to search for the nearest services and amenities. FinderX identifies the locations of nearby amenities in real-time using the signal from attached beacons. The system does not require Internet or other communication infrastructure and can function where the GPS signal is inaccessible. To demonstrate the feasibility of FinderX, we set up a testbed and evaluated the system in an urban environment. We show that FinderX has adequate usability and feasibility and reduces the time to find the amenities by 18.98\% on average. We also demonstrate that Bluetooth beacons have lower horizontal error compared to GPS in micro-positioning (where semi-indoor or surrounding infrastructure limits signal accessibility), which motivates the use of Bluetooth beacons for such applications. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; ; ; ( , SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing: Detection and Sensing of Mines, Explosive Objects, and Obscured Targets XXVI)
    Isaacs, Jason C. ; Bishop, Steven S. (Ed.)
    Ultra-wideband (UWB) ground penetrating radar (GPR) is an effective, widely used tool for detection and mapping of buried targets. However, traditional ground penetrating radar systems struggle to resolve and identify congested target configurations and irregularly shaped targets. This is a significant limitation for many municipalities who seek to use GPR to locate and image underground utility pipes. This research investigates the implementation of orbital angular momentum (OAM) control in an UWB GPR, with the goal of addressing these limitations. Control of OAM is a novel technique which leverages an additional degree of freedom offered by spatially structured helical waveforms. This paper examines several free-space and buried target configurations to determine the ability of helical OAM waveforms to improve detectability and distinguishability of buried objects including those with symmetric, asymmetric, and chiral geometries. Microwave OAM can be generated using a uniform circular array (UCA) of antennas with phase delays applied according to azimuth angle. Here, a four-channel network analyzer transceiver is connected to a UCA to enable UWB capability. The characteristic phase delays of OAM waveforms are implemented synthetically via signal processing. The viability demonstrated with the method opens design and analysis degrees of freedom for penetrating radar that may help with discerning challenging targets, such as buried landmines and wires. 
    more » « less
  5. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ( , SPIE Defense + Security Radar Sensor Technology XXII)
    Ground penetrating radar (GPR) subsurface sensing is a promising nondestructive evaluation (NDE) technique for inspecting and surveying underground utilities in complex urban environments, as well as for monitoring other key infrastructure such as bridges and railroads. A challenge of such technique lies on image formation from the recorded GPR data. In this work, a fast back projection algorithm (BPA) for three-dimensional GPR image construction is explored. The BPA is a time-domain migration method that has been effectively used in GPR image formation. However, most of the studies in the literature apply a computationally intensive BPA to a two-dimensional dataset under the assumption that an in-plane scattering occurs underneath the GPR antennas. This assumption is not precise for 3D GPR image formation as the GPR radiation scatters in multiple directions as it reaches the ground. In this study, a generalized form for an approximation to determine the scattering point in an air-coupled GPR system is developed which considerably reduces the required computations and can accurately localize the scattering point position. The algorithm is evaluated by applications on GPR data synthesized using GprMax, a finite-difference time domain (FDTD) simulator. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email